Graphics crash

[murzyn1975]

Hey all,

I have a PC with the following specs

ASUS P5L 1394
2G RAM
GeForce 7600GS 512MB
X-Fi Fatal1ty
Dual Core 6400 2.13Ghz
Windows XP Home

The problem is, that when I play games the game freezes for a couple of seconds and the returns. Sometimes the sound and the graphics freeze (Godfather) and other times just the graphics and the sound continues (Flight simulator X). I have downloaded all the latest drivers for hardware and all updates for software.
I had Vista installed a couple of weeks ago and the problem was the same, so I don't think it is a problem with the OS.

Any ideas on what could be causing this problem? It has got to the point that I can't play games anymore.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tmagic650]

Go out and purchase a PCI based sound card and disable the on-board sound in your motherboards bios. The Creative Audigy SE is a good low cost solution

 

[murzyn1975]

I have a PCI sound card (Creative X-Fi Platinum Champion Fatality Champion series). I have also disabled the onboard sound and still the problem persists.

Could it be a problem with memory? I ran MemTest and no errors where found but I read that it could be a problem with Dual RAM?

 

[kpo6969]

Did you update to the new Vista driver released last week?
Just updated to Vista, upgrade or clean install?
Was the Upgrade Advisor run and incompatable software and or hardware removed?

 

[murzyn1975]

I formatted my hard drive and installed XP again as the problem was even worse in Vista. I really dont know what the problem is but I cant play any games as they all seem to have the same problem.

 

[pdyckman@comcas]

The GeForce 7600 GS 512 MB GPU is a 128 bit card with a bandwidth of 12.8 GB/sec. 4 pixel pipelines. 400 core w/ 533 effective memory. You have plenty of ram. I think you may want to try a GT model of Nvidia.

 

[Tmagic650]

I have a PCI sound card (Creative X-Fi Platinum Champion Fatality Champion series). I have also disabled the onboard sound and still the problem persists.

Could it be a problem with memory? I ran MemTest and no errors where found but I read that it could be a problem with Dual RAM?

Move the Creative X-Fi Platinum Champion Fatality Champion Series card to the furthest PCI slot from the graphics controller slot and install the latest Creative drivers

 

[murzyn1975]

Will do. Will keep you posted.

 

[Tmagic650]

I had to do this with my Audigy SE. Halo Combat Evolved never sounded better, but the game would freeze and the sound would partially play in a loop mode over and over again. I had to press the computer's power button to shut the system down.

After moving the Audigy and updating the drivers, all is great!

 

[murzyn1975]

I followed your advice and separated the sound card from the graphics card. Tested it in Flight Simulator X with the graphics and sound set to maximum. Had no problems in half an hour of playing, normally it would have crashed at least a couple of times. Don't have time to test it longer but since the weekend is coming up I will test it for a longer period. Will let you know how it turns out.

Thanks for your help.

 

[murzyn1975]

At first I thought that the problem had been solved but after about one and a half hours of playing the game froze again. Once the first freeze happens it repeats every couple of seconds.

Any thoughts?

 

[Tmagic650]

Are you using the latest drivers from the Creative website, and not from a CD?

 

[murzyn1975]

Yeah, I got all the latest drivers for NVidia, X-Fi, Motherboard etc.