Some games crash XP Home, some don't?

A while back I had a new HD fitted onto my machine and had XP Home put onto
that. So, the only thing different about my PC is the O/S.

Anyway, suffice to say, even after a lot of patching, defragging, virus
checking, updating and so on, a lot of my games started crashing to the
desktop. And I don't mean old games that aren't compatible with XP, either.
These are new games such as Hal-Life 2, Painkiller and Farcry.

I feel I should point out that other games seem to work fine, such as:
Diablo 2, Tombraider 2, Civ 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Thief 1 and
2.

So what's going on? Most people seem to suggest overheating, but if that
were true why aren't the above games crashing? Also, why does Farcry crash
more or less instantly, whereas I can play Painkiller for a while and HL2
for even longer? Anyway, my CPU never goes above 60 (which I realise is a
bit on the high side, but it was no higher on Win98 - ON THE SAME PC!).

If it were something like bad RAM, then the above argument would still apply
(nothing crashed on 98).

By the way, let's get my sys-specs out of the way:

XP Home with all updates apart from SP2
AMD 2600
512 DDR 3200
2 HD's with gigs of space
SB Audigy 2 (latest drivers)
Radeon 9700 (latest drivers but have tried a lot of others)
MSI MB with all updates apart from BIOS (see below as to why)

Nothing is overclocked!

Yes, I suppose that updating the BIOS my help but IT'S THE SAME MB! Anyway,
I would only risk a 'disk' update and not a 'windows' one in case something
went wrong. Only I can't because my old internal FD was never recognised by
XP so I had to by an external USB one and that will only be recognised as
drive "B" not "A". S I haven't risked it, but I have tried the following
(after consulting lots of old posts:

Lowered AGP to 8
Put graphics to AGP
Turned of sys-restore
Nothing but essentials in background
Turned off virus checker

And quite a few other things!

One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my system
(I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to enter BIOS):

CPU temp: 53
Sys temp: 42
FSB: 167
Vco 1.650
Memory Voltage: 2.60
AGP voltage: 1.55
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

Lastly, my chip (2600): 167MHz x 12.5

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting) because
I really am at my wit's end now.

Thanks for any help

Mother Farquhar wrote:
compatible with XP, either. These are new games such as Hal-Life 2,
Painkiller and Farcry.
I feel I should point out that other games seem to work fine, such as:
Diablo 2, Tombraider 2, Civ 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Thief
1 and 2.

The not-working games are a LOT more intensive than your working games. This
suggests overheating of the vid system.

If it were something like bad RAM, then the above argument would
still apply (nothing crashed on 98).

If you can, check it anyway... Memtest86 comes on CD image too, i think.

By the way, let's get my sys-specs out of the way:
XP Home with all updates apart from SP2
AMD 2600
512 DDR 3200
2 HD's with gigs of space
SB Audigy 2 (latest drivers)
Radeon 9700 (latest drivers but have tried a lot of others)
MSI MB with all updates apart from BIOS (see below as to why)

One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my
system (I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to
enter BIOS):
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

A little bit on the low side, especially the all-important 12V. Did you
measure this during a game, or in idle state? My experience is that the
lines can drop even further if under stress.

What kind of PSU do you use? It's about the only thing you didnt specify,
and it's the most common cause for trouble like you are experiencing.

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting)
because I really am at my wit's end now.

In this case it's much better to cross-post, because now, if the answer is
given in a certain group, the other groups dont know about it, and cant
discuss about it. Next time better to crosspost (only to relevant groups of
course)
--
Thomas

To begin at the end, why did you not cross-post? Asking the same question
in multiple groups by multiposting just ****es people off when they find
that they've put a lot of effort into answering it and then found that
someone else had already done so in another group. Sure, people will tell
you "don't ever, ever crosspost". Add them to your killfile and move on
with life.

Having read your post through, I am inclined to agree with those who supsect
overheating. Not of the CPU, of the graphics chip. Since it started
occurring after a disk replacement, the most likely cause would be that
something got jiggled internally during the drive swap, either the fan for
the video board got unplugged or something (most likely a disk cable) is
restricting the airflow into it.

But you could have a defective motherboard that is failing progressively.

Mother Farquhar wrote:

A while back I had a new HD fitted onto my machine and had XP Home put
onto that. So, the only thing different about my PC is the O/S.

What were you running before that?

Anyway, suffice to say, even after a lot of patching, defragging, virus
checking, updating and so on, a lot of my games started crashing to the
desktop. And I don't mean old games that aren't compatible with XP,
either. These are new games such as Hal-Life 2, Painkiller and Farcry.

I feel I should point out that other games seem to work fine, such as:
Diablo 2, Tombraider 2, Civ 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Thief 1 and
2.

So what's going on? Most people seem to suggest overheating, but if that
were true why aren't the above games crashing? Also, why does Farcry crash
more or less instantly, whereas I can play Painkiller for a while and HL2
for even longer? Anyway, my CPU never goes above 60 (which I realise is a
bit on the high side, but it was no higher on Win98 - ON THE SAME PC!).

