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[Remington]

Quick rundown since I accidentally closed this tab once just before posting this topic and can't be arsed to rewrite it all:

I was having random crashes at random times with my newly built PC.  Here were the specs:

Windows XP with all updates
Core 2 Duo Wolfdale 3.0 GHZ
ASUS P5N-D Mobo
PNY 512 MB 8800GT
Crucial Ballistix 2 GB (2x1GB)
OCZ GameXStream 700W PSU
Western Digital 320 GB HD
Antec 900 Case
Arctic Cooler 7 Pro CPU Cooler

Okay, so I was having this crashing issue.  Mouse and keyboard would hang, DVDs stop spinning, but computer display would still show.  In other words, it froze but never restarted.  Also blue screened way too often for an XP machine, and never made an error log in the event viewer.  Replaced MOBO based on recommendation of reviews online that say it sucks.

Got an ASUS P5KC because it was the only other mobo that seemed to be what I needed.  I know it's not SLI but I can't really be arsed to make the jump to $200+ mobo and another $200 GPU for what I'm told is a minimal gain.

Everything's been working great, at least, there are no completely random freezes like before.  But it has been crashing, now during games.  The game freezes and the sound gets stuck in one of those super fast loops where it just repeats like a split second of gun shooting noise and sounds like a buzzing noise instead of an actual sound.  It's completely frozen and rebooted twice, once during COD4 while playing online and once in the demo of GRID when I crashed into a mess of cars all trying to make a corner.

But there have been times where it doesn't crash.  It will hang for a split second and make the DRRRRRRRRR noise and then pick up again, usually after I've been maliciously torn apart in a hail of gunfire by people who I'm sure see me as a glitchy Afghani with an AK47.

On impulse I'd think this was a video card issue, since it seems to only happen now when I'm playing games that require intense graphical capabilities.  And I should be able (and most games so far recommend) to play these games on full settings with no trouble.  So I ran several GPU stress tests that I let go for upwards of an hour and a half each, with no artifacts or errors.  Memtest 86+ also checked out twice.  Western Digital's disk checking utility came back with no errors.

Anybody else have any other ideas? PSU?  Processor?  Bad luck? Bueller?

[Squirly]

Drivers? Either different drivers, or maybe just cleaning out all your old driver files and installing afresh.

Check here under Driver Removal (half-way down the page) and if you want to, try some of the old forceware drivers, or specifically tweaked ones.

[Remington]

Sorry, neglected to mention that I did a full reinstall of XP when I replaced the mobo.  So I installed the drivers for everything one by one.

One thing I'm noticing now that I guess I never used before is the NVIDIA Control Panel.  But for some reason, I can't see all the options in the left hand pane:



What the hell?

Anyway, I rolled back my video drivers a bit, will play again for the next few days and see if I still have problems.

[Squirly]

That left hand panel is fucked up.

What the hell?

The complete re-install was a good idea, new motherboard being what it is. Maybe just try different, older, drivers and be sure to properly remove your old ones. That shit can cause glitches.

[boonmeister]

I'm slightly hesitant to suggest this as I get the impression from other posts that you've built enough machines to have already checked this, but is the graphics card on its own power cable? I've had some very weird bugs from having brain farts and not doing this. The bugs often happened even when the GPU wasn't even being stressed.

[Remington]

Yeah, I have ensured that it's plugged in.  Thanks for trying to help, though.

Still no real resolution here.  I'm pretty comfortable writing off software as the problem at this point, as it seems I am having the problems with any drivers no matter how tweaked or old/new.  I've also been using a few different driver-cleaners to make sure I'm fully uninstalling.  The only logical conclusion I can come to is a borked or slightly borked GPU.  The nVidia control panel should really just not look like that.  Frownface.

[Remington]

So.

Here I am, much later, still having trouble.

When the problem happens in COD4, it crashes the machine completely--when I'm overclocking to 3.6 GHz, which from what I've read is a perfectly stable set up for my hardware.

I've since dropped it down to its stock 3.0 and I still have the problem, but not so bad that it crashes the machine.  It always perseveres and makes it through the problem, though it does still happen at least once or twice a night while playing.

Despite having stress tested every piece of hardware in my machine, I am still at a loss.  I'm ready to start pulling hair at this point.

[JiminyJetson]

I'm going to go with 'fucked GPU'. Just RMA it.
Although it *could* be your PSU - i've seen some pretty screwy results from failing PSUs. Although you've said you've tested every component? In which case, my diagnosis would be that your computer has a Gypsy curse.

[Donal]

Try lowering the settings on your games. See how they play. Did you oad the software that came with the graphics card? There may be a diagnostic utility in there.

[Remington]

Because I'm crazy and I hate myself, I swapped out the mobo for a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R, done a full Windows reinstall, and it's working beautifully so far.  I can actually see the options in the nVidia control panel now!  Here's hoping COD4 stops crashing.

[Remington]

Well, so much for that.  I replaced the video card today and it crashed during COD harder than ever, even with scaled back graphic settings.  So I'm down to either RAM, Processor, or PSU as everything else in the machine has been replaced at least once.

[ShakeyPapers]

I think I remember reading about fan problems with the 8800 GT, like broken auto controls. You might want to try downloading Rivatuner to keep an eye on temps and fan levels when you're running stress tests or COD4 in windowed mode to see if the fan level stays around 30%. If it does, you'd need to manually set the fan level higher.

[Remington]

Yeah, it doesn't have an auto control.  I've been using Riva to pump it up to 60 or even 80 percent during COD4.

Haven't had a chance to play since the first night I had problems but I've also been reading online about problems with COD4 and Realtek's onboard sound (which all three of my mobos have had).  My only issue with not wanting to buy a soundcard is it seems virtually nothing under $150 has actual front audio connectors (I use the front audio on my Antec 900 a lot for my headset/mic).  I really don't want to stick in a proprietary front audio panel under my DVD drive l but if my onboard sound is crashing COD4 then I don't have much of a choice I suppose.

[Squirly]

Well you should be able to connect your onboard plugs to any new soundcard you put it. Only makes sense if you ask me, but I guess it would help to check the specs before hand.

I would really like to know what this shit is.

[law]

Try a few different tests. Also, try just running the CPU hard for a long time by doing something intensive, maybe even try *gasp* underclocking for a bit and see if it helps. Your PSU sounds as though it should be up to the job.

From the description of what happens, in my experience, it sounds like a video card problem as that is the kind of crash I have had on three different machines when they go wrong.

If you do try the sound card option, before shelling out more money on another attempt see if you can try it out first by disabling it or borrowing one.

One last thing to try is to disable some advanced graphics features... it may be a rendering difficulty under specific conditions.

The last person I asked was google, but it does seem like you are not the only one.....

Sorry if this does read well, it is late and I wrote as I thought... need to get some sleep. Hope you get it sorted as it sounds like a bitch.