Games Crashing, PSU Problems??

cookie

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I built a PC for a mate and it randomly crashes when playing
fast 3D games ie. Richard Burns Rally, new Colin Mcrae

Specs:
Gigabyte K8NNXP
Athlon 3200 64bit
2 X 512MB Twinmos Ram in slots 1+2
Soundblaster Audigy
Radeon 9800 Pro All In Wonder
200G SATA HD
Win XP Pro SP1

The temperature readings are normal and using stock speeds

Ive tried changing setting AGP speed to X4, fast writes off ,
VPU recover off Etc..

Installed the latest chipset drivers and various other drivers.
Catalst and DirectX 9.0c

The PSU that came with the case is an eagle 350watt
(never heard of that brand)
that says Pentium4 on it, and im using an Athlon 3200 on a
Gigabyte K8NNXP, is there any difference with athlon and Pentuim
PSU's??

Sometimes games can be played for upto an hour and half before crashing,
its a solid crash/freeze only way to recover is to flick power switch and
reboot.
When I first built the PC strange artifects appeared in windows and games
this turned out to be a faulty radeon and has since been replaced.

Ive ran memtest for a few hours came up with no errors and ran various
burnin tests and cant get the ah heck to crash... only when playing games :-(

running out of ideas, anyone help

Thx in advance


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Bass

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On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:49:52 -0000, "Cookie"
<lammBITSbretta@BITShotmailBITS.com> wrote:

>I built a PC for a mate and it randomly crashes when playing
>fast 3D games ie. Richard Burns Rally, new Colin Mcrae

Only way to find out is to try and borrow a decent PSU and see if the
problem goes away. It could also be caused by the vid card or cpu
overheating during long game play sessions. You have to try one
possible solution at a time until you find the culprit.
 

sleepy

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"Cookie" <lammBITSbretta@BITShotmailBITS.com> wrote in message
news:41f10794$0$19161$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
>I built a PC for a mate and it randomly crashes when playing
> fast 3D games ie. Richard Burns Rally, new Colin Mcrae
>
> Specs:
> Gigabyte K8NNXP
> Athlon 3200 64bit
> 2 X 512MB Twinmos Ram in slots 1+2
> Soundblaster Audigy
> Radeon 9800 Pro All In Wonder
> 200G SATA HD
> Win XP Pro SP1
>
> The temperature readings are normal and using stock speeds
>
> Ive tried changing setting AGP speed to X4, fast writes off ,
> VPU recover off Etc..
>
> Installed the latest chipset drivers and various other drivers.
> Catalst and DirectX 9.0c
>
> The PSU that came with the case is an eagle 350watt
> (never heard of that brand)
> that says Pentium4 on it, and im using an Athlon 3200 on a
> Gigabyte K8NNXP, is there any difference with athlon and Pentuim
> PSU's??
>
> Sometimes games can be played for upto an hour and half before crashing,
> its a solid crash/freeze only way to recover is to flick power switch and
> reboot.
> When I first built the PC strange artifects appeared in windows and games
> this turned out to be a faulty radeon and has since been replaced.
>
> Ive ran memtest for a few hours came up with no errors and ran various
> burnin tests and cant get the ah heck to crash... only when playing games
> :-(
>
> running out of ideas, anyone help
>
> Thx in advance
>
>
> --
> Remove BITS to reply
>
> lammBITSbretta@BITShotmailBITS.com

350w is okay if its a good brand like Antec
but that sounds like a cheapy to me. Its too
easy to spend the big bucks on your CPU and
graphics card and skimp on the PSU but a good
PSU is vital to the stability of your PC and the life
of your motherboard.
 

Hackworth

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Jun 20, 2004
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"Cookie" <lammBITSbretta@BITShotmailBITS.com> wrote in message
news:41f10794$0$19161$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
>I built a PC for a mate and it randomly crashes when playing
> fast 3D games ie. Richard Burns Rally, new Colin Mcrae
>
> Specs:
> Gigabyte K8NNXP
> Athlon 3200 64bit
> 2 X 512MB Twinmos Ram in slots 1+2
> Soundblaster Audigy
> Radeon 9800 Pro All In Wonder
> 200G SATA HD
> Win XP Pro SP1
>
> The temperature readings are normal and using stock speeds
>
> Ive tried changing setting AGP speed to X4, fast writes off ,
> VPU recover off Etc..
>
> Installed the latest chipset drivers and various other drivers.
> Catalst and DirectX 9.0c
>
> The PSU that came with the case is an eagle 350watt
> (never heard of that brand)
> that says Pentium4 on it, and im using an Athlon 3200 on a
> Gigabyte K8NNXP, is there any difference with athlon and Pentuim
> PSU's??
>
> Sometimes games can be played for upto an hour and half before crashing,
> its a solid crash/freeze only way to recover is to flick power switch and
> reboot.
> When I first built the PC strange artifects appeared in windows and games
> this turned out to be a faulty radeon and has since been replaced.
>
> Ive ran memtