Open the case cover and have a table fan blowin in there. Good way to see if heat is the culprit. You can also DL prime95 and memtest, both free proggies, that are widely used by OCers for beat down stability testing. Ive seen RAM sticks fail in strange ways, where it affects one app or device but not others, tryin to write to address line thats become bad.
=OSS=BLACKIE - have your m8 try com_maxfps 60. I was lagged out of every PB server until I lowered my FPS - who knew.
hoo fucking ray!!!
opened the case cover … played 5 maps str8 through … man that felt good 
so its clearly my gfx cards ddr over heating 
– anyone know of heat sink that I can apply myself to a radeon 9700 (saphire) … hmms … actually extra case fan should prolly do it …
Its a good idea to have an intake fan and exhaust fan, neither of which will help muchif the ambient room temp is high. Most guys I know leave their case covers off, certainly an inexpensive solution.
Glad your back to trouble free marathon ET sessions
I have almost the exact same setup as you and I have the same problem.
Several members of our clan are having this problem as well and 2 also have a sblive! 5.1 card.
I know it’s not driver/hardware overheating related because I keep my system up to date and in top condition. I also run rtcw and almost every other q3 engine game flawlessly w/o error. My drivers are always up to date and cpu/card temp is monitored constantly.
I’m running xp home sp1 btw.
The sound loop freeze does not just happen in game but even if I’m in the menu changing controls it will lock and loop for up to a minute.
I think a lot of people who have complained about ET “crashing” their system are actually having the same problem but their system is not as stable and can’t “ride it out” like you and I are.
I’ve tried the various things like sv_punkbuster 1 but none has worked.
This happens w/ pb enabled (client) and disabled.
It happens on PB servers and non PB servers.
It also happens offline when I “create server”.
PB enabled/disabled in my own server as well, same result.
I fixed this problem on my AMD machine, it was an odd one because quake 3 ran fine for hours on end yet ET would crash soon after loading (same engine), anyway ET appears to be more cpu intensive and was causing my pc to over heat.
I tried some serious cooling… 20 " floor standing fan point blank at it, took my cpu temp down by 20 while playing ET and it was stable as ever.
Might be worth trying anyway!
I told ya it was the heat. Now if people are gonna start fitting fans fit them correctly. ALL fans at the FRONT of the case must suck IN air and ALL fans at the BACK of the case must blow OUT.
FRONT - SUCK IN
BACK - BLOW OUT (quite like a human in most respects)
Any fans that are fitted on the side must blow onto the mobo. Keep wires tidy and thats about all.
If suckin and blowing dont work,
take the side cover off and use a table fan, or go buy a nice juicy air conditioner : )
Thats right but make sure the desk fan blows ACROSS the mobo NOT directly at it as this can cause problems with other fans. Anyone notice I LIKE capitals ?
heat is a real killer, im in an old uk loft conversion and atm it gets to like
32deg c - 40 deg c in me room !
hence me pc runs very very hot
just suck in as much air as you can from bottom front of case
and blow loads out top back
esp in summer
does sounds very much like a dyson though
or get one of those slot coolers they work
pretty well for gfx cards
Some people may be having this problem due to heat/system stability/resources but a lot of us are not in that boat.
Ironically my problem went away after I did two things.
Created my own server and when I got some “warning punk buster server running older version” message I let it auto update. I then went and downloaded the ET server update and installed it.
I have no idea which fixed it but I’m able to play for hours on end, where as before I would sound loop almost every 1-2 minutes.
Why I would be experiencing trouble as a client when I had out dated pb server files is beyond me but that seems to be the case. I always run the pbweb to update my client side files so I never even thought about it being server files, but after those two procedures the problem is gone.
i have a couple of friends and these happens to them too … in irc i see lots of ppl complaining about this … please splash damage pay attention to this error … its a weird one
new tip … my friend has a p4 2.2 ghz and now his cpu usage , while running ET boosts to 100% … never happened before! also his memoiry usage for ET spikes to 512 (full memory)
That’s a good theory, and it actually might be true for some people, but unfortunately, it’s not the case with other people. My PC is VERY stable and I have proper cooling in my PC (5 Vantec Tornado 80mm fans - 2 blowing in, 2 blowing out, one is on Thermalright SK-7 CPU heatsink… I don’t care about noise as I use headphones and there is noone else in my PC room, so the noise generated by those fans doesn’t disturb anyone), the CPU temperature never goes higher than 45C (yes, that’s a Celcius degrees) and the temperature in my room is never hot since I always use A/C (I can’t stand heat), yet ET still crashes after a few hours of playing. It doesn’t happen every day, it doesn’t happen after pre-determined amount of time, but it does happen, randomly, at least 3-4 times per week (I have enough free time to play ET every day for at least few hours), and it is very annoying, considering this doesn’t happen with ANY other games that I have played or still play (I have about 20-30 different PC games), that is including original RtCW which I have played for 4-6 hours per day, every day, without a single crash.
Oh hell yeah Nobody, I get the “ET.exe has encountered a serious error” once in a while but I thnk that could be a very slight bug and probably hardware specific, just unfortunately I have that hardware.
The WEIRDEST thing I’ve noticed is when I man the machine gun nest beside the bank in goldrush, gleefully taking out allied bastards coming down the steps and an odd one running past the truck, after about 10 seconds of activity my entire machine reboots. I’m not going to make a post about it as it’s toooooooooooo mental and it HAS to be just my machine, none of the other lads in the clan get it and find it quite amusing that I can’t go on the gun.
I am not sure if it’s hardware specific… I’ve seen people with completely different than mine system (P4 CPU, soundcard is not made by Creative, video card is made by Ati) which was also properly cooled having same problem as I do (ET crashes or freezes)…