A haunting problem

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Nom4d

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A haunting problem (Sound/Audio problem .. I think)

Greetings one and all,

I have a problem that has been haunting me for about 2 or maybe 3 years. (Yes I am very lazy). I have replaced most components in that span of time so I am kind of desperate right about now.

Well, first off perhaps a list of my hardware:

Mainboard: Asus A7V8X-X

Memory: 2 memory banks:
333mhz 512Mb DDR
400mhz 512Mb DDR

Proccesor: AMD Athlon 3000+
(Not overclocked) running at 46 degree Celcius when idle and about 50 to 55 when intensely used.

Videocard: XFX 6800 GT 256mb

Soundcard: Creative SB Live! 5.1 Platinum Sound Card

Power Supply: Sweex 650 Watt.

Hmm, hope that that will suffice.

This is my problem:
Like I said this has been a problem that has been persistend for quite a while. This happens during most games (Not all, but a lot) I will just be sitting there playing my game then WHAM The image freezes (Like only that last frame presented on my screen) and the sound I hear is a very fast loop of the last sound I heard. Mostly this sounds like Trrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

There is nothing I can do at that point. No Alt-Tab, no Ctrl-alt-Del. Nothing, only reset.

Things I have replaced, and the problem continued:
New power supply
New Video Card
New Mainboard and Proccesor (I believe, not entirely sure)
New Memory (First replaced 256Mb DDR with 512 and recently added another 512)

Well, this is about the most information I can give about the problem. Now somebody, please .. help. :dead:

Thanks in advance,

Nom4d

edit: Somewhat more readable now ;)
 
First, are you using both the 333MHz and the 400MHz memory at the same time? In older computers you could mix memory but not so now. I believe this mobo like Dual channel memory. A match set would be a good idea. Second, the video card might be overheating. I have seen this happen a lot. I had to buy a TAC (Thermally Advantaged Chassis) for a newer Intel chip. It helped cool the case to acceptable levels. The temp. was fine until I put a GeForce 6600GT in the box.
Good Luck
 
:wave: Hello & Welcome to TechSpot :wave:

There can be several causes to your problem, but luckily you've eliminated one of them... It is highly unlikely that it's the memory.

It can be the soundcard drivers, as creative aren't exactly known for the quality of their drivers.

It can also be the videocard drivers. Try running the latest betas, or if you're running them already, try the latest WHQL drivers.

It can also be a bug in the game you're trying to play...

I've got a similar problem with the latest delta force demo, and it seems to be the game that's the cause, as it only happens when I approach one specific part of the map...

Can you narrow down the problem to specific circumstances in the games, you should report it to the creator of the game with your specs...

Also, make sure you've got all the latest patches for your os and the games...

You might also want to look into if there are any graphics settings that could be causing the problem... Try setting everything to the lowest and then increasing each of them back up until the problem reoccurs...

Sorry I can't tell you "install this and untick that setting and everything will be fine"...
 
Heh, Thank you for the welcome.

Well, I will certainly try to at least update all the drivers. And I think I will have to take a good look at the soundcard. (It has been giving me some problems in multiple OSes including SuSE and RedHat a while back (Windows XP now again though)

I doubt it would be the videocard overheating but I will take a look into that as well (It's brand new and sometimes does this to me on even somewhat older or simpler games)

As for one specefic game, I am very sure that that is not the case since it does this to me on about a hundred games.

Well, thank you for the advice and all. I'll report back and tell you how it worked out.
 
Ok, well I didn't mean a single game, but rather if there were certain places in the games that would cause the problem. It could for instance be a texture or shader, or a certain sound file, that is first used in that area and that causes the problem..

Does the problematic games use DX or OpenGL? If it is just DX or OGL, then it could be a problem with that driver file/part of the driver package...

Also, do you have the same problem when using the onboard sound on your mobo?

GoAvalanche> Would you mind posting a few links to your sources that you can not mix memory sticks? As I've not heard of that being a general problem before...
 
Well, you read my mind with the on-board soundcard thing. I'm in the middle of testing that. (Now where are my damn drivers :p)

The DirectX and OpenGL difference is a good point. I haven't really payed attention to that.

The rest of your suggestions I have to exclude. It's mostly just really random. Could be when I'm playing a game for an hour could be after 5 minutes.

Anyway. Back to driver hunting (Since the Asus site if FUBARed)

Once again, thanks.

PS. Keep them suggestions comming :p
 
Would you mind posting (some of) the list of games which aren't working?
Then it'd be easier to see if we can find any similar problems and solutions..
And it'll make for a more complete thread for others with similar problems either to find a solution in, or contribute with their findings...
 
Will do.
Well, the games I am sure that are giving me problems at times would be:

Unreal Tournament 2004 (Also most Unreal engine based games ;))
X2: The Threat
NeverWinter Nights
Juiced
(And a lot more which I can't really remember)

Edit:
And currently trying the memtest.
 
Ok, I have the results of the memtest:
There were some errors on one of the memory banks. (3 to be exact)
I'm going to pull one of the banks out tonight and run the memtest again to see which one of the 2 is "corrupt".

I'm lucky though, memory is on sale here at the moment. Ah well. We'll see.

Going to see if the problem persists with the corrupt memory out. Will report back with my findings.
 
If your memory fix doesn't work (or before you replace it), you might want to remove the creative sound card and run off of the builtin audio from your motherboard to eliminate the sound card as the source of your problem. Of course, you'll need to replace the sound drivers.

Good Luck!
 
I've been having exactly the same problem, and guess what. One stick of 256 PC2100, One stick of PC2700. This thread is also going to help me, I reckon it's the memory, even if one stick is corrupt, there'll be a difference anyway because there will only be one stick and nottwo interfering with each othe. Looks like this thread will be a help to me too!

GIgabyte 7VM400M-RZ
Athlon XP 2400
256 mb PC2100
512 mb PC2700
Sapphire Radeon 9800PRO
onboard sound
 
Ah .. good to hear that this will be usefull for you as well.

Well, it does seem to be a ram problem over here as well.
I suggest you try the memtest that is posted in one of the above posts.
And for the lazy like myself: http://www.memtest.org

Like I said, there were some errors during the test. Last night I pulled out the oldest of the two (The 512 333Mhz) and let the memtest do it's thing again. It made 6 complete passes, no errors whatsoever.

So I ordered myself a new one and see how that works out.

But it doesn't seem related to the speed of the thing though. But you might want to test your ram to see if there is anything wrong anyway. (Didn't expect my mem. to be corrupt over here either)

Good luck.
 
Ran it, though not for very long, 0 Errors, i'm going to run it again for longer though
 
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