Pull hair out & bang head against wall!

Lex

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Hi all,

I really need some espert advice...

I have just built my own system (not HCPC, just a general PC). It was all going so well at first! But now I haver serious instablility problems - My system keeps crashing whilst plying games (Jedi Knight II runs perfectly, but Zoo Tycoon and Max Payne crash almost immediately).

My system (relevant specs):

Antec Performance II Soho File Server ATX case with 350W PSU
Soltek SL-75DRV5 Mainboard (AMD Recommended)
AMD Athlon XP 1700+
256MB RAM PC2100
IBM 120GXP 7200rpm 60GB HDD
Leadtek GeForce 4 Ti4200 128mb A250 LE TD MyVIVO
Soundblaster Live! Player 1024

I started out with the drivers that came with the graphics card, but they were unstable. Now I have just installed the latest Detonator 40.71 but they are no better...

I don't think it is an overheating problem - My Heatsink came with the processor in a pack and the atx case has three other fans, and even the gfx card has a heatsink fan.
In the BIOS the temperature section has lots of different readouts:
Temperature ABSII 53c
Temperature 1 40c
Temperature 2 55c
I don't know whether that is relevant or good or bad?
:confused:

Any suggestions would be really appreciated... Do I keep on trying different Detonator drivers to see if I can find one that works well?

Thanx!

Lex. :(
 
Which OS?

When you say it crashes does it give a stop error or just reboots?
 
And

Is the ram 1 stick of 256 or 2 * 128?
 
Temp 55c

During gameplay this will be 65c and cause instability problems your experiencing.

Just because the heatsink came with it does not gtee it to be good enough.

If you have got sisoft sandra and 3dmark 2001se run a few tests and see when and where they cause your pc to crash

3Dmark will help to see if its intensive 3d to blame and si soft sandra will help identify if its any other area such as memory.

For a quick test remove a case panel so it stays a little cooler and play a game.
 
Thanks for the replies...

OS is Windows XP Home Edition (awaiting 'Service Pack One' in the post)

The Ram is two sticks of 128 (However, I had exactly the same problem with one stick of 128 - I installed the second one a couple of days ago and it made no difference).

Max Payne simply resets back to Windows. Zoo Tycoon comes up with a message "This program needs to close. Sorry for the inconvenience. Would you like to report this error? click YES or **** Off!"

I would have thought iff it was an overheating problem it would reset the whole system? What temp should the CPU run at?

Thanx.
 
Definately need 256mb for xp to run properly although that doesn't sound like problem, are you sure that zoo tycoon runs properly on XP, have you tried running it in compatability mode, some older games dont like higher resolutions in XP although they are fine if you set them to lower colour and res before you start.

Could be a ram problem, I just rebuilt my system and keprt getting repeat reboots, turned out to be that the ram had to be in slots 1 & 3, not 1 & 2 where I had them (not mentioned in the motherboard documentation but I found the info on the manufactureres forum.)
 
Zoo Tycoon runs perfectly on my VAIO Laptop with Windows XP (It is a Microsoft game afterall - and I have the latest patches).

I have my RAM in slots 1 and 3 as well - I will see if there is a Soltek forum and check it out.

I think I will try downloading a different driver from nvidia. Don't know what else to do really?! :confused:

Thanx.
 
It sounds more of a mem problem than a heat one but I wouldn't like to have mine at them temps.

I think most people with amd cpu's aim for max 50c under gaming conditions and an idle temp a few degrees lower.

I have an idle of 27c going to mid 30's under stress ;)

Average for most is 40 - 50c

Try running some memory benchmarking tests such as sandra.

Also did your install of xp go totally un hindered?

and some motherboards bios settings affect the memory too.

see if you can find an faq for you mobo and you will then prolly find the optimum bios settings. Also you may find someone else who has had the same problem and reported how to overcome it.
 
Hmmm... yeah that was the other thing on my motherboard, had to adjust an "undocumented" jumper which effected the memory voltage.
 
Hae you downloaded the latest 4 in 1 motherboard driver . I have the SL-75DRV2 and am runing winxp .installing the new mobo drivers solved a few problemes i was having with certain games .

Hope you get it sused . Max Payne is a great game (one of my fave .played the whol thing half a dozen times) and i would hte to be without it on my pc
 
Just read through the whole post and at the end squid suggests what I first thought of. Get those VIA 4-in-1 drivers up to date.
 
Thanx guys I will give it a go!
 

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