Games freeze for a few seconds or they completely lock up PC

[grayg1]

Hi everyone

I feel like an *** coming here with first post and asking such a question, but I have tried asking such things to many people on the internet at places I usally post at. Upon my searching for a solution to my problem I found that this website seems alot better than everywhere else for people who seem to really know stuff about computers to an extreme level.

So anyway...

As my title says games freeze on my PC or more often than not they will freeze and my computer will stay frozen and it won't recover. I just get like a screenshot plus garbled sound.

There are lots of things I have tried to solve this plus extra info:

Ran RAM sticks on their own
Both RAM sticks together passed memtest 9 times in a row
Used 2 different motherboards
Used different graphics cards
Used an IDE and SATA HDs on their own as main installation
Uninstalled, physically disconnected and disabled via device manager my DVD/CD drives
Ran without case fans
Used a different PSU
Setup my PC with my SATA HD running in IDE mode and also tried with AHCI mode.
Disabled all downclocking/voltage reduction settings in BIOS.
BIOS reads all voltages as "OK" (Gigabyte board)
CPU no fails prime95 for 3hours 25 minutes using in place large FFTs (running on both cores at same time 100% cpu load)
CPU no fails prime95 for 1 hour 20 minutes using in place small FFTs (running on both cores at same time 100% cpu load)
Tried bumping RAM voltage from 1.8v to 1.9v
Uninstalled + BIOS disabled onboard sound
Reninstalled Windows XP quite a few times
Tried a different Windows XP disc (orginal was scratched)
Ran SeaTools and HD passes all tests (except NTFS partition because it doesn't support that)
Have tried fresh Windows install not having any anti virus software installed
Tried different drivers

As you can see I have come up with a pretty good list to which I have probably forgot noumerous things.

Couple of notes is that I have had it BSOD with the 0x000000EA (THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER). The C&C 3 demo interestingly when it does the freeze, it doesn't always lock up the whole system, it crashes to the desktop and gives me the error message "Direct3d device reset failed after multiple attempts".

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[honvetops]

if you like? i can c&p your post here and get you some answers on another site, let me know? i don't feel comfortable giving you any of my opinions here, u seem to have your bases covered!

 

[grayg1]

Anything that can help really

I've hit a wall

 

[gamerboy14]

there could be a defect in the game..not your computer, or your video/graphics card may not support a feature needed by the game..i got a NVIDIA nForce and 1GB ram and a RADEON 9200 pro and i cant play DOOM 3 because my vid. card dosen't support a feature needed to play the game. I even got directx 9.0....tht could be the prob. man

 

[grayg1]

Nah I currently have one of the most powerful graphics cards on the market today and it happens in ALL games, that goes for really old ones like HL1.

 

[honvetops]

10-4 hopefully I can get you something soon !!

 

[wolfram]

Ran without case fans
Used a different PSU

The first thing is a bad idea

And the second thing, have you checked how many amperes do the PSU's have on their +12V rails?

And have you checked the video card's temperature? Are all fans running properly?

 

[grayg1]

The fan thing was me just removing stuff that isn't 100% needed to put the lowest load possible on the PSU.
Temps are good and all fans spinning.
As for the PSU, using an online power wattage calculator my computer now draws LESS power than the computer that it was previously running perfectly fine.

 

[wolfram]

Ah, I see you're using an Enermax PSU. That's pretty good.

I really have no idea about your problem. You've tried almost everything I'd suggest

You're not overclocking anything right?

Maybe you've got a defective video card, but I'm not sure. Your problem is very difficult to diagnose...

 

[grayg1]

Not overclocking no

Doubt I have a deffective card though, I'm using an 8800GTS right now with the same problem and my 7800GT is about to be delivered back to me tomorrow from an RMA after it passing a 2 hour test of 3dmark06.

The 8800GTS is being sent back because it has flakey drivers and also has a dislike with my monitor in that it refuses to display the correct resolution with a DVI cable.

 

[grayg1]

Lock this thread please, I will start a new one in the Windows section, I have a feeling I might get better suited help there.