Whenever I try to play semi-high to high resource games like Counter-Strike: Source and World of Warcraft, my computer has a tendency to lock up. I'm not sure what caused this, but even after reformatting my computer with a fresh install of Windows XP I continue to get this problem.

If anyone can help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Specs
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2100+ @1.733GHz
Memory: 0.99GB DDR SDRAM
Video: PNY NVIDIA GeForce 5 FX 5200
Motherboard: Unknown (HP Pavillion 524w crap >.>)

I know, my computer is out of date -- but it's all I have at the moment. And my harddrive is a Seagate w/ 111GB of storage.

Try a memory manager, Download and install Ram idle LE. http://download.softpedia.com/dl/892...k/ramidlLE.exe

and try a lower resolution when playing. Hope this helps.

I don't know what a memory manager could possibly do, but it started doing this after I set Counter-Strike: Source to high priority to up my performance a little bit. It's very annoying though. I play on a 1024x768 resolution on everything with medium to low settings, except on cs 1.6 i go max because my computer can handle it... but... yeah, it's very annoying and I need help to fix it.

I'm getting a new computer within a month but I want my current computer to work fine until then.

im pretty sure its your card

Haha, you make me laugh. I tried another FX 5200 + a MX 440 and got the same problem, it's my CPU or Memory.

If you have two RAM modules, try removing one and then substitute the other in the same #1 slot. See if one or the other is causing the problem.

I already tried that, yet no luck. I have one 1GB DDR Stick of RAM and Memory Slot 1 doesn't show up on my BIOS.

I have the following under the RAM area of my bios

Memory Slot 0 - 1024 Megabytes of RAM
---

You have to slots of memory.

I moved the 1gb stick to "Memory Slot 1" and it would past the POST anymore.

I moved it back, still have my problems -- also I lost my sound too.

lock up how?

you can play wow on that thing?

It just completely locks up, my computer comes to a complete halt and starts moving again after about 10-20 seconds.

Yes, I was able to before this problem.

Also, Vista seems to detect it as a driver that stops responding. I've tried reinstalling my drivers, but came up with the error "NVIDIA Cannot find any devices compatible with this software."

Very strange. Wish I could fix this, but none the less I'm working on getting a brand new computer built from scratch. I want this to be able to play my games fine until I get my new computer, though!

And vista with wireless on fps games is a nightmare, It lags like crazy.

*EDIT*: My memory issue is cleared up now. I have my sound, my only issue as of now is my graphics device locking up. I can now use 2 sticks of RAM instead of one. I upgraded to 2gb of memory seeing as I'm on Vista now and WoW:WotLK recommends 2gb of RAM on vista. This is quite annoying what my video card does.

On Counter-Strike: Source the only map I can play on without my video card giving out and "refreshing" itself is a custom one named "build_texture_v5" which is almost completely empty. It's just some walls that rise about 500 units and a floor that's about 50000 units. I'm not sure if I can play any other maps. I've tried most of the texture maps. I really need to get back in the game for my clan on there too.

If anyone can help me figure out what's wrong with my graphics device, it would be a delight.

*EDIT2*:
"It won't have any of the problems Windows XP had" -Bill Gates
What a liar. LOL

Whats your heat at?

Is that card a agp pci pci-e?

Seeing as the minimum requ for wow is a 6800 nvidia card your cutting it pretty close.

If I was you I would not use vista on that rig. Vista is much more demanding resource wise, most games minimum ram requirement doubles when ran on vista.

Normally my temp is around 45C, when gaming around 55C.

It's a PCI card.

And I know I'm cutting it close on WoW, but I set my settings all the way down to almost no flare in WoW using /console commands. I use vista for the eye candy.

CSS = 512 MB on Vista, 256 on XP. So I'm good for that.

I figured out that it is the card itself (tested in another half-decent computer that belongs to a friend of mine who also plays css and got the same results that I had on my computer) so I started another post asking for recommendations for a temporary replacement until I have the chance to build my next machine.

Here's a pic of the error I get after Counter-Strike locks and I exit the game.



As I said before, it's not the drivers. I tried numerous versions of the fx series drivers. I've tried 2 diff computers. I always get this problem.

lol how big is ur psu ?