The CPU is not the only thing that can overheat. Crashing in new games but
not old suggests that the graphics chip is overheating, not the CPU. Newer
games work it harder.

If it were something like bad RAM, then the above argument would still
apply (nothing crashed on 98).

By the way, let's get my sys-specs out of the way:

XP Home with all updates apart from SP2
AMD 2600
512 DDR 3200
2 HD's with gigs of space
SB Audigy 2 (latest drivers)
Radeon 9700 (latest drivers but have tried a lot of others)
MSI MB with all updates apart from BIOS (see below as to why)

Nothing is overclocked!

Yes, I suppose that updating the BIOS my help but IT'S THE SAME MB!
Anyway, I would only risk a 'disk' update and not a 'windows' one in case
something went wrong. Only I can't because my old internal FD was never
recognised by XP so I had to by an external USB one and that will only be
recognised as drive "B" not "A". S I haven't risked it, but I have tried
the following (after consulting lots of old posts:

If the internal floppy is not recognized, and the cable is plugged in
correctly, and the drive is not broken, then there's something wrong with
your motherboard. What and why I don't know, but if there's one thing
wrong there may be another. In any case, pull the diskette drive out and
disable the controller and your USB drive should be recognized as "A".

Lowered AGP to 8

There's nothing above 8 to lower it from. Try lowering it to 4X.

Put graphics to AGP
Turned of sys-restore
Nothing but essentials in background
Turned off virus checker

And quite a few other things!

Did you disable fast-writes?

One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my system
(I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to enter BIOS):

CPU temp: 53
Sys temp: 42
FSB: 167
Vco 1.650
Memory Voltage: 2.60
AGP voltage: 1.55
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

Lastly, my chip (2600): 167MHz x 12.5

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting)
because I really am at my wit's end now.

Thanks for any help

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my
system (I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to
enter BIOS):
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

A little bit on the low side, especially the all-important 12V. Did you
measure this during a game, or in idle state?

Idle.

What kind of PSU do you use? It's about the only thing you didnt specify,
and it's the most common cause for trouble like you are experiencing.

It's a Q-Tec 400W Dual Fan Gold.

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting)
because I really am at my wit's end now.

In this case it's much better to cross-post, because now, if the answer is
given in a certain group, the other groups dont know about it, and cant
discuss about it. Next time better to crosspost (only to relevant groups
of
course)

Sorry, I was told crossposting was a bad thing!

Having read your post through, I am inclined to agree with those who
supsect
overheating. Not of the CPU, of the graphics chip. Since it started
occurring after a disk replacement, the most likely cause would be that
something got jiggled internally during the drive swap, either the fan for
the video board got unplugged or something (most likely a disk cable) is
restricting the airflow into it.


I checked the case and the fan spins fast and is not obstructed.


What were you running before that?


Win98 (but XP was a fresh install on a new HD).


Anyway, suffice to say, even after a lot of patching, defragging, virus
checking, updating and so on, a lot of my games started crashing to the
desktop. And I don't mean old games that aren't compatible with XP,
either. These are new games such as Hal-Life 2, Painkiller and Farcry.

I feel I should point out that other games seem to work fine, such as:
Diablo 2, Tombraider 2, Civ 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Thief 1
and
2.

So what's going on? Most people seem to suggest overheating, but if that
were true why aren't the above games crashing? Also, why does Farcry
crash
more or less instantly, whereas I can play Painkiller for a while and
HL2
for even longer? Anyway, my CPU never goes above 60 (which I realise is
a
bit on the high side, but it was no higher on Win98 - ON THE SAME PC!).

The CPU is not the only thing that can overheat. Crashing in new games
but
not old suggests that the graphics chip is overheating, not the CPU.
Newer
games work it harder.

If it were something like bad RAM, then the above argument would still
apply (nothing crashed on 98).

By the way, let's get my sys-specs out of the way:

XP Home with all updates apart from SP2
AMD 2600
512 DDR 3200
2 HD's with gigs of space
SB Audigy 2 (latest drivers)
Radeon 9700 (latest drivers but have tried a lot of others)
MSI MB with all updates apart from BIOS (see below as to why)

Nothing is overclocked!

Yes, I suppose that updating the BIOS my help but IT'S THE SAME MB!
Anyway, I would only risk a 'disk' update and not a 'windows' one in
case
something went wrong. Only I can't because my old internal FD was never
recognised by XP so I had to by an external USB one and that will only
be
recognised as drive "B" not "A". S I haven't risked it, but I have tried
the following (after consulting lots of old posts:

If the internal floppy is not recognized, and the cable is plugged in
correctly, and the drive is not broken, then there's something wrong with
your motherboard. What and why I don't know, but if there's one thing
wrong there may be another. In any case, pull the diskette drive out and
disable the controller and your USB drive should be recognized as "A".

Lowered AGP to 8

There's nothing above 8 to lower it from. Try lowering it to 4X.

Put graphics to AGP
Turned of sys-restore
Nothing but essentials in background
Turned off virus checker

And quite a few other things!

Did you disable fast-writes?

One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my
system
(I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to enter
BIOS):

CPU temp: 53
Sys temp: 42
FSB: 167
Vco 1.650
Memory Voltage: 2.60
AGP voltage: 1.55
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

Lastly, my chip (2600): 167MHz x 12.5

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting)
because I really am at my wit's end now.

Thanks for any help

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Mother Farquhar wrote:
One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my
system (I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to
enter BIOS):
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

A little bit on the low side, especially the all-important 12V. Did
you measure this during a game, or in idle state?

Idle.

What kind of PSU do you use? It's about the only thing you didnt
specify, and it's the most common cause for trouble like you are
experiencing.

It's a Q-Tec 400W Dual Fan Gold.

Well, it's a little step above generic. Still it could be PSU related. If
you have the opportunity to change the PSU (borrow from a friend?) you can
at least rule that out.

Also, the overheating is a possible cause. To rule that out, you could maybe
open up the case, let a table fan blow at yr card or something creative like
that :-)

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting)
because I really am at my wit's end now.

In this case it's much better to cross-post, because now, if the
answer is given in a certain group, the other groups dont know about
it, and cant discuss about it. Next time better to crosspost (only
to relevant groups of course)

Sorry, I was told crossposting was a bad thing!

Crossposting is for some reason not very popular, but multi-posting is even
worse. I dont mind a crosspost, as long as the list of ng's isnt too long
and relevant to yr problem.

--
Thomas

Also, the overheating is a possible cause. To rule that out, you could
maybe
open up the case, let a table fan blow at yr card or something creative
like
that :-)

I have done just that and the games crashed just like always (

Did you do a fresh install of XP Home, or did you do an upgrade of a
previous operating system? The symptoms you are experiencing are typical
for someone who upgrades rather than doing a fresh install. I know you put
XP on a new drive, but some people think that when they buy the upgrade
version of XP, the only way it can be installed is over a previous OS.

JK

"Mother Farquhar" wrote in message
...
A while back I had a new HD fitted onto my machine and had XP Home put onto
that. So, the only thing different about my PC is the O/S.

Anyway, suffice to say, even after a lot of patching, defragging, virus
checking, updating and so on, a lot of my games started crashing to the
desktop. And I don't mean old games that aren't compatible with XP,
either.
These are new games such as Hal-Life 2, Painkiller and Farcry.

I feel I should point out that other games seem to work fine, such as:
Diablo 2, Tombraider 2, Civ 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Thief 1 and
2.

So what's going on? Most people seem to suggest overheating, but if that
were true why aren't the above games crashing? Also, why does Farcry crash
more or less instantly, whereas I can play Painkiller for a while and HL2
for even longer? Anyway, my CPU never goes above 60 (which I realise is a
bit on the high side, but it was no higher on Win98 - ON THE SAME PC!).

If it were something like bad RAM, then the above argument would still
apply
(nothing crashed on 98).

By the way, let's get my sys-specs out of the way:

XP Home with all updates apart from SP2
AMD 2600
512 DDR 3200
2 HD's with gigs of space
SB Audigy 2 (latest drivers)
Radeon 9700 (latest drivers but have tried a lot of others)
MSI MB with all updates apart from BIOS (see below as to why)

Nothing is overclocked!

Yes, I suppose that updating the BIOS my help but IT'S THE SAME MB!
Anyway,
I would only risk a 'disk' update and not a 'windows' one in case
something
went wrong. Only I can't because my old internal FD was never recognised
by
XP so I had to by an external USB one and that will only be recognised as
drive "B" not "A". S I haven't risked it, but I have tried the following
(after consulting lots of old posts:

Lowered AGP to 8
Put graphics to AGP
Turned of sys-restore
Nothing but essentials in background
Turned off virus checker

And quite a few other things!

One last bit of info I can give you are the temps and voltage of my system
(I use a utility from MSI to tell me this so I do not have to enter BIOS):

CPU temp: 53
Sys temp: 42
FSB: 167
Vco 1.650
Memory Voltage: 2.60
AGP voltage: 1.55
3.3C: 3.22
+5v: 4.97
+12v: 11.42

Lastly, my chip (2600): 167MHz x 12.5

I am posting this message to quite a few groups (not cross-posting)
because
I really am at my wit's end now.

Thanks for any help

Your video settings are wrong. Set AGP to 4x. Turn
fast writes ( in the video settings screen under Smart
Gart ) off. Takes about 2 reboots to get that to hold.
On the 9700, highest settings are low to medium in
Far cry .. low in Doom3, HL2 ... they still look good
and pretty much mean nothing. You need more ram,
but it will run. And you do need SP2. Order the cd
from Microsoft. It is free, and is the correct version.
No heat problem. That AMD 2600 registers in the 50s
for about everybody. I think it is wrong, but mine ran
for years like that with no problem. By now, your
attempts to get things working make have corrupted
drivers, but try what I said. WinXP has a way of
recovering after a few reboots.

johns