Curse

stacheomatic · Aug 19, 2008, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Hi everyone. This is my first post here. Great forum.

So, I've experienced this issue I'm having with other games (Sims 2, Black & White 2, Half-Life 2, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Day of Defeat Source, etc) My PC locks up periodically (sometimes more frequently, sometimes less). It usually lasts about 10 seconds and then it goes back to normal. During the lock-up I usually hear repeating audio, and sometimes the audio just flat out becomes REALLY CRAZY noise. As indicated before, this happens with online games as well as off-network games, which to me indicates a hardware malfunction of some sort or possibly an issue with my paged pool memory.

After purchasing this PC and experiencing this issue, I optimized it with a separate hardware profile for gaming. This is a list of the processes that I disabled or modified within that profile: http://www.tweakxp.com/article37047.aspx (Again, I had experienced the issue prior to adjusting my processes and creating the hardware profile) Unfortunately, these tweaks did not solve the problem.

What's even worse is that sometimes the lock-up will force a reboot out of nowhere. I'm not sure if this is due to the motherboard detecting a dangerously high temperature within the machine or if it's the o/s or what. I purchased the machine from my best friend who claims to have been able to run games flawlessly. He built the machine himself and I trust his technical ability.

Here are my PC specifications:
Windows XP Pro SP2
Intel Pentium 4 3GHz CPU
1GB RAM
GeForce 6800 GPU
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 ASIO Sound Card
(Can't think of motherboard model off the top of my head)

I ran the Guild Wars diagnostic and have created a Google Document containing the analysis of my machine. I removed the network information because I feel it's irrelevant (my gaming hardware profile disables network connectivity and the issue still occurs). Plus I'm not really comfortable posting that information. Here is the link to view the diagnostic: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhbw6sxs_29g5wk2mgp

Please help!! Thanks.

moriz · Aug 19, 2008, 03:01 PM // 15:01

i am not completely sure about this, but you can try disabling/removing the sound card and enable the onboard sound. since you're getting weird sound issues when the lockups occur, it might be because the sound card is not working properly.

stacheomatic · Aug 19, 2008, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Very interesting...I'll try that out and will post a message if it works. I didn't consider the possibility that the sound card could be conflicting.

amutsch · Aug 29, 2008, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Yeah probably a driver issue, usually on the audio or video, could also be a hardware conflict between the 2. I would get the latest driver for both, using onboard audio should take care of issue if it is audio driver or hardware conflict

stacheomatic · Aug 29, 2008, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Thanks guys, but I tried removingg the sound card and the issue still occurs. What I've noticed now, though, is that when I aim a large fan directly at the motherboard, the issue doesn't happen. I'm guessing I need to apply new thermal paste for the time being and probably buy a new heatsink for my CPU.

Snograt · Aug 30, 2008, 01:46 PM // 13:46

As a point of interest, repeating sound loops when an application crashes are not usually caused by sound hardware. You'll find that even when it's your graphics card falling down you can still get sound loops. Any system crash can have this symptom.