computer crashes HARD

(unex) #1

hi there,

i got a serious problem playing ET:

after a few minutes my whole computer freezes and i have to manually press my power button to restart it. I did some research and found this thread: http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3134

this thread describes my problem but doesnt give a good solution. But after reading this thread i did some temperature measures and got this:


	Proc	System 1	System 2

windows - idle	41	36	39
windows - 100%	52	39	44
RTCW:ET 	54	41	47
RTCW:ET - warnings	56	44	49

I’m using intel’s active monitor for the temp. measures. The sensor thresholds are set to proc: 68, system 1: 50, system 2:50. i measured the 100% CPU in windows with winrar & packaging some isos.

this leads me to my final question: what can I do so I can play ET normally again? the solution in the other thread is not an option.

btw: sorry for my bad english :wink:

edit: hardware:

p4 2.66GHz
radeon 9800pro
512 MB ram
Intel D865GBF (motherboard)

(Oral B) #2

“If you read it, the answer will come.”

There are countless posts of “HEY IT WORKED!” in there.
If there’s no solution then what gives?^^^^ :bash:

(unex) #3

checked the temps after freeze:

CPU: 55
System Zone 1: 40
System Zone 2: 42

thats not SO high?

(Oral B) #4

Well,
I was once told…

“It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

(Oral B) #5

And what do you mean “it’s not an option?”

Is your case welded shut?

(unex) #6

i could try it but then again i cant leave my case open all the time, thats why its not possible. BTW other q3 based games like CoD DO work, so thats even stranger!

(SylverDragon) #7

You’ve probably already done this, but check your basics:

  • Rollback any new drivers/software you have installed recently
  • Virus check
  • Chekdisk/Defrag (These are good to do anyway)
  • Check all the fans for proper speed
  • If your video card has a fan, check it
  • Run with the case open, see if it makes a difference
  • While you have the case open, get some compressed air and blow it out, it probably needs this anyway. (I haven’t met anyone who does this regularly, I don’t even, but its a good idea.)
  • Have you done any hardware upgrades/tweaking recently, if so, undo them and check again
  • Get the latest drivers for your motherboard/video card/sound card
  • Kill other processes when you run ET, have as little running as possible
  • Uninstall and re-install ET
(Computertech) #8

WOW! That’s some major temp changes in your case. Sylver Dragon pretty much says it all.
You do need a second case fan, or even a slot fan. You are building alot of heat in that case. Not good for the video card. Some of the video cards ship out with very little heatsinks on them. Keeping the case cooler inside really helps not to overheat anything in your system. 49c is too high for inside your case.

(Oral B) #9

It’s very important to have more fans. I installed two extra fans to my case to insure that the proper temp is maintained. You’ll be suprised how much of a defference it will make.
It happened to my friend and his video card fried(100 bucks wasted). :angry:

(fergusson_scott) #10

I have the same problem et crashes after a few mins plus i get disconnected from servers. Only way to get out of it is to hold restart button. Seeing as i read the problem on the other thread can the admins actually pass this huge problem over to techincal support cos this seems to be a huge issue tht needs to be resloved. Also can they make a technical support email so we can ask for help.

(SylverDragon) #11

Oral B makes a good point: More fans! More Fans! MORE FANS!
With a gaming machine, if you have a spot on your case that will take another fan, put one there. They cost what? US$5 each, for the advantages you gain, it’s worth it. Especially if you are running a fast processor (or an overclocked one), and a high end video card. Also, plan your airflow. Usually you will have the power supply draw the air in, and the other fans blow it out, but this may not be optimal in your case. Figure out how you want the air to circulate and orientate the fans accordingly. Figure, you want the air to flow across your processor and video card, and if it flows across your hard drives this is always a good thing.
Also, if you can, move other cards away from your video card, give it some room to breate. Along this same line, clean up the cables in the case, tie them up, don’t just let them clutter up the case, it kills airflow and helps raise the temp in the case.
Let us know how it goes.

(fergusson_scott) #12

So all my problems of disconnecting from a server and resetting xp are due to overheating? Ok i will have a go but i don’t think its a hardware fault!

(SylverDragon) #13

Maybe, maybe not. My comment about fans was aimed at unex. As for yours, you might want to run down the list of items I posted earlier, its a pretty good catch all. Also, try dumping all of the custom .pk3 files from your ET directory.
If you get through all that and still no love, if you have multipul sticks of memory in your system, pull one and run it. If the problem re-occurs switch sticks and re-test. If it doesn’t happen, give it a couple more tries, then switch sticks and re-test.
Also, does this type of problem occur only in ET, or in other online games as well (I’m assuming from the pic you play CS)?

(Thanatos) #14

to reduce temp make sure that the airflow in your case is good, dont have those idioticly big flatcables in front of anything that needs air. even better: buy those nifty round cables. also the smaller the case the more heat stacking up because of very small airflow. get a fan that sucks the hot air out of your case.

(joop sloop) #15

This could relate to the problems with punkbuster and certain videocard drivers. does the game crash when you play on a non-punkbuster server?

If the game only crashes on PB enabled servers try this list of tricks:

My computer locks up or “chugs” sometimes while I’m playing with PunkBuster Enabled, what can cause this?

PunkBuster “pushes” hardware and the Windows Operating System more than most software and uses functions in the Windows API (low level functions) that aren’t used by most other programs. As such, there are a few cases where using PB can actually expose flaky hardware or other situations that don’t cause problems for other software. Here are a few things that have helped other users make these problems get better or go away completely:

If you are running Windows NT4/2000/XP, try lowering the priority of the game process. You can do this either by opening the Task-Manager while the game is running, or launch the game by using the command “start /belownormal c:\games\et\et.exe” from a command prompt or in the target field of your desktop shortcut used to launch the game. Lowering the game process priority does not reduce game performance (or just very little depending on the number of programs you are running next to the game).

Make sure you are using the latest version of PunkBuster (the latest version is always on our Download page) - also this link may help manually update your PB to the latest version when necessary
From the game’s main screen, press the tilde key (the ~ key) to bring down the console and enter the following line (without the quotes): “/pb_system 1”.

Never close other programs from your Windows Task Manager before playing the game, either leave them running or close them through the proper interface - killing a process doesn’t always work completely even if it stops showing in the Task Manager and renegade threads seem to conflict with PB more than other programs that may be running in memory. There is a free utility that some players use called EndItAll to close all extra programs before they play to avoid software conflicts, crashes and lockups. You can get it from here.

Check the add/remove programs list in your Control Panel and uninstall any programs that you don’t use or that you don’t know what they are.
One program that seems to conflict with PB more than others is Norton Anti-Virus. If you have it installed, try uninstalling it to see if the lockups go away. Some players have reported that when this is the culprit, they can reinstall Norton Anti-Virus and the lockups don’t come back.
Other background programs that seem to conflict with PB for some users are Sound Blaster Live software and helper programs that come with video cards (especially ATI keyboard shortcut programs).
Some players discovered that they had a computer virus and that the lockups vanished after it was fully removed.

Experiment with the pb_sleep setting … try setting it to 20, 250, or 500 to see if that affects your game performance. A few players have reported that all the problems go away when they “tweak” this setting.
In extreme cases, a few users have reported that replacing their RAM (memory) or video/sound cards fixed the problem.

http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=faq-et.php

(fergusson_scott) #16

Delete directory file of enemy territory and re download it. This worked for me!

(HairyPlums) #17

For anyone wanting to dig into their PC, may I suggest you visit http://www.sysinternals.com/ and take a look at some of the lovely free goodies…Process Explorer is particularly good…an uber-Task Manager.