Shutdown

[Richie]

Hey Extremists,

Ok, the problem is when the computer is put under stress it decides to freeze up.

like if i play music and it freezes it will say the same 1second thing over and over again like " hey hows it going going going going going going going going "etc
This usually happens if im playing games(playing the game with winamp playing in the backround), or using Fusion HDTV to watch tv, il usually have a browser open in the backround, maybe winamp not playing anything, and it will just freeze, the screen goes black.

As the screen went black instead of just stalling the same image like normal freezes - i thought this was a Video card problem, so i got the Vantec Iceberg PRo cooler for this Ti 4600 card and it just happened to me then. - So ive got the new Cooler and 4 heat shimms installed on the memory on the bottom of the card ( facing the pci cards )

I'm not sure what is causing this so i wasn't sure what forum to put this on so feel free to move it if this is inaproppirately placed.

Please help me out :toast:
Kind regards,
Richie.

[nstabl]

is anything overclocked on the system?

[Richie]

not at the moment, and it just did it about 20 minutes ago :confused:

[Special_K]

can you give us some more info pls?

are you running XP x64 with latest whql dets (71.84) by any chance?



the reason K ask, is cos something quiet similar (although not as extreme as yours) happens every now and then on this config =/



*edit* ahh, erm . . . judging by your sig you aren't 64bit are you?

[J-Mag]

What PSU are you running?

Have you measured the temps on yoru card during load?

Just to be on the safe side, i would run memtest and prime95 and see if you get errors...

[Richie]

Running windows XP service pack 2
an no im not 64 .. :p

im running a Antec Trueblue 480w PSU.

and yeah i've got the digidock thermal sensors on video card/ case temp / cpu temp
the CPU rarely gets to 50 degrees - my room has to be HOT... and ive got lots of case fans etc.
I've also got a Vantec Iceberg Pro cooler with the heat shimms on memory...

[oublie]

Hey Extremists,

Ok, the problem is when the computer is put under stress it decides to freeze up.

like if i play music and it freezes it will say the same 1second thing over and over again like " hey hows it going going going going going going going going "etc
This usually happens if im playing games(playing the game with winamp playing in the backround), or using Fusion HDTV to watch tv, il usually have a browser open in the backround, maybe winamp not playing anything, and it will just freeze, the screen goes black.

As the screen went black instead of just stalling the same image like normal freezes - i thought this was a Video card problem, so i got the Vantec Iceberg PRo cooler for this Ti 4600 card and it just happened to me then. - So ive got the new Cooler and 4 heat shimms installed on the memory on the bottom of the card ( facing the pci cards )

I'm not sure what is causing this so i wasn't sure what forum to put this on so feel free to move it if this is inaproppirately placed.

Please help me out :toast:
Kind regards,
Richie.

Hi,

This is probably not precisely hardware related as ive seen similar things happen on all sorts of systems i've owned anything from old athlons to my last rig, its more likely to be a driver / application related issue. i found that if you had too many apps open at once all demanding both memory and cpu resources, it can cause problems, the best option is to ensure you have the latest sound and video drivers etc, if your using an intel cpu enable hyperthreading and use task manager for a little while when not playing games just to see what load is on the processor and memory i.e. is your system paging a lot and if so how much of the pagefile is being used. sometimes i you have a lot of tasks all polling for cpu time etc the other can hang causing all sorts of mayhem! It shouldnt happen but it does moreso with games i would guess.

Basically its a funny sort of problem, i've had it myself and resolved it somehow through trial and error, but the above was what i did.

[Richie]

lol this may sound stupid, but how do you know if your PC is paging alot?? and how much of the page file is being used?

I'm running an Amd Athlon XP Barton (as in my sig) so hyperthreading wont be an issue...

im also using the latest video card drivers from the Asus website. i might have to check up for the latest sound card drivers.

Also if i get another stick of ram alike the others to have 1.5g's of ram would this help?? or your thinking its more like a software related problem.

Kind regards,
Richie.

[oublie]

Dont get more ram mate unless you really have to, 1 gig is normally enuf.

the simplest method of checking for paging is if your hd light is on a lot when your playing games and listend to music etc at the same time. Also in the control panel, go to Administrative tools / Performance and from here you can add all sorts of counter to monitor system performance such as pages/sec hard disk i/o number of threads running memory usage etc etc. Youll want to set up a few counter, dont go mad and switch them all on only the specific ones you need to use - might take a little experimentation.
Hope this helps :)

[Richie]

ah ok thats for your help mate, i checked out the performace tool in administrative tools, and just browsing forums etc, it averages around 45ish, and one when i loaded about 8 pages it went to 100 :O

i think this is a bad thing, because if it stresses out over websites, i can imagine it would have a greater impact watching live high definition television on my computer :(

so you were saying you can tweak it by adding a counter? how do i do this exactly?

i went to the button that says ' new counter set ' and it just made another graph, can you can choose what it monitors, but im not sure how this will help?

could you please help me out again ? :P
kind regards,
Richie.

EDIT: Argh, it's starting to do it more frequently at the moment, it's shocking.
i load up Counter Strike and it will get into the game and then freeze, or just loading the game in steam it froze last time.

People PLEASE help me out :stick: :confused:

[oublie]

ah ok thats for your help mate, i checked out the performace tool in administrative tools, and just browsing forums etc, it averages around 45ish, and one when i loaded about 8 pages it went to 100 :O

i think this is a bad thing, because if it stresses out over websites, i can imagine it would have a greater impact watching live high definition television on my computer :(

so you were saying you can tweak it by adding a counter? how do i do this exactly?

i went to the button that says ' new counter set ' and it just made another graph, can you can choose what it monitors, but im not sure how this will help?

could you please help me out again ? :P
kind regards,
Richie.

EDIT: Argh, it's starting to do it more frequently at the moment, it's shocking.
i load up Counter Strike and it will get into the game and then freeze, or just loading the game in steam it froze last time.

People PLEASE help me out :stick: :confused:

Hi,

First of all you cannot tweak it by adding a counter, but this will show you if it is pageing a lot. From what you've said, it sounds like it is. Now there are a few things you can do about this, Ill try and give as much info as i can from memory.

1. Check you memory usage including pagefile usage when your machine is in its maxed out state i.e. running music, video, games etc etc. Look at how much pagefile is being used and change that to your minimum page file size in your advanced system settings.

2. If you have more than one hard disk in your machine or if the disk is partioned, move the pagefile to a seperate disk than your windows install.

e.g. c: windows install
d: put the pagefile here
e: dvd /cd rom drive

3. It is possible to defragment the pagefile, ive never done it myself but if you do a google on degragment pagefile and have a read it may help.

4. defrag your drive and have a look at what services are running, you may be able to improve things by stoppig / diableing some of the xp services hence freeing some ram. eg if you dont have a printer there is no point in having the printspooler service running :)

hope this help, pm me if you need any more info.

[Richie]

thanks alot for that mate - ive got a couple of questions so il send you a pm now :)

I should also add, yesturday my system shutdown when SHUTING DOWN!

eg, Windows is shutting down with the blue screen and it froze!! so i had to manually hold down power button to turn off.

[Richie]

hey again extremeists,

one step closer to resolving the solution...

my sound was getting a bit crackly, then the computer froze,

so then when it booted up, the headphones were working, and the speakers werent , curious?

then i unplugged the speakers ( unplugging heaphones ) and plugged the speakers into the headphone jack, and the computer froze!

So i now believe that this shutdown problem is being brought on by the sound card...

this would kind of make scence, as it is about 2 - 4 years old, (Sb Live! ) and i thrash it kinda hard as i listen to music alot and watch videos/ play games etc.

So ive just bid on a second hand sb live from a local forum and i'l see how that fairs.

has anyone else had this problem? and would it sound to you that my shutdowns are sound card related??

[oublie]

hey again extremeists,

one step closer to resolving the solution...

my sound was getting a bit crackly, then the computer froze,

so then when it booted up, the headphones were working, and the speakers werent , curious?

then i unplugged the speakers ( unplugging heaphones ) and plugged the speakers into the headphone jack, and the computer froze!

So i now believe that this shutdown problem is being brought on by the sound card...

this would kind of make scence, as it is about 2 - 4 years old, (Sb Live! ) and i thrash it kinda hard as i listen to music alot and watch videos/ play games etc.

So ive just bid on a second hand sb live from a local forum and i'l see how that fairs.

has anyone else had this problem? and would it sound to you that my shutdowns are sound card related??

Hi Richie,

Sorry to hear my little tweaks didnt resolve your problem mate, a problem is not always as obvious as it first looks. Still you should have a little more performance if nothing else. Never had a problem with a sound card b4, sounds like its knackered, hope the new card works out for you. I would guess (and this is only a guess) that if you had an electrical fault on you sound card then yes it could cause shutdowns as it would be sending dodgy signals to the motherboard through the pci slot.

[Richie]

hey again mate

i replaced the card and it still froze!

so back to square 1 :( any other ideas fellas?

[Richie]

People, the computer is STILL freezing :mad: even playing games like red alert 2 it freezes!!

anyway my heat spreaders for the rame arrived today, and i installed them and went for the OC :D

i got 2.39 ghz out of my 3000+ barton, still trying to break the 2.4ghz barrier on air.

i did 12 x 200 @ 1.7 volts and read as 2.39 ghz :D

this is on air by the way, as im fairly new to overclocking this was good for me

and im sure you extremists with watercooling etc could get more out of it but im pretty happy :toast:

when the computer decides to be stable again, im going to try and break the 2.4 barrier :clap:



EDIT: ok as i was playing around in bios, i underclocked the CPU to see if it was stable.

Using stock volts 1.65v - 13 x 160 = 2.08ghz ( stock 2.17 ghz ) it runs great!

red alert 2 didnt crash, and im going to give it a test of high def TV to see if it freezes.

Meanwhile - has anyone encountered this? and have any idea how to fix it?