Lynn,

Yours sounds like a refresh rate problem with the monitor. If the refresh rate for a particular resolution is set higher than what the monitor can handle at that resolution, then this problem will occur. Check to make sure your monitor can handle the refresh rates your card is sending it. If not, adjust them in the display settings.

Additionally, if your monitor can't handle a particular resolution, say 1280x1024, then you will have this problem also. Check to see if your tests are trying to go into one of these resolutions/refresh rates your monitor can't handle.

If you can't find your monitor's manual to find the supported resolutions and refresh rates, find it on the web. A good rule of thumb for monitor capability is the smaller the monitor, and the cheaper the monitor, the less capable it is.

Todd

Steve,

Have you tried another game besides Mafia? Also, have you run memory tests? Your problem does not sound like a video card issue. Oh, and yes, a sound card is capable of crashing a game. When I first upgraded to Windows XP, I had a Sound Blaster Live! card. It worked fine in everything except games and it would crash. I found out there was an incompatibility with that card and XP. I replaced the card, and that problem went away...But I had another one. Such is the computer world.

What are the symptoms of your crash? Are there any errors? Does it lock up or simply dump you out of the game? Any details you can give will be helpful.

Hi Kids,

Several months ago I posted my solution to this problem and to this date I have not had a crash.

athlon xp2400
asus A7N8X
GeForce4 Ti

Like all of you suffering with this problem I was pulling my hair out playing with drivers and settings bios etc..

My problem was RAM

Now listen because this is VERY IMPORTANT.

Most of the late model GPU and CPU are extremely sensitive to what type of ram they have. Not only what type but what size.

My original trouble plagued ram config was a single stick of generic no name 512ddr.

After F*cking around with the POS for 60 days with constant crashes, blue screens etc.. I decided to look up my local AMD authorized service center. I gave them a call, explained my situation and before I was even through with the story the tech said "IT'S A RAM PROBLEM" YOU HAVE SH*TTY RAM IN THAT MACHINE".

Untill that time I thought Ram Was Ram and you went for what was cheapest. I was then told by the tech that there is a booming Ram grey market with lots of bad modules floating around out there.

He said all of the new GPU and CPU need good name brand ram.
If you go to the AMD web page there is a list of approved ram for the XP processor (You'll have to look for it). The tech told me "And they are NOT kidding"

I told him I had run a ram test and it checked out fine.

He told me that it would check out fine and would probably work in a non amd xpXXXX CPU. It's something in non AMD approved ram that somehow isn't just right.

His solution for me was two fold. my A7n8x evidently didn't like to run on a single 512 stick so he recomended 2 x 256 of name brand approved 400ddr. He recomended "Genuine Samsung" simply beacuse he had had the best results with it. So My new ram is 2x256 400ddr Genuine Samsung

Since this change my machine IS the dream machine I had configured it to be. It has not crashed once since March 2003.
It Games till the cows come home. It games so well that my sleep suffers and I have no social life. (just like it was designed to do)

Please pull the hood off your machine, pull the ram stick(s) and read the name printed on it. (turn off the machine first of course) Compare this to the names on the AMD Appoved List. If the names don't match that might be the trouble.
or if you are running a single 512 stick you might want to go to the 2 x 256 config.

If this fixes you problem please post back so others can see a solution.

Peace
Derrin

thats what i say'd

Been there done that on several occassions. I've tried certified RAM based on AMD's web site and I've tried non certified. I've even tried Corsair on some systems, which is supposed to be the top dog. On several systems, I even tried "underclocking" the bus frequency. Usually, no go. All RAM tests worked fine. So did full motion videos, full motion graphics, etc. Games, however, crashed. Usually, I had to disable something in BIOS related to AGP. Other times, I had remove a PCI card from slot one, and other times I had to replace drivers. It is quite unpredictable to say the least. Seems like there is a different solution for everyone.

However, I'm beginning to notice in forums people with Intel processors are having the same problem with NVidia, particularly since the release of GEForce4. I've been following this problem since GEForce2. VIA has released a patch recently that supposedly fixes this problem with VIA chipsets, although they specifically state that it is not a VIA problem but an NVidia problem. I've never tried the fix, but I've seen others that have that are having good results with it.

