COD4 crashes PC

[coRpSE]

Okay, here is a problem that has been giving me a headache for about 8 months now. Here are my PC spec's before I go into details.

OS: Windows XP
Version 5.1.2600 Service pack 3 Build 2600
Mobo: MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum
Ram: 4GB
Hard Drives: 149 GB and 115 GB
GFX card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core Processor 5200+ 2.6GHz
Power Supply; 850 Watt

Okay, here is a description of my problem. Then i will tell you what I have done thus far.

When I built this PC, I was playing games such as Enemy Territory QuakeWars with no problems, then I bought COD4 and for about 4 months I had no issues. Then I started having random crashes in the middles of the game. What I mean by crashes is the game would lock up, the screen would become distorted, and the sound would loop at a very high rate and volume louder then it should be, and that would last for between 3 - 10 seconds, then the that was it. I couldn't do anything. Only thing I could do was a hard shut down and restart. It only happened with COD4, but none of the other games I played.

Well, after talking to one of my PC guys I am friends with, we started a check list of possiable errors and asked over at the IW forums about this to see if anyone else had this issue. Well we ended up testing the power supply and that was confermed that it was starting to go, so I upgraded it from a 700 watt to 850 watt and then upgraded my graphics card to a 9800 GT to replace the 8600 GT OC I had. Went and played and I went about 3 days with no crashing then it did it again. This time we looked at the RAM and removed them and ran each individually and then ran MemTest to test the ram. Everything was good.

After that we looked into the HD's so we used another program to test the HD's and everything checked out OK. Then we tested the CPU and everything looked right. Now I bet your thinking, did I check if I had the drivers up to date. The answer is yes, I went and upgraded all the updated drivers, (still wishing there was a program that could detect what drivers you need and fetch them for you).

Then we though it could be a faulty GFX card, which got me wondering why only COD4 and now QuakeWars or FrountLines, Fuel of War. But I ran the GFX testing program that came with Nvidia and everything checked out okay. I have uninstalled and reinstalled COD4, I also have reinstalled XP with still no luck. I am not sure where to go from now. Sometimes I can play 3 - 6 hours with no problems, and sometime I can only play 10 min before it crashes and locks up.

Any Idea's?

 

[Adhmuz]

Well the only thing you did not list is your motherboard, seeing as how you have checked everything else maybe your motherboard is on the fritz. If its possible try a different board, something I know may be a little bit harder to do but it is the only thing you did not test.

Also the power supply upgrade IMO was probably unnecessary, a 700 watt would have been more than enough for your system even with the new video card. This is of course unless it truly was showing bad voltages.

One last thing I will say is check your temperatures, on as many things as you can. In my experience with CoD4 PC it would make my GPU's overheat and either cause a problem similar to what you described or my drivers would crash and bring me to desktop where they would restart and I could go back to playing the game "shrug".

 

[coRpSE]

I forgot to say that I did upgrade the mobo from the MSI K9N4 to the MSI K9N2 Platinum. Also i thought it might be the heat also so I got a large copper CPU cooler, the butterfly one which dropped the temp down about 10 degrees fahrenheit. I doubt that its the temp for I have enough fans cooling it down. As for the power upgrade, the only reason I went from 700 to 850 was because they were the same price and if I went to do another upgrade, I did not want to have to worry if I would have the power. But yes, the old one was showing bad voltages which was tested by a computer company that had the same results as us.

I have brought this PC to a few PC shops and they say everything is showing up to be fine. yet it still crashes. It got me wondering if there were any COD4 disk released that were corrupt or anything on that matter, but I doubt that for it would have been known to the public.

Like I said, this is baffling. One person brought up that it might because i am using the on-board RealTek sound and said a sound card might solve this issue. I am just unsure about that and Like to hear some opinions on this before i go spend money that I don't have since being laid off from my job.

As for the crashes, its always have to be a hard shut down, I would be happy if the game just crashed for I am getting tired of when I restart my PC, I get 2 processors tacking out my CPU usage and sometimes it takes

 

[Adhmuz]

The heat issue Im thinking is GPU related more than anything, try monitoring your GPU temperature as much as you can. This is really hard to do when your playing a game even more so when you crash, if you can plug in a second monitor and extend your desktop on to it you could have the temp monitor open on it while you game on your main screen. Give that a try, if you getting any where near 100 degrees Celsius then that could very well be your problem. Geforce cards have really bad stock coolers for the most part IMO.

 

[coRpSE]

I already have a second monitor and I will watch for that. I will let you know my findings.

 

[coRpSE]

okay,

Play today after I changed some settings and had no issues for about 2 hours, then it crashed. My gpu temp showed nothing over 84 C. My CPU was under about 85% load.

 

[Adhmuz]

Well I'm out of ideas, this really doesn't make any sense for your game to be crashing, if you have the time and patience I would suggest try to play the game on a clean OS. IE reformat and put all the latest drivers for everything and nothing else, if you have a spare HDD than it would be real easy.

 

[coRpSE]

I have already done that twice now. still same issue. And I am not looking at doing it again. I just don't know, it has me completely baffled. That's I posted here. I know I am not the only one with this issue, I know of about 20 other people with the same symptoms, and all our hardware is different. We asked over at the IW site but basically IW said your shi** out of luck. That's why I been wondering if possibly that there were some games released that were bad. Who knows. Its just really annoying.

 

[mailpup]

This might not be it but it couldn't hurt to check. Check the RAM voltages in the BIOS to make sure it is set to what your RAM requires. Sometimes the default RAM voltages from the motherboard are lower than what high performance RAM requires. It will still run at lower voltages but during high demand usage it may run out of steam, so to speak.

 

[coRpSE]

This might not be it but it couldn't hurt to check. Check the RAM voltages in the BIOS to make sure it is set to what your RAM requires. Sometimes the default RAM voltages from the motherboard are lower than what high performance RAM requires. It will still run at lower voltages but during high demand usage it may run out of steam, so to speak.

How can I tell what my ram requires?

 

[mailpup]

If it is still available, a website like Newegg gives specifications that usually include the RAM voltage. If not, then you can probably go to the manufacturer's website for the same information. You can also use freeware utilities like CPU-Z to see the voltage standard listed for your installed RAM.