Progress made on fullscreen apps crashing out.

[Spike]

I've made a little progress in the above respect, but my knowledge doesn't stretch far enough to know which direction to look in next.

I had a problem with my fullscreen apps, such as games, just shutting down unexpectedly without error messages or hanging, nor any message in the event log. They would just dissapear.

This developed into the entire computer powering off completely, with the exception of the power light. No fans... Nothing.

I couldn't get out of this by restoring my system from an image, which had all my drivers installed (including an old version of the forceware), even after I replaced my Gforce 440MX AGP graphics card, with my old Voodoo5 PCI card.

Since then, I have re-installed completely from my XP disc, using only my Voodoo5 PCI card. I have had no problems on that setup.

Yesterday, I tried my Geforce card again, and installed the newest forceware. My PC booted up, and powered off straight away, as expected.

I removed the geforce card, and powered up on my vodoo. I then successfully booted the pc. However, when I ran The Sims for my girlfriend both at 1024x768 and 800x600, it simply crashed out without warning, or in other words, I had the original problem again.

Happily, this time, unlike before the full re-install, I had System Restore turned on. I chose the last restore point before installing the Geforce AGP card, and now I once more have no problem at all.

Options seem to be..

1, My Geforce card is damaged
2, My AGP slot cannot supply the card with enough power, or some such failure
3, The drivers screw up my machine, which seems unlikely. They worked before.
4, After trying to use my Geforce card, something changes on a software level causing me a problem with full screen applications, as corrected by a system restore.

If anyone has any suggestions or pointers, I'd be most interested .

 

[Nodsu]

You could try turning down some AGP options in BIOS to make it run slower (and stabler). Also, try using MS drivers for your vid card or even more radical - the standard VGA ones.

 

[Spike]

I may not have been very clear in my last post. sorry.

Number 4 isn't really an option. It would seem to be a fact, that occurs in the aftermath of the original issue.

As for the drivers, to further clarify, I have used the original driver disk, the restored image, MS Windows update drivers, and the newest forceware, none of which made any difference.

What I particularly would like to query though, is what did System Restore change to repair the problem with my fullscreen apps crashing? That in particular is a complete mystery to me, and one which I would like to find the answer too. It's just one of those things that's going to bug me untill I find out, if you know what I mean.

As soon as I can afford it, I am going to buy a new mainboard anyway, but before I go buying new hardware, I would like to know whether or not I am going to need a replacement graphics card. If it's a graphics card problem, I can get a new one and delay getting a new mainboard for the moment, untill I can afford it. I'd hate to get a new mainboard only to find out that I should have bought a new card first.

As for my bios options. I only seem to have "Primary Graphics adapter (AGP/PCI) and the speed (2x/4x). The card is 8x, so was already running slowly.

I might add that for a short period, I had increased the FSB speed on my board from 133 to 143, after which I had no problems untill about 4 or 5 weeks later, when all this started.

I mean, If I need new parts, I need new parts, but I see this to be an opportunity to learn something about hardware/software interaction, and general troubleshooting. I mean, if you can solve a problem straight away, you don't really learn anything. When you can't solve it....

 

[vassil3427]

Try the card in another pc.

 

[Goalie]

Okie... problem #1 would be to run dxdiag and run the full suite of tests, DirectX is known for being a <censored> little <censored censored censored CENSORED censored>.

My computer does much the same, and I recently determined that it was an issue of the ram having a stuck bit, and the bios trying to run the ram too fast. Try loading failsafe values in your bios, continue as normal and see if that helps. Also try memtest86 for a few hours, see i fyou have any stuck bits.

Finally, little known secret.. there's this file somewhere called faultlog. It might contain clues.

Hope this helps....