Hey todd can you give a link or at least a name for this fix, coz its not going to be hard to find. With all the "fixes" out there on the net that only actually work for that one persons system it is hard to find the genuine fixes.

Hey Todd,


I REALLY appreciate your response. The game crashes during play with no error and I just get sent to the desktop. The error log says something about the description for the error could not be found.

My specs are:

512 mb RAM
Athlon XP 2400 2.0ghz
80gb 7200 rpm drive
WinXP home sp1
Radeon 9600pro
AC 97 audio (I've got the latest driver for the video: i'm downloading the latest driver for this card right now)
DirectX 9.0B

Yes, every other game I own does this...thanks for your help.

I'm not a computer expert or anything but how do you run a memory check? I've got DDR SDRAM if that matters...two sticks of 256...

I REALLY appreciate all this.

Steve

P.S.: hope none of you guys live in New York or the North East, looks pretty bad from what i've seen on the news...I hope homeland security is right and it was just a malfunction...TTYL

Jamie,

The messsage was posted in this thread by Graeme Cartledge on June 19, 2003. You will find it on page 21 of this thread, very first entry. He gives details on this problem and where to find the fix. I've just seen in other forums that this fix works in a lot of cases. But, of course, game crashes could be due to a lot of things. What gets me is people get in these forums and make statements like, "it's memory", or "it's a driver problem", or "it's this", or "it's that". There is no magical fix that will fix everyone's problems. Every problem is different and has different solutions. What works for you may not work for someone else.

I've been working with the technical side of computers since 1988, long before the Windows days and therefore, I've dealt with thousands of problems and just as many solutions. One thing I've learned is there are multiple solutions for every problem, and there are multiple problems for every solution.

The problem is the computer industry. As competition gets more fierce and users demand faster products and demand them now, quality goes down the tubes. If we as consumers want quality then we need to stop demanding the latest and greatest. We need to start demanding quality. This is what is happening in the graphics card world right now. You have 2 primary companies rushing to get the latest and greatest and fastest out in the market because we are demanding it. As a result, they have to cut corners, and one of those corners is quality control. Speed and quality or inverse of each other. The faster you do something, the less quality (accuracy) you will have. This applies to driving your car, performing surgery, art, exercising, gathering evidence in a crime scene, overclocking your PC, etc. This whole thing reminds me of Intel. In the days before consumers demanded faster PC's every 6 months, Intel made great products that worked well. Now look at them. Same thing with Microsoft. They push products out on the market too quickly, sacrificing quality doing so.

In my early years as a computer tech, it was hard to find jobs to do as the programs, operating systems, and computers were much more reliable. These days, though, it's easy to find work due to the issues I detailed above.

Anyway, check out http://forums.viaarena.com/ and see if you can find mention of the patch. Lots of people were talking about it and it is available for download on http://www.viaarena.com, but you'll have to look for it.

Todd

Steve,

Glad to be of help..

Looks like you've got a nice system.

I would like to get the full text of the error message if you don't mind. It may give us a clue as to what's going on.

As far as memory tests go, you can download some free programs from the internet. SiSoftware makes a program called SANDRA that has tests for memory, processor, hard disks, and just about anything you can test on your PC. There are others, but my mind is blank right now. I do know that SANDRA is an excellent tool.

It may be a setting in BIOS that is trying to overclock your memory. What kind of MOBO do you have?

You could even have bad stick of ram. There are lots of things it could be. We just have to narrow it down till we find it.

Todd

Hello

Pardon my rant about memory. All I can say is this was the fix for my machine. A ram test will probably check out okay. Mine did. I'm saying it's the extreme sensitivity in the the newest MOBOS, GPU and CPU that require RAM on the approved system build list. The ram that checks okay in test will probably work in pre amd xpxxxx systems.

I completely agree with the "Latest and Greatest" rant. Quality in large part has gone in the toilet. With consumers demanding faster and better while at the same time demanding lower and lower costs somethings got to give. Quality is usually the first to go. That's business.

Peace
Derrin

Derrin,

I've helped several people with this exact same issue and the answer is different just about every time. Usually, the issue is related to NVidia and VIA working together. But, in the last 6 months or so, I've seen it pop up on Intel too. Whenever someone comes to me saying..."My games are crashing", I cringe and generally go into hiding. It's always a pain in the rear to find and very time consuming. And, of course, no one wants to pay me to do it. They want me to come by after working on computers all day long and do it for free.

That's another thing that has changed in the computer field in the last 4 or 5 years. It used to be that when someone wanted their computer fixed, they would get your name from someone and call you and wouldn't mind paying you. Now, people call me wanting me to do it for free. I then have to explain to them that it isn't a hobby and that I've already been doing this for the past 10 or 11 hours at work. This latest virus is a great example. I've had several calls from people wanting me to come by their house and get rid of the virus for them, but they don't want to pay. I'm not sure why this mentality has reared itself, but I think it is because people have a friend of a brother who has a teenage son who knows a tiny bit about computers and he tries to do it for free. So, they just expect everyone to do it for free. Go figure.

Yes, technology has gone down the toilet. I predicted this current "economic downturn" about 5 years ago, when I realized that several things were happening, and I told people why I thought it would happen. They just said, "yeah, right". Here are the reasons I predicted, and the reasons I still say are the reason we are in an economic downturn due to slack purchases of technology. I mean we are still buying houses and cars like crazy. We are still spending money in other areas...except technology. Here are the reasons.

- People are tired of having to upgrade hardware to keep up with software every year or so.
- People are tired of having to upgrade software to keep up with hardware every year or so.
- People are tired of buying poor quality products that are marketed as the best on the market.
- Excessive software prices.
- The market is saturated with PC's. Nearly all businesses have them now, and most consumers that can afford them already have them.
- Poor technical support for software and hardware
- Not enough intrinsic value in upgraded software.
- Computers are 75% hassle and 25% useful. It's gotten to where there are more problems with your PC than there are solutions.

Anyway, that's 2 cents from a computer geek (me) that's probably been in the technical field way too long. I've been in the field 15 years now.

Sorry, went off on a rabbit trail.

Thanks Todd,

the error message is "The description for event ID (0) in source ( ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE=flag to retrieve this description; see help and support for details. The following information is part of the event: 7."

The only problem is I have no idea what that means and it doesn't happen every time a game drops to the desktop or the computer restarts. (I might not have mentioned it did that) Also, I'm not on a network so the first part of that message doesn't make since. About every ten or so times when it restarts I'll get the 'send error report'. I've done that and it just says its a bad device driver. But i've spent the last two weeks trying out different drivers so it can't be that.

I have a VIA AK 39 with the Athlon 2400+. A memory test would probably show up as fine but I'll get that software. In DXDiag all the directx tests passed (but thats probably useless, I've heard so many people with the same problem say that)

I agree with that last thread how quality goes first when it comes to business. And that brings me back to my old philosophy: WHY CAN'T ANYTHING FRIKKIN WORK???

If the computer industry keeps goin the way its goin I think a lot of gamers are just goin to go to xbox's and PS2's and what not. Of course if you've got the exact right specs (especially concerning RAM) you don't have this problem. Except the manafacturers won't spend five extra seconds to put which ram works with this model mobo in their manuals.

Thanks for your help Todd
Steve

Steve,

That is a very interesting error message. It may have something to do with permissions. It could also be that your registry is corrupt. I'm not sure why it thinks you are a remote computer. I'll research that for you and get back with you on it.

Yes, I find that dxdiag is as useful as another hole in my head. Try that memory test, you never know.

People going to XBox and PS2 is already happening. There are some software companies that are not making games for the PC any more due to the XBox and PS2. I fear as that happens, the economy will hurt even more because the people who generally buy the high end PC's are your hard core gamers. I quit buying new games years ago due to the hassle of having to upgrade and put up with the bull just to get the game to work ok. I only buy older games now that are like $10. If they don't work, I simply take them back and get my money back. The only game I keep up to date is my Flight Simulator to help me keep sharp on my skills as a real life pilot. However, it took me 3 months to get it to work right due to this issue. Mine turned out to be AGP fast writes.

Usually, I find that RAM doesn't solve the problem. It does in some cases, but usually not. 90% of the time I've found that changing settings in BIOS solves the problem, usually having something to do with AGP.

Todd

Thanks Todd

I downloaded the SANDRA from majorgeeks.com but the one I got said the memory testing module wasn't available for the shareware version. Was this the memory test? Is there any other software out there I can use to test my memory?

I went ahead and got my AGP settings from the BIOS:

Aperture Size: 128mb
Driving Control: Auto
Fast Write: Disabled
Master 1WS Write: Disabled
Master " " Read: Disabled
Output for AGP trans: disabled

The BIOS I have won't let me change the voltages but are any of these wierd?
CPU- hovers around 1.63-1.64V
AGP-1.48V
DDR-2.48V

I'll get anything else that might be useful.

Thanks alot for all your help. I think I'll see if I can get a more recent BIOS from viaarena.com.

Steve

Here's some more details if they help, Todd,

I should have specified I have a Shuttle AK-39N, if that makes a difference...probably not I think the mobo's okay. The SANDRA had a warning saying the motherboard was overheating. It went on and said if any parts of the board are too hot to touch then I have a problem. I went around in the box and checked everything out, nothing was more than warm. I have a side fan on the box, several air openings on the back and one fan in the power box.

Strange. I'm not a computer guy or anything but maybe a sensor is malfunctioning and causing these crashes. I've never heard of anything like that but if the software believes the hardware is overheating will it shut just one component off? Just some ideas.

I decided not to get a new BIOS unless nothing else works. Looks kinda dangerous plus I don't really know what I'm doing.

Steve

Steve,

Another diag program I use is Aida 32 (my brain freeze went away). I also believe that winmark will do it too.

It looks like your AGP settings are not set for performance, so it should be working. You might try lowering your apeture size to 64MB. This has worked for some people.

Your CPU voltage looks fine to me for an AMD. I don't remember what the AGP voltage or the RAM voltage is supposed to be. Maybe someone else reading this will remember.

Speaking of BIOS, have you checked the web site of the manufacturer of your mobo for a BIOS update? I wouldn't do this unless the BIOS update would address your issue. If you screw up a BIOS update, your MOBO goes back to the factory. You might consider it as a last resort. However, if the mobo manuf mentions that a BIOS upgrade will fix this problem, then by all means take the risk.

A piece of software saying the mobo is overheating could be a false alarm. Usually, the mobo won't overheat unless the processor does. However, one thing you can do to rule out overheating is take the cover off the computer, get a high speed desk fan, and blow it directly into the PC, aimed at the processor. This will cool everything down quikly (cooled mine down 12 degrees F). Then, run your games. If they work fine, then you definitely have an overheating problem of some kind.

Yes, a malfunctioning sensor can cause your computer to reboot, shut down, etc. However, you said what is happening is you are just getting dumped back to the desktop. Therefore, it's unlikely to be a malfunctioning sensor. Most BIOS's allow you to turn off the function that shuts your PC down when it overheats, but this is risky if the computer is really overheating.

You might try getting a program that monitors your CPU temp. That would be the best way to find out if you have an overheating problem. Your MB manufacturer may have one you can download. Otherwise, try Motherboard Monitor. It is free, but it can be tricky to configure.

Try those things this weekend. I'm going to be out of pocket for you until Monday morning, so good luck! Let me know what you find.

Todd

It's such a shame. I am the greatest WCIII Player of all times, yet can't even finish a game most the time
Sometimes, I feel like god is punishing me cause I ownz too much

Have a great weekend Todd.

I got Aida 32. The sensor feature normally reads 102F for the mobo and 129F for the processor. Strange though, even when it doesn't have a load on it the temp shoots up to 217F briefly then falls back to 130ish. Sometimes it drops all the way to 57F but that can't be right. So the sensor must be screwed up. I'm in a room thats about 68F. Unless Aida is wrong. (hmmmm...something else that doesn't work as advertised?)

I went to Shuttle's site looking for an updated BIOS but found nothing. I ended up downloading BIOS AGENT and sent in information, hopefully they'll send me a disk in the mail or something.

I've tried AGP apertures 64, 128, and 256 with no luck. I think I read the story of someone solving this issue with the aperture on 64. Well, great for them and sucks to be everyone else. (I really wish it was that easy, just changing one little detail in the BIOS and then have a perfectly stable system.)

Oh well. I've emailed all the game developers of the games that I've played that crash to the desktop (all of them!). So far they just keep telling me "DOWNLOAD THE LATEST DRIVERS!!!" And when I tell them I've already done so and didn't they look at the DXDiag file I sent them I never get a reply. Seems like they're content to just screw PC users and go XBOX and PS2 only.

TTYL

Steve

Almost forgot. My Flash BIOS was released 10/17/02, or at least thats what the POST screen says. I don't trust anything anymore. Its Phoenix-Award BIOS v 6.00PG whatever that means.

I SWEAR THE GOVERNMENTS OUT TO GET ME!!! Ok maybe not.

All I know is clean installing WinXP and reformatting the hard disk hasn't done jack squat. The only good thing about this process of trying things, being very happy, I think I just solved the problem, then BAM, I'm looking at the desktop again is good for only one thing: at least I'm learning stuff I wouldn't have otherwise.

Then again I'd rather be an ignorant fool with a working PC than an IT expert with one that doesn't.

Is anyone following these series of posts? If so I'd like to hear your ideas...I'M DESPERATE!!!

I won't get much done this weekend PC wise, I bought a new computer desk so I gotta put that toghether and then I'm going with the family to mount vernon.

TTYL as always.

Hi all , Im new here but I am ALSO having the same problems as most of you. First off here are the specs of my pc. (This is my new computer btw. Its only a month old)


Processor : AMD Athlon XP 2600 + with 333 mhz FSB

Motherboard : MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR with NVIDIA nForce 2 Chipset Based

RAM : 512 MB of DDR RAM pc 2700

Video Card : GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128 MB DDR AGP 8X

Hard Drive : Western Digital 80 MB 7200 rpm

OS : Windows XP Pro

I have downloaded all the updates for windows ( SP1 etc ). I have up to date drivers from nvidia for all my hardware. I have even updated my bios (using live update 3 from MSI). I have formatted, reinstalled EVERYTHING more than twice. I tried setting the anti aliasing (and the antistropic spelling?) turned to max, turned OFF, set to medium and I get the same problem still. I have been browsing forums and technical problem sites but havent found a fix for my problem. Now here is the problem.


The Problem : The problem I am having is very similar if not the same to most of the problems other people have posted. Whenever I run a somewhat intensive to intensive 3d game, it'll freeze my entire system.

After about 5 to 20 minutes into the game, my entire computer will just freeze for no reason whatsoever. It'll completely lock up and I'll be force to hit the restart button on my computer. What makes it so frustrating is the fact that during those 5 or 20 minutes of gameplay, the game plays JUST FINE. It runs at a constant 30 to 60 fps (depending on the video settings i use) during the 5 to 20 minutes of gameplay and out of the blue itll just lock up and freeze. The games that I have attempted to play that freeze are the following :

Warcraft III (installed all the updates, did not fix the prob)
Warcraft III : Frozen Throne (installed all updates, did not fix the prob)
Jedi Knights Outkast (installed all updates, did not fix the prob)
America's Army (installed all updates , did not fix the prob)

I have not tested Unreal 2k2 yet but when I'm not running the 3d games, my computer works just fine. It doenst crash and there are no glitches whatsoever. Heck, I can even run counterstrike all day and all night without a hitch. Heres the kicker, I can even run Soldiers of Fortune 2 all day and night without a hitch and SOF2 and Counterstrike is (in my opinion) more graphic intensive than Warcraft III or Frozen throne. I have tried everything. If someone knows a solution to my problem please reply and let me know. Thanks for everyones help and time.