Forum Home
Press F1
 
Thread ID: 65973 2006-02-06 14:48:00 hi! need help on PC freeze please! doctorbatman (9760) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
427802 2006-02-06 14:48:00 Hi everyone!
I'm hoping that someone can help me with this problem that has been anoying me for a few months now:

Computer freeze exclusively when playing games and playing divx, sometimes in the first few minutes, sometimes after several hours . There isn't any glitch appearing on screen, but the pc becomes completely unresponsive and i have to reboot each time it happens . Sometimes the sound goes into a loop at the same time .

My system specs:

AthlonXP 2800+
ASUS A7N8X-X Motherboard
2x 512MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
Radeon 9600 series 128mb videocard
Creative Audigy player soundcard
160GB Maxtor ultraATA133 HD
60GB Hitachi ultraATA100 HD

Windows XP SP2
DirectX 9 . 0c

I've updated all drivers and ran extensive virus/malware/spyware sweeps,
cleaned up the case of any dust (temperature of the cpu is at 50°C, wich is a bit hot but not that much I think), ran FreshDiagnose to test my RAM and videocard, and everything seems ok .

So i'm hoping that someone has any suggestion . . . for now i can play games or watch divxs for a max of 20 minutes before it freezes . . . and it's really annoying .

Thanks
doctorbatman (9760)
427803 2006-02-06 18:22:00 Computer freeze exclusively when playing games and playing divx, (temperature of the cpu is at 50°C,
50 degrees when? Normally or after the game playing? If normally then it would be going up even more during the games.
To see if it is heat - take the side off and direct a household fan onto it and try a game like that.
pctek (84)
427804 2006-02-06 18:28:00 Yeah I agree, 50 degrees is a bit toasty for your CPU (if that is the temp when you're NOT playing games. The XP's aren't that hot when idle.

cheers

chiefnz
chiefnz (545)
427805 2006-02-06 19:05:00 Just a thought... The fact that it's bumming out mostly when doing graphics intensive tasks like gaming suggests it may be a video problem. Has your motherboard got on-board graphics? If yes, try removing your video card and enable the on-board graphics, and see what happens. Greg (193)
427806 2006-02-07 11:14:00 greg: there is no onboard graphics card on my motherboard . . . but i'm suspecting the graphics card too . It's strange though: when i run only a benchmark on the graphics card, like FreshDiagnose, it doesn't freeze and gives normal results .
Any suggestion to test the integrity of the videocard any further?

About the temps: more precisely when iddle, the cpu is at 42/43°c . when playing/watching a dvd, the temp is at 50/51°c . Maybe it gets a few degrees higher than that just before freezing . I recently cleaned up the fans . Before that the temps were about 10°c higher . If i remember correctly, the cpu temp when everything was brand new was about 35/37°c when iddle . Do you think it is still too hot?
And if so i don't know how i'm gonna cool it down further: i only have two power fan connectors on this motherboard, one for the cpu fan and one for a case fan and both look like they work normally .
doctorbatman (9760)
427807 2006-02-07 11:35:00 Overheating might cause it to freeze but from my knowledge only few seconds at a time. A few hours might be results of a driver corruption of collision with other drivers. Try removin all drivers and install them again. Also when playing games try with a better card, most games these days won't run too good on a 9600, my is a x800 pro and it can beat the 6600gt by a fair amount and it runs games like nfs mw smoothly. michaelqian (9385)
427808 2006-02-07 12:07:00 precisely when iddle, the cpu is at 42/43°c. when playing/watching a dvd, the temp is at 50/51°c.

the cpu temp when everything was brand new was about 35/37°c when iddle.Do you think it is still too hot?
Hmm yes that is a bit weird... I would venture to say that something isn't right with your HSF on the CPU, especially when you consider the difference in temperature from NEW to CURRENT install. I would say remove you CPU HSF, give it a clean and re-apply some Arctic Silver (or any other decent thermal interface compound) then re-fit it. Make sure the HSF is properly seated and making good contact with the CPU.

Another thing... what sort of cooling does the 9600 have? Is it passively cooled or does it have active cooling. It might pay to give that a clean as well just to be on the safe side.

Cheers

chiefnz
chiefnz (545)
427809 2006-02-07 12:13:00 Thats not hot for a AthlonXP socket A, they will go to at least 85.

I suggest a good dust out inside if you think heat is the problem.
Rob99 (151)
427810 2006-02-07 12:19:00 I concur - normal temps for Athlon XP HadO (796)
427811 2006-02-07 12:36:00 well then it seems cooling is not the problem . . . i reapplied some silver paste and dusted everything once more and it didn't even change the temps by one degree .
The radeon 9600 is passively cooled, and well dusted . and i might add that this same card ran FEAR, HL2 and other games that need a lot of graphics power without any problem in the past (though i recognize it is fairly old) . And it should be able to play any divx or dvd without any problem anyways .

I already reinstalled every driver .

So not the heat . . .

So any suggestions about what the problem really is?
doctorbatman (9760)
1 2 3