Need For Speed Underground 2: Freezing

[keith_jones]

Most games work on my machine. My specs are in my signature below. This game particularly freezes at the main menu after I load my profile. Sometimes I can get it to play and I can drive around for a minute. The game locks up and it is not responsive. I can get the game to run if I navigate through the game menu with the keyboard Enter key and arrows. It seems if I use my mouse it freezes quicker, not quite instantly. Holding in the power button is the only way to get out of the freeze, not Ctrl+Alt+Del, esc, Windows function key... just turning it off manually works.
What more importantly bothers me, is when the machine is off and I turn it on: It usually takes 2-3 tries to get it running. No errors in BIOS, it usually happens when loading windows. The screen will just get blank and the monitor says no input device. (it's a 19in. flatscreen PnP monitor by KDS.)

More information:
I did some reading about this type of problem and did the following;
1. closed all processes by the user except explorer and tried the game again. Froze.
2. Defrag, disk cleanup, registry cleaner, CCleaner.
3. All my drivers are up to date: including my chipset North and Southbridge drivers, NVIDIA AGP drivers. all up to date. I have even tried using older versions for my Graphics card. they all freeze eventually.
*other games that use directdraw seem to work, like Tony Hawk's Underground 2.
4. I changed the Windows display to the option of best performance, and even tried going from 32 bit colors to 16 bit. still freezing in game.
5. Changed BIOS settings:
PCI Latency Timer: 128
USWC: Disabled
PnP O/S: enabled
AGP Graphics Apeture: standard was 64 MB, I turned it to 256MB.

I have run a memory test and seems okay. (MemTest86)
I have used: VersionTracker Pro, Test My Hardware, CPU-Z, CCleaner, Registry Mechanic, Diskeeper, DriverGuide Toolkit.


I am stumped, anybody get help with this topic send me some feedback please!

 

[Condor]

heat issues? =[

 

[keith_jones]

heat issues? =[

Possibly. I was leaning toward driver issues. I have uninstalled AGP drivers for my NVIDIA GeForce 4 card and tried new versions, old versions. They all freeze eventually. I'm starting to think the Graphics card is slowly dying on me. I got it in 2002, and since then have had my hands on the inside mechanics changing RAM sticks.

I have also installed a case fan because the computer was upstairs in a hot apartment (poor AC circulation upstairs.) I have fans located: Rear case, OKIA 420 ATX Power supply (420 watt = hot air!) CPU fan (replaced this with OEM parts and heatsink OEM) and my graphics card has a tiny fan on the bottom.

I don't know if my graphics card is 128MB or 64MB. I got the driver for the 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200, and in my BIOS I set the AGP memory to only 64MB (I read setting it to this will increase performance.) In the device manager it does say 128MB for my graphics card.


Since all this has been happening I moved the computer downstairs to a much cooler environment for it. My thermosat downstairs reads 72 degrees fahrenheit, but what is strange in the BIOS I can read fan speeds and thermostat: Case fan reads 95 degrees and the CPU was 130's! Ouch.

No matter what the problem may be, I am definitely having trouble attempting to run any high performance game anymore, and most of the time the machine is a B*tch to turn on. Usually takes a few tries. Even with side of my case open and having a 20" home box fan blowing off the machine's hot air, or blowing onto motherboard my games will freeze so I don't think it's heat related issues.

 

[hamas123]

try this:take the disc out of the tray and reset the console,then press traingle and go to the place where you can change the disc speed.change it to fast and now put the disc in and see if the game freezes,if it still does the disc or lens may be a bit dirty.

 

[keith_jones]

It's not run from the disk. It's a backup image actually, and it's run with a patch to not use the cd. (no cd patch.)

 

[keith_jones]

try this:take the disc out of the tray and reset the console,then press traingle and go to the place where you can change the disc speed.change it to fast and now put the disc in and see if the game freezes,if it still does the disc or lens may be a bit dirty.

Maybe I forgot to mention this but thought you would see that I listed my computer system specs and problems. THE GAME is the PC VERSION. Please take note of this. Whatever the problem may be, it's not just this game. My machine is having issues, and now my machine freezes on startup of windows XP pro, in safe mode it freezes at "mup.sys" I installed windows on another hard drive and tried to copy this system file to the original windows folder but it still freezes even after copying that file.

 

[Didou]

It's probably legit but from our side we can't be sure. You could be using a pirated version just as it could be a retail one. Just use the game as intended by the developers meaning without the NO-CD patch.

 

[hamas123]

ok sorry,i never read what you wrote thats why .Anyway it's probably what Didou said.

 

[keith_jones]

found out, my AGP card was going out, because it finally did go out completely one day with nothing on screen when I turned on my machine. got a basic agp card temporarily until I can afford another 3d graphics card. boo