Game Lockup due to video or sound?

[Snake2715]

First I want to say I am new to this forum and have been out of the computer building loop for a while it used to be so much simpler. Whatever knowledge I have I will gladly share with others.

My system was built around 2 years ago but should still run some of the games I am having trouble with no problem.

First its a home built system I built in early 2002 I have been having this same problem on and off but now I am tired of it, and frankly want to actually use this thing.

Games I am having problems with are Serious Sam (I know this isn’t a good example as it is a temperamental game as it is) Unreal2, Undying, and Runaway sometimes as well as others. Those are the most recent, and are the quickest I can get to lock up.

The lockup will occur at different parts but near the first 15 minutes to 45 minutes Runaway being the exception because I have played it for 5 hours before a lockup. Most the time the sound is stuck on one note. BUT once in a while the sound will have a small loop. I have to do soft reset at the case, as the keyboard is not responsive.

Specs I will be as thorough as I can here:



300 watt Codegen Power supply
Win 98
SYK7V Soyo Dragon Plus VIA KT266 ATX Motherboard
AMD Thunderbird 1.4 NOT OC'd
256MB PC2100 DDR Ram Also swapped for 512 of Spectek 2700
Thermaltake Volcano 6 CU+
Sony 24/10/40 CDR Drive
Generic Floppy
Maxtor 60 GB 7200 RPM Drive
PNY Geforce4 MX440 8xAGP 64MBDDR
SB PCI 512 also swapped for SB16 PCI
US Robotics V.92 56K modem (No Broadband available in my area)
USB Keyboard and Mouse converted to PS2 plugs. Swapped these for generic PS2 mouse and keyboard with no help.

Directx 9.b



As it stated I have tried to swap the memory out and also the sound and video cards out all individually and have had the same results.

Yes I did use Drivecleaner from Driverheaven to remove old drives and check my task manager/autoexec.bat to make sure they were removed. I didn’t do regedit though as I don’t know 100% how.

In the past I have reformatted and again to no avail that’s why I don’t think REGedit will help as it’s been a clean install and had problems. Currently I removed Quicken as it was running QWDLLS in my task manager and again it didn’t help my problem. I have also removed all traces of the modem, as I was afraid of something using multiple IRQ's. And that still might be the problem.

I had updated the sound drivers and Video Drivers again same problem currently I am running the original drivers from the CD.

I have updated windows. I HAVE NOT yet updated BIOS nor have I updated the VIA 4 in 1 drivers. But will do this if someone thinks it’s my problem.

I did move the sound card away from my AGP slot and it did get rid of some crackling but again same problem with lock ups.

I also bought a GPU fan for the video card and I thought it helped but again problem is persistent.

I have also moved the sound acceleration to 1 click below full and it didn’t help.

I have searched pages upon pages on this forum and others looking for my fix but haven’t found it yet.

I can run this computer for days on the net as I have done so before I removed the modem. It can run all day long in windows no problem. I load up a pretty demanding game and its time to reset.

I have also downloaded Memtest and my memory tests fine. I bought the 512 MB thinking that maybe it was running out of memory and again same problem. Although the board doesn’t show support for 2700 and that’s what the 512 MB is. I have been told it will be compatible. Just in case I am currently running the 256Mb stick that is PC2100.

My thoughts are this. I know that when I enter Bios at startup and look in the IRQ event it shows IRQ10 as being "reserved" but when I load windows it shows my SoundBlaster card being in both IRQ 5 and IRQ 10. I thought that maybe IRQ 10 was the DOS drivers for the soundcard, and uninstalled everything and reinstalled only the windows drivers but my system listing still shows IRQ5 and 10 taken for the sound card. I am afraid that maybe my CD Rom is on 10 if that’s possible? And that it’s conflicting with the SoundBlaster?

I have also considered trying to let Windows install its own drivers for either of the SoundBlaster cards and seeing if that works.


Sorry for the long post but I have really been trying to get somewhere and am willing to try almost anything within reason that wont permanently change my system. I mean I can flash BIOS if you feel its necessary, as I believe I can reset the BIOS with a jumper if it doesn’t solve my problem.

Any help at all would be very much appreciated as I am really out of ideas except to come to you guys/gals and ask for help.

If this si the wrong part of the forum please let me know and I will repost in a better section.

[glc]

Have you blown all the dust out of the case and fans - and checked the CPU temperatures?

CD-Rom doesn't use an IRQ - the IDE controllers do, but they are 14 and 15.

[Snake2715]

Ok I was curious on the IRQ I didnt show in the control panel/system that IRQ 10 was being used by anything else but I didnt know.

I will try again to blow out all the dust but not much has accumulated and it pretty much did this from day 1 but that was two years ago and I will definately take any advice at this point. I will post back if that doesnt fix it.

Also i have bought a new Antec 430 Watt power Supply and will use that tonight to see if its the Codegen P Supply.

A 430 Wat will be ok and not to much for my system right?

[glc]

The Codegen is probably adequate, the Antec should be fine.

[Snake2715]

glc,

Thanks fo taking the time. I installed the Antec last night with the same problem. Although in Bios the +12 voltage was reading 11.71 and witht he Codegen it read 12.41 or thereabouts.

I am thinking that I should once again swap the Antec out with another just to be sure.

I am slo going to reformat and install the OS and most current drivers. and apply new Arctic Silver compund to the cpu,gpu etc and make sure everything stays good and cold.

I will gladly take other points of advice and will report back with my results.

[Hi Ho]

When games lock up it is common to have the audio stick on one note or loop. However, the audio is probably not the problem. It is probably being caused by something else. My guess would be temps.