Freezing while gaming

[zlojack]

I've been playing games today for the first time in a while. I've just installed a fresh Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit install and updated everything. I'm using the latest 181.22 nVidia drivers and I switch back and forth between SLI enabled and disabled depending on whether I'm gaming or folding.

I noticed that Crysis locks up almost right away. Warhead does, but takes a little longer. I've been playing FEAR and it can go for maybe 30-45 minutes, then it locks up. I'm running the fans on my GTX 285s at 80% and I think they're staying cool enough. My case airflow isn't great as it's set up for water (the blocks should be here sometime within the next week!).

So any ideas? Should I start trying other drivers?

My cards are not overclocked and my CPU+RAM overclock has passed just about every stress test to my satisfaction and I crunch 24/7.

I don't get it

[cadaveca]

Do you have Grid or GTA4?

Does the system hardlock, or just the app?

VGA overclocked? Unstable vga ram can cause this.

[WolfBane]

i had that problem and it was with my ram overclocked , set it to auto and BAM no more game lockups :)

[Squeetard]

yea, try setting your ram to 8-8-8-24-74

[zlojack]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

Do you have Grid or GTA4?

Does the system hardlock, or just the app?

VGA overclocked? Unstable vga ram can cause this.

Originally Posted by zlojack

My cards are not overclocked and my CPU+RAM overclock has passed just about every stress test to my satisfaction and I crunch 24/7.

The system hardlocks. I have to do a hard reset. No bluescreen, but things just stay on whatever game screen freezes. I suppose if it happens again, I'll wait for a while and see what happens. I also get a high pitched squeal in my headphones when this happens.

I've backed the RAM down to 1600 and the CPU to 3.8GHz so let's see what happens. I have been running 3.9GHz (206x19) and 1640MHz RAM 7-8-7-20

[SKYMTL]

Try switching to other PCI-E connectors on the HX1000.

[zlojack]

I've just relaxed the RAM to 8-8-8 and I'm going to give that a shot.

For some reason, Crysis now doesn't even want to start so I'm going to try another game and see what happens.

I just played about 20 minutes of Warhead with the 3.8 CPU and the RAM at 1600, but I like my 3.9GHz 24/7 clocks and the difference from 7-8-7 to 8-8-8 is 0.04 ns in Everest latency (ie. nothing)

[zlojack]

No luck with 8-8-8 timings with FEAR.

It froze after 10 minutes.

[cadaveca]

If the image remains, chances are it's the gpu, and hence SKY's recommendation.

there's a chance, maybe, that you DX has been corrupted, causing vga memory to not clear itself. You should be abel to confirm this by going back to stock...issues? Re-install DX, but please do this AFTER removing vga drivers...before re0installing vga drivers, update DX, then install vga drivers.

If that should fail, then I'd look at an OS install.

Image onscreen points to vga issues, IMHO.

[Eagle Eye]

Zlojack, for arguments sake back off your overclock a tad, Cyrsis is pretty sensitive due to its notoriously bad coding and it will crash even on the most stable of overclocks. In my experience this has usually solved the problem and don't worry about a major performance hit, as we all know Crysis doesn't seem to respond much to even the fastest system out there.

Regards,

EE

[zlojack]

I rejigged the OC. Instead of 206x19 I went to 196x20 and that seems to have worked for a while with no crashing.

The other thing I did was turn the fans up to 100% instead of 80%. I know my airflow is crap so maybe even 80% wasn't enough on the cards.

I'll give it a good run when I get home from dinner and see what happens.

EE, I understand the Crysis thing, but Warhead seems fine while FEAR is the game that's freezing on me right now. Crysis wouldn't start so I uninstalled it.

I'm also going to try what Dave says and check out my DX. With all these different games trying to install DX, that could be a problem too. I know FEAR won't install unless you install DX9c with it.

PS: Thanks to all who've chimed in to help so far!

[zlojack]

Bleh...

The 20 multi is definitely not an option. 3.9GHz 206x19 is stable in any test I throw at it. 196x20 crashes during the first five LinX runs. I'm going to try 186x21 now.

[zlojack]

Ok...triple post here.

Looks like the RAM might have been the culprit. Just did an hour at 186x21 with no problems.

[zlojack]

I'm an idiot.

My HDMI cable wasn't plugged in all the way on my monitor.