new pc crashes

[sss]

my new pc keeps crashing in games

its a gigabyte board runnning 2 gigs of dual ddr
amd64 3500+
and a xfx geforce 6600gt 256mb

it crashes(freezes) then you get the blue screen of death saying " windows has stoped so that no damage will be caused..." and then reboots

i've updated my mobo bios!

done the latest video drivers!

only crashes during gameplay of any games!

i need a memory tester... but i dont have a stiffy drive to boot off so my current memory tester doesnt cut it!

[Ruslan74]

create a boot disk on your USB memory stick... cant recall the procedure but you can google it i think.

have you re-installed windows after doing the upgrade by the way?

[sss]

yep... fresh install... problem is this memory tester actually makes its own boot disk.. own os... own stuff... so i cant make a dos usb boot and then just run it

[TG]

www.memtest86.com - there's a 2mb ISO you can write and boot off.

Here's a quick link to the download: http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

[Albereth]

You might well find your problem is due to insufficient power.

Wot u got?

[sss]

500watts

[rainy]

I think you have a memory problem. Use Memtest or some such, and if your board allows it, clock the memory down. That worked for me...

[sss]

i'll try that image tonight... but i'm not gonna underclock just to make the thing work.. i'll send it back to the shop! we bought 2 machines identical boards... but mine came with 2 gigs and my mates came with 1 gig... and the ram vendor was different!

[RotoRouterZA]

Is it an nforce4 board? Try disabling the onboard components like sound and network. Also have you installed the nforce firewall?

[sss]

yip nforce 430....

i'm busy using the onboard audio and lan at the moment!!!

no nforce firewall ... unless its so discreet that i've never noticed it

[RotoRouterZA]

reason i asked is that i have an nforce4 ultra board and the ethernet did the same to my system. Got the latest drivers from Nvidia site and a enw pci ethernet card and disabled the onboard card.

Did you install the current drivers? See if something like active armour is installed, that should be the nvidia firewall.

[Albereth]

500watts
Would that be sustained or peak? Is it a branded PSU? I had endless uphill with my machine doing the BSOD deal until I bought a huge PSU. Solved that problem but since then Cape Town has been having power shortages.

[sss]

i will update my ethernet tonight!

[TG]

Get the AMD Nforce 4 drivers (version 6.70) or appropriate.

[RotoRouterZA]

I checked the nvidia site and i see there is a specific one for the 430 board.

[sss]

bugger.. i downloaded the one from gigabyte.. 30 megs... will try it

memory test runs forever.. but 20 minutes into it... still no errors...

psu is lpg or something

[rainy]

If the memory test runs stable for an hour, you can be reasonably sure your RAM is stable. Doesn't mean it's error-free, but you can rule out heavy errors. I recently had a PC whose RAM was shot, and the memory test crapped out immediately.

[sss]

still going 1hour later

lucky survivor is on

[sss]

1 hours 41 minutes

[BambisRevenge]

how long does a memory test normally take?

[sss]

well it quit it after top gear xtra finished!

changed the lan drivers and some other system drivers and no crash yet!

now just some corrupt textures in bf2!

[sss]

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/4585/screen0000bl.jpg

[sss]

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9219/screen0017xp.jpg

[NerdBoyZa]

Dam wall is pretty cool. Better looking than mine. :D

[SosmanSA]

TRy get some "burn in" software that will stress test the different components. I have battled for two years with BSOD.... changed GFX, changed memory etc. And I came back each time to conclusion that mainboard was faulty.
In my case the 3D GFX tests would always crash the machine, however windows always had drv or memory errors associated with the crashing,
upgraded the mainboard and CPU this last weekend and it's now solid as a rock....used to crash randomly with worst case being only able to play 10min of BF2 at a time.

[sss]

bf2 is the only game that does this!

i can run things like 3dmark fine

sisoft memory bench and cpu bench all go through fine!

it only happens in bf2

[sss]

but the crashing has stoped :)

seems it was the lan driver/chipset combo

[sss]

this is ridiculous!!


http://img430.imageshack.us/img430/7007/screen0057ne.jpg

[TG]

Hmm.. The worst I've had is that all the ground textures are bright green - same colour as the (2) for Squad member up there, but when I take a screenie of it, the screenshot comes out solid green.

Have you tried re-installing?

[stoke]

I got similat sheet when I told my BIOS to run the graphics card in Turbo mode instead of fast mode.

[RotoRouterZA]

What version is your gfx card drivers??

[sss]

umm.. i dunno what.. but i put the latest forceware drivers on... i did try the 2 different settings for RGB but now its just set to auto!

[sss]

could reinstall..but sometimes the texture is fine, next time i play the map its buggered!

[sss]

im using a XFX 6600 GT 256mb pcie

[RotoRouterZA]

Operating System? 32bit or 64bit?

I am running Media Center Edition, so need a different driver which is 81.94.

[sss]

32bit xp home

[TG]

Hmm. Have you fiddled with your bios settings?
Try reset to defaults (set what is absolutely necessary to boot), and see what happens. Don't enable boosters and any other 'performance enhancing' options.
If everything is fine, then start tweaking, and check things out every time you make a change. It's tedious, but worth it.

[Bass]

Yup - that's about the only way to find a BIOS issue, or tweak ...

[sss]

yea.. i've been through most of the normals... bios has been reset... reflashed... everything is running on "STD" ... harldy any options to boost anyway!

i'm gonna try these alternate drivers and see what happens!

[TG]

Those XTreme G Drivers will run your card at a higher clock rate. Using those gave me graphic anomalies.

[sss]

aghh great.. well i will see if they can clock back to normal!

[TG]

You can switch off the write combining by Opening up your display properties, then go to troubleshoot (where the graphics accelerator slider is).

It's worth a shot.

[sss]

anyway... to fix ...

right click desktop
properties
settings
advanced
troubleshoot
enable write combining <---- uncheck

and it all goes away
and 3dmark05 runs faster than before :D

[sss]

ahh.. i see you saw that... yes it seems to work

[TG]

Cool! :D

[Brawler]

I also get these texture problems in BF2 with my new card. Only happens about once a week or so though I normally just reload and its fine. I have checked the Graphics temperature and its fine I tried with BIOS graphics boost on auto, fast and turbo and get it with all, BUT it doesnt happen that often so its okay i suppose. Its a 7900GT on 84.21 so I dont think its anything related with your particular model card or driver... I got some funky screenshots will try post them.

http://img318.imageshack.us/my.php?image=huh7gs.jpg
http://img191.imageshack.us/my.php?image=whatthefuck2uc.jpg

[sss]

and then the crap starts agains!

[SaintMg]

only thing i can say to help is jump up and down scream and shout shake your head around ..........

okay now sit down breath deep count to 10

and hang on for one of the other guys who know whats what wif this stuff to give some advise

hope this helps ......

[Vexx007]

TripleS, try these drivers:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html

If it doesnt work, take your GFX card back to where you bought it from and swap it for a new one. it is tedious, but worth it. My first MSI 660GT did the exact same thing. I used modded drivers that injured the core of the GFX card after a month. I swapped it for a new one from the place I bought it and never looked back.

The thing is, modded drivers overclocks certain settings on the GFX card that stresses the load the load the GPU has to carry. This injures the core which leads to graphic corruption. I have Googled a bit and found that this is a very common problem with the 6600GT.

Just to let you know. I have never had this problem with Radeon cards, modded drivers was an absolute dream for my old faithfull Radeon 9600 Pro.

Oh, and another thing, try playing different games for a while and see what happens. My problems started with Guild Wars but my other games also became unplayable after a couple of minutes.

[sss]

ok..... so stupid gigabyte auto bios downloader and updater doesnt see F6 as the latest bios... but it is.. so manually updated to that... apparently it should sort out the probledm

[stoke]

Dammit ... why release a MOBO without testing properly it first ?
Slucks :mad:.

[sss]

well no issues yet with new BIOS ran the entire evening without a hitch!