Computer freezes while playing games, clueless as to how to fix it

[pobble]

First post! *waves to techspot forum people*

Anyway, I built myself a new computer about 4 months ago, which has worked without any problems untill about 3 days ago. It now completely freezes whenever i try to play any sort of intensive game on it (e.g. crysis or medieval 2). The freeze generally occours a few minutes into gameplay, and the sound will loop like a broken CD and also screech at me (i can post a horrible quality phone-camera video on youtube if that helps).

The first time this happened, i was linked to a microsoft website which mentioned that it may be my CPU, Motherboard, RAM or PSU. I haven't seen an error message since

I have tried swapping power supplies (both are 500w), and i've also removed the RAM sticks and tested each one seperately. I've also run memtest86+ which found nothing.

My CPU generally runs at about 20 - 25 degrees C (it's currently running at 14), and my graphics card runs at about 80 (which is apparently normal for a 8800gtx). I've also tried swapping out the graphics card to no avail.

I've also tried removing my sound card, disabling onboard sound, reinstalling drivers for sound & graphics.

I really don't know what to do next, or how to fix this... Please help me before I throw my computer into the sea!

Cheers.

System:
E6850 CORE 2 DUO 3GHz
Asus P5K-E Motherboard
2 gig of DDR2 Geil RAM (PC6400)
MSI GeForce 8800GTX
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
2 x 500gig Western Digital Sata drives

 

[Tmagic650]

You have done all the proper troubleshooting... now what? Motherboard?

 

[pobble]

I really don't know... motherboard temperatures are pretty normal. I'm starting to think it may be my cpu, since running intel's Thermal Analysis Tool causes a freeze after a couple of minutes.

It's also getting much worse, i can no longer render in 3dmax (which is really bad with some 3D work due in 6 days) and games last half as long before crashing.
I'll try swapping the CPU for an older one, so then it has to be the motherboard?

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Bruce2]

It doesn't make sense to me that your CPU is running at as low as 14C. What type of CPU cooler are you using? The problem sounded like something is overheat due to the malfunction temperature senses which cause the fan not to turn on while they needed to.

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes that CPU temp is way too low, except maybe for water cooling The temp sensor must be FUBAR

 

[blindFX]

i had the same problem too moments ago,
would just freeze when running "Lost Planet"
(even on lowest settings & resolution),
i got the latest driver for my 8800 gtx from nvidia
and that solved it for me.

btw, "Lost Planet" makes my 8800 gtx
run at 96 celcius (maxed out settings)
even with the fan running at 100%. Thats like
10-15 celcius higher than other games eg: Oblivion

 

[Aolish]

First post! *waves to techspot forum people*

Anyway, I built myself a new computer about 4 months ago, which has worked without any problems untill about 3 days ago. It now completely freezes whenever i try to play any sort of intensive game on it (e.g. crysis or medieval 2). The freeze generally occours a few minutes into gameplay, and the sound will loop like a broken CD and also screech at me (i can post a horrible quality phone-camera video on youtube if that helps).

The first time this happened, i was linked to a microsoft website which mentioned that it may be my CPU, Motherboard, RAM or PSU. I haven't seen an error message since

I have tried swapping power supplies (both are 500w), and i've also removed the RAM sticks and tested each one seperately. I've also run memtest86+ which found nothing.

My CPU generally runs at about 20 - 25 degrees C (it's currently running at 14), and my graphics card runs at about 80 (which is apparently normal for a 8800gtx). I've also tried swapping out the graphics card to no avail.

I've also tried removing my sound card, disabling onboard sound, reinstalling drivers for sound & graphics.

I really don't know what to do next, or how to fix this... Please help me before I throw my computer into the sea!

Cheers.

System:
E6850 CORE 2 DUO 3GHz
Asus P5K-E Motherboard
2 gig of DDR2 Geil RAM (PC6400)
MSI GeForce 8800GTX
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
2 x 500gig Western Digital Sata drives

it sounds like you pretty much did all the troubleshooting you could do minus cpu and mobo. When you say you reinstalled drivers, your saying you used the same one or used different ones? If not try using a different driver. One that is dated back more then 1 or 2 months, same goes with sound card drivers. And make sure you get rid of every nook and cranny of old vid card drivers as much as possible before using an older version.

 

[pobble]

Sorry for the lack of response, my computer stopped booting windows! The CPU is cooled by a giant thermaltake fan (last time i used intel cooling my cpu exploded), and it does reach 40 degrees under stress.

I just finished formatting my computer (backing up stuff in safe mode took a full day...) and got another error message, this time about BIOS. I'll try updating it before i swap out cpu's.

As for the drivers: i reinstalled the ones i had, then also got the latest ones and installed them afterwards. I made sure to run drivercleaner, so there shouldn't be any problems there.

Update:
reformatting and a bios update seems to have fixed it for now... so i'll try out some games next week when i have time.

 

[marryson]

you know what, i had the same problem and it pissed me off so much. (built my own computer, freeze when playing games rarly happens when not playing a game. when it freezes, the speaker sounds horrible.. etc) but since I upgraded my BIOS to the newest release, everything is fixed, so you might wanna try that, dunno if it works for you, but it works for me and sounds like we had the same problem. so...... gl !! let me kno if it works

 

[pobble]

you know what, i had the same problem and it pissed me off so much. (built my own computer, freeze when playing games rarly happens when not playing a game. when it freezes, the speaker sounds horrible.. etc) but since I upgraded my BIOS to the newest release, everything is fixed, so you might wanna try that, dunno if it works for you, but it works for me and sounds like we had the same problem. so...... gl !! let me kno if it works

Bit of an old thread, but i should give an update
upgrading the bios & reformatting worked for a time, but the computer eventually got the same problem.

Strangely, upgrading to vista solved the problem. I think it may have been a virus or hacking or... i dunno, something strange with xp?

 

[remonvb]

Wow, you have exactly the same problem as I have.

I bought a new pc last week.

My pc also completly freezes when I play games like WoW, Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Gears of War or CoD4. This is realy annoying.

I tought about changing my power supply but I guess thats not needed. I guess ill install vista and see how it goes.

System:
AMD 64 6400+
Asus MVA-VM hdmi Motherboard
2 gig of DDR2 Corsair RAM
ASUS 8800GTS 512MB
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
1 x 500gig Western Digital Sata drives

 

[Christofski]

Me too same problem as posted in my thread, execpt the game dosen't totally freeze it just kinda stutters and the sound loops for a few seconds every few seconds and my PC is brand new

I got an ASUS 8800 GT 2 gig of ram and an AMD 64 6400 as well.
maybe its somthing to do with the brand? I dunno im downloading all the latest drivers to try and solve the issue, its a really big pain in the ****.

I too have dreamt of throwing my PC into the sea, cause right now its just a pricy paper weight!

 

[ISPEED]

freeze

the latest forceware drivers from nvidia (174.74 beta) are buggy i installed them 2 days ago and computer is crashing while playing crysis old drivers were good never crashed once. try 169.25 drivers these seem to work fine i am running a 8800 GTX on a C2D machine