Freezing when playing games - mobo issue??

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Brighter Hell

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Okay at first I thought this was an overheating problem, now I'm convinced it's the motherboard. This was mentioned in the thread about spontaneous rebooting but I figured it warranted its own thread. My computer (XP 1600+, ASUS A7A266 board) has a habit of freezing up, with the sound looping, after a while of playing games. it used to do it whenever i was doing anything that generates much heat, like watching videos, playing games, or even burning CDs. The CPU was in the high 60s C when this was happening. I went out and bought some thermal paste and the CPU temp dropped by 10 C. Problem solved, right? Nope! Now, when I'm playing a game (GTA3 specifically), the same thing happens. It happens only when I have the side of the case on so it's a couple degrees hotter than with it off - up to 54 C or so, which is well under what the computer idled at before I put the thermal paste on! The CPU's now sitting at 52 C.

So, can anyone verify that this is a motherboard issue? Thanks!
 
I installed CPUIdle and it didn't do anything to cool the CPU down. The CPU's at 51 C and the MB is at 35. Same as always. I haven't had a chance to run Hot CPU Tester for the full 6 hours that it's supposed to run. It's run through the tests once though and didn't have any errors. Same deal with the memtest.

I thought it might be a driver conflict so I installed the latest nvidia drivers for my video card. Didn't help.
 
Click Start,Run and type MSCONFIG then press OK
Check what programs are in the startup, one of them must be constantly running and using loads of CPU-time.
Physically disconnect from the Internet and temporarily switch off your Firewall and Anti-Virus software. Check the temp. again
 
Yesterday the computer froze again, only this time the only things I had open were a couple Internet Explorer windows. That's never happened before.

I downloaded msconfig (I'm running Windows 2000) and here's what it shows:
msconfig_1.jpg


msconfig_2.jpg


Which of the above might be using up all that CPU-time? I really don't know what that QuickTime thing's doing in there. Windows 2000 is in the D drive and the files and programs are in the E drive.

I ran Hot CPU Tester (Lite) overnight for the full 17 tests. No errors. I'll do the same thing with the memtest tonight. Another thing I did was delete everything in the Start menu - Programs - Startup. And disconnecting the internet and disabling the anti-virus made no difference in temperature.
 
Your PC is very Symantec/Norton heavy. They are enormous resource hoggers (and Symantec is my personal pet-hate).
If you need an AV/Firewall suite, there are 2 possibilities: go for McAfee instead of Norton/Symantec or go the free route: AVG from www.grisoft.com or better: Antivir from www.hbedv.com
Firewall: Zonealarm or Sygate Personal if you want a bit more info.

You should stop QTTASK, not needed.
Look up how to de-activate MOBSYNC. This is an unnecessary pain in the proverbial.

I don't know what UPDREG/REGSHAVE/LOADQM/SAVE and NWIZ do, they are not part of W2K and look suspicious to me.

Have you run a full virusscan, Adaware and Spybot run?
 
you can get rid of LOADQM. it's microsoft query manager or something but you don't need it. i think UPDREG comes with audigy cards to remind people to register their product. definitely get rid of it if UPDREG is for Creative cards.
 
I've done everything suggested here. It still freezes. It happened twice on Saturday (I haven't been able to post until today because my internet at home is busted).
 
Could it be that your powersupply is more or less at its limit or not giving proper voltages?
Check in your BIOS, it shows you what it expects, next to what it gets.
 
Well I just got a new Enermax 450 W power supply so that shouldn't be the problem! Besides, the same thing was happening when I still had the old one. I checked the BIOS, here's what it shows:

Vcore: 1.7 V
+3.3: between 3.3 and 3.4 V
+5 : 4.9-5.0 V
+12: 12.1-12.2 V
+3VSB: 3.3-3.4 V
+5VSB: 5.1 V
 
you say it only happens while the side of the case is on, and only in games. This points to the video card possibly overheating. Check the HSF on the vid card.
 
Actually it's happened a couple times without any games running. And it's happened playing a game, side of the case off, and a portable fan blowing directly into the case. The video card is an old Geforce2. The heat sink does get pretty hot. I plan on replacing it soon anyway. Speaking of which, now that the X800 is out, aren't prices on existing cards supposed to be dropping any time now?

edit - okay I may have to wait a couple weeks...they're selling but nobody's actually got them in stock yet...
 
Please.. OH PLEASE get rid of that save.exe crap.

While I've not experienced problems with games specifically, I have had many instances where save.exe would totally freeze the computer while working with Windows or applications.

When you actually start seeing spyware / adware loading with your computer in MSCONFIG, it's time to run some anti-spyware software for sure.

www.safer-networking.org
www.ad-aware.com

Make sure you update the detection references to their latest ones.
 
nwiz is an nvidia utility and regshave is installed with fujifilm digital camera software. I've disabled both (and save.exe along with other spyware) and the problem seems to be solved. Thanks for the suggestions guys.
 
Update... the problem's still there and as bad as ever. It doesn't happen when I'm playing games, it just happens completely randomly. It happened twice yesterday and once already today, when I was doing nothing at all. Everything unchecked in msconfig startup except the anti-virus and firewall, and no programs running. Once or twice Kazaa lite was running. The system was on overnight and this morning when I went to move the mouse, no response. It could have been frozen for hours.

I'm stumped.
 
Sound Card Drivers . . . .

Many times it is sound card drivres.

Kaza is basically junk. It is very dangerous to run it on your computer. I have a valid distrust of anything you download.

I do often run adware 6 which usually finds lots of evil adware. You can download it from www.lavasoft.com. Mostly it will find a lot of tracking cookies, which I always delete.

When playing games I recommend having all IM and other programs that run in the background turned off.

I have this motherboard at home and it seems to heat up easily with my 1.2 gig Athlon (Pre XP Athlon). I have had to clean out the dust from the processor cooler a few times.

Look at the processor cooler to make sure it is not full of dust. If it is get a can of compressed air and blow it out.
 
Are there any good p2p's that don't have spyware? Does kazaa lite (as opposed to full kazaa) have spyware?

The CPU cooler isn't the problem, I just cleaned it out recently. The motherboard temperature is pretty much stable. Maybe I'll try finding some updated drivers for my sound card - it's an SB Live! 5.1, a pretty common card so I never thought its drivers might be causing a problem. But doing that will have to wait because I'm taking off for the long weekend!
 
Not so long ago KaZaa lite was still availale. If you look around you might still find one mirror or another *cough*google*cough*

Other then that, you have eDonkey/eMule/Overnet, then DirectConnect & then there's Bittorent.

There are a lot more but those are the main ones. Do some research on google to find more info on those different applications.
 
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