Tech Haven Network

This is for everyone,but especially Killer and Husk as they helped last time.

What would you say to this?

My PC since having its hard drive re-formatted etc is very stable. Except, when playing any of my games????. I have the latest drivers on my mobo, sound card, graphics, direct X 9c, XP up to date.

Why then do my games throw me out at random times, with no warning at all. This is not a blue screen scenario!. I am chucked out to my desktop, the game doesn't appear in the tool bar either.

What could be the problem? could it be my mobo?, if so why is my PC ok unless playing games.

This effects Call of Duty/ Call of Duty expansion pack, Farcry with patch V1.1, Wolfenstien. I haven't bothered to try any other games.

Please help.

Cheers
B

XP sp2 ? heard it wasn't to smart to install SP2 yet but as i use win 2k i don't know

wouldn't have a real clue realy.. its a fresh install so shouldn't be alot wrong now.. but are all the cards on different IRQs now ?

quite simply

2K > XP

all the time

I'm going to uninstall XP SP2 tonight, god I hope it isn't a mobo problem!

BTW I haven't got XP Pro firewall on at all, so on or offline it can't possibly be an issue

running XP SP2 for a good while now, no problems found AT ALL.
(Offcourse after I turned off the firewall, but thats more because I got a hardware firewall running)

As for your problem, I again want you to use that burnintest tool, remember it has settings to what you want to test!
Its very important to find where this problem is comming from, the problem you are describing, I've only encountered with wrong systems settings or partly fucked up memory.

wrong system settings are directed at BIOS settings, memory latency's, other timings, cpu settings, overclock stuff, etc etc.

run the tool, tell me if it finds anything at all...

Yep see what you mean now Husk. I ran the Performance test last night, all green lights across the board
I'll go back on the site tonight and get the Burnin test as well.

Sorry for double post.

With the Burnit software, do you need a blank CD-R and floppy disk for your drives to complete the test, I only ask as it terminated earlier due to not being able to test the write speed to a CD.

Let me know Husk

Cheers
B

both blank yes, and undamaged (hard time to find undamaged floppy disks at my place haha) you can also turn that option off, though I'm not 100% sure if you should, can't remember out of the head weither that will also disabled any harddisk tests.

It shouldn't matter anyway, the test should not end early at any time, at the end you will get a big FAILED red screen, forget that and click it away, at the main program window is a list with all statistics of where errors where found. That one is far more important.

(don't forget to check which tests are marked, for 3D stuff more needs to be marked, look around a bit in the program's pulldown menus to find the place to turn stuff off or on.)

EDIT:
If the program does end prematurely, something is really wrong, to continue testing what is so seriously wrong, you will need to disabled all tests, and then do them one by one till you find out where it has such big troubles with (can be more than one thing offcourse)

I would check the basic things first, like when you get thrown to desktop, check if the game is still running in the backround (task manager => processes), anything strange in the system or application log, possible game specific crash logs, etc.. You could also try lowering your memory/fsb clock and try if it works better. If it does, then it sounds like an overheating or PSU related problem.

Download MemTest86, extract the zip, run install.bat and insert a blank disk. Let the installer finish the disk, then boot with the disk in drive. Tests your memory thoroughly..

Btw, what's wrong with WinXP? Been running it since "the beginning" and never had any major problems. SP1, working like a dream. SP2, even better.

I'm not geeky enough to tell you exactly whats wrong with XP Pro. All I know is that 2K is stable and XP isnt (on my PC)

I have been told that being thrown out of the game to the desktop is a directX 9.C problem and that I should try and go back to 9.B.

PC is being re-formatted again and will have 2K SP4 on it.

my bets are is that its to do with XP pro and not DX9.c

Graphics card's a Leadtek right?
Probably just doesn't like XP then. Thats the case with mine. Can't install XP on the machine because the card will refuse to work.

Yeah Leadtek. You are prolly right Gaz. Well 2K here I come (again)

Before changing your OS you really really should try different driver setups. The DirectX 9.0c doesn't have this kind of problems, or atleast they aren't shown in the bug reports. And the manufacturer of your gfx card is only responsible of hardware failure, since we are in the time of unified drivers, so you should check your gfx card drivers, maybe change them to omegas (haven't failed me yet) and checck if your mobo has the latest drivers.

Sometimes these problems are reqlly quite simple, just needs to figure out which part of the whole makes the problems. I'm not ruling out the OS problem, but that is really pretty too much to be a problem.

If 2k runs stable on your system, then by all means, get back to it.
Its alot faster, and seriously, xp doesn't add any really needed extra's for anyone. (I mean whats new? A skin, A better restore function, user switching, an integrated firewall and a few quick links to certain places right in the explorer browser... the rest of the updates are to minor to really notice and the speed drain is pretty high... infact the only reason I run XP is because I'm to damn lazy to make a new fresh install with programs and pull out a new ghost image)

On a side note, none of your problems have been experienced by me in windows xp specific installations, thats with SP0/1/2 and with Dx8/9bc.
But on the other hand... I've seen some crazy shit when it comes to MS OS's

2k r0x always ran it and still run it on all the comps at home.. i hate the new skin in xp but gues thats me. i always put it back oldstyle asap

anyway user switching aint even that usefull imho.. i never use it i only use this comp lol.