Vista gaming problem

[Blu_Munday]

Hey, I was hoping I could pick some brains as I've got a weird problem with some games on Vista that I can't seem to fix.

Firstly, all of these games were working fine about a week ago and I have made no system or driver changes...

The problem started with BF2. I double click to load and it sounds like it's all going fine (disc spinning up for security etc) but it just goes to a black screen and hangs there. The black screen is like what you'd get for a split second before all the logos start coming in. So essentially it starts to load and just stops there.

The strange thing is that I'm also getting problems in Steam at the same time. CS:S does exactly the same, starts to load but stays on black screen before logos get chance to appear and Dod:S is locked into some updating loop and just won't load at all (maybe not related but started at the same time as other probs).

The stranger thing though, is that it's not all games - Cod 2 works fine (Um, is it obvious I like FPS games?).

I've got a Dell XPS420 (yes, I know) and it's only 6 months old so it's not a power issue - Core 2 duo 8300, 8800 Gtx (i believe) and 3gb. Maybe it's a driver issue but I haven't changed anything manually or installed anything new. I'm also pretty confident I haven't picked any viruses or spyware up. I keep quite a tight ship on that front...

Could it be a Direct X issue seeing as though Cod 2 works but the others don't? If so, is it possible to just replace Direct X with the latest version (I've only ever put it on a PC when intsalling a game so don't know).

Oh, and I've tried changing compatibility mode in properties and run as administrator. No joy.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated...

Cheers

[shadowpr]

I would try reinstalling the video drivers first.

[David M]

Do what shadow recommends first. Make sure your OS and your BIOS is current as well.

Then get a digital multimeter and do a stress test. Don't rely on what a monitoring program is telling you...I have seen them give false voltage readings compared to the multimeter. Check each of the three different voltages. Be sure to test voltages at your graphics card. Do any of the voltages drop too much during the stress test? You will obviously have to do three stress tests each time measuring a different voltage. Low voltage readings would be indicative of a PSU that is starting to fail.

Test your RAM as well.

[Blu_Munday]

Thanks for the advice.

I tried reinstalling the nvidia drivers and BF2 worked fine. Last night.

So I try to play BF2 tonight but it's back to the same problem again. Which is mighty strange.

As for hardware, I'm pretty sure it's all working fine. The PC runs as fast as it ever did and plays Cod 2 and Crysis (which I tried tonight) ok. I would have thought Crysis would strain the card and PSU if they were the problem. So I guess I can discount that (thanks for the tips though).

Surely it's software/drivers and not hardware, but I'm stumped seeing as the driver worked once and then didn't. It hasn't rolled the driver back on its own either, I checked that.

Thought it was fixed and now back to square one so any other thoughts?

[Blu_Munday]

Problem solved, sort of... it was the SigmaTel driver for the onboard sound. Updated it (with a lot of trouble) and the games work fine, however, my headphones won't work now.

But I think I've finally had enough of Vista so I won't bother you with asking how to fix that small problem.

Instead, I've decided to 'downgrade' to XP Pro as we have some spare licences hanging around the office. I just wanted to ask the experts here if you foresee any problems with me doing this manually as I'm not using MS's official downgrade route (of course we all know it's not a downgrade!). The software is legit, boss says he doesn't mind me grabbing a disc and licence

Basically, I was thinking I would back up anything important to DVD. boot from disc, wipe the hard drive and start with a fresh XP Pro instal. I really just wondered if this may be a problem as my XPS was obviously built for Vista. I'm not capable enough to fix things if I end up without a working OS at all.

Any thoughts or advice before I do this?

Oh, and it's not just the game problems, the OS has been getting slower and more unstable week on week since I've had the computer and I've just about had it with Vista!

Biggest issue will be the availability of XP drivers.