Hi,
First post, so please be nice to the n00b
I've been having a number of problems while playing games - and only while playing games, it seems - on my computer system. The full spec is in my profile.
Whether it's Freelancer, Civilization IV or The Sims 2, I may be able to play the game for minutes or hours, then at some point the system will unaccountably freeze up (Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing, even Num Lock doesn't work) requiring a reset. If I'm lucky, it'll reset itself (though this doesn't happen often - a freeze-up is more common).
The CPU temperature is typically around 51-52°C after a reset (compared to about 46°C during "normal" usage such as Web browsing). However, I'm not convinced that this is relevant as I can easily push the CPU temp to this level by running any non-graphical CPU-intensive program, and the computer will carry on quite merrily indefinitely.
I couldn't tell you what the GPU temperature on the graphics card is, I'm afraid: neither MSI CoreCenter nor SpeedFan report it.
I've tried pretty much everything with this system - I've upgraded the fans from the bog-standard ones supplied with the case, I've installed a PCI slot grille fan, I've given the AGP card its own dedicated power cable, I've vacated most of the other PCI slots, I've updated the OS, system BIOS and every driver I could lay my hands on to the most recent versions (5.13 is the most recent for my card), I've set the AGP memory to 128MB in the BIOS, I've disabled Fast Writes in the BIOS, and disabled VPU Recover in Catalyst, I turned the fan speeds up to ear-damaging levels, I even took the AGP bus speed down to 4x - all to no avail.
I'm completely stumped. I'm fast coming to the conclusion either that the graphics card is simply getting too hot and giving up whatever I might attempt to do about it, or that the card and my mainboard simply don't like one another. I'm that far from throwing in the towel and blowing a couple hundred quid on an NVidia card*, as my love affair with ATI is rapidly drawing to a close.
Any ideas?
(* Yes, I know it would be much cheaper to replace the mainboard, but I happen to like this board, and it is way too time-consuming to replace. Half a day of my free time is worth the extra money.)
Update: Today I uninstalled the Catalyst software, deleted the ATI directory, and reinstalled it. I also dug out my old Iiyama CRT to act as a secondary monitor, so I could watch CoreCenter and the Task Manager while Civ 4 was running. I duly managed to make the game crash again, and on reboot, was told that the system had crashed with the following error:
STOP 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
Unfortunately, the suggested remedies are either to update to the latest driver versions (done), or to replace the video card (ouch).
Is there any hope? Or are this card and mainboard simply Not Meant To Be? Should I go with NVidia instead? Or complain to MSI or ATI? Or have I missed something really painfully obvious?
First post, so please be nice to the n00b
I've been having a number of problems while playing games - and only while playing games, it seems - on my computer system. The full spec is in my profile.
Whether it's Freelancer, Civilization IV or The Sims 2, I may be able to play the game for minutes or hours, then at some point the system will unaccountably freeze up (Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing, even Num Lock doesn't work) requiring a reset. If I'm lucky, it'll reset itself (though this doesn't happen often - a freeze-up is more common).
The CPU temperature is typically around 51-52°C after a reset (compared to about 46°C during "normal" usage such as Web browsing). However, I'm not convinced that this is relevant as I can easily push the CPU temp to this level by running any non-graphical CPU-intensive program, and the computer will carry on quite merrily indefinitely.
I couldn't tell you what the GPU temperature on the graphics card is, I'm afraid: neither MSI CoreCenter nor SpeedFan report it.
I've tried pretty much everything with this system - I've upgraded the fans from the bog-standard ones supplied with the case, I've installed a PCI slot grille fan, I've given the AGP card its own dedicated power cable, I've vacated most of the other PCI slots, I've updated the OS, system BIOS and every driver I could lay my hands on to the most recent versions (5.13 is the most recent for my card), I've set the AGP memory to 128MB in the BIOS, I've disabled Fast Writes in the BIOS, and disabled VPU Recover in Catalyst, I turned the fan speeds up to ear-damaging levels, I even took the AGP bus speed down to 4x - all to no avail.
I'm completely stumped. I'm fast coming to the conclusion either that the graphics card is simply getting too hot and giving up whatever I might attempt to do about it, or that the card and my mainboard simply don't like one another. I'm that far from throwing in the towel and blowing a couple hundred quid on an NVidia card*, as my love affair with ATI is rapidly drawing to a close.
Any ideas?
(* Yes, I know it would be much cheaper to replace the mainboard, but I happen to like this board, and it is way too time-consuming to replace. Half a day of my free time is worth the extra money.)
Update: Today I uninstalled the Catalyst software, deleted the ATI directory, and reinstalled it. I also dug out my old Iiyama CRT to act as a secondary monitor, so I could watch CoreCenter and the Task Manager while Civ 4 was running. I duly managed to make the game crash again, and on reboot, was told that the system had crashed with the following error:
STOP 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
Unfortunately, the suggested remedies are either to update to the latest driver versions (done), or to replace the video card (ouch).
Is there any hope? Or are this card and mainboard simply Not Meant To Be? Should I go with NVidia instead? Or complain to MSI or ATI? Or have I missed something really painfully obvious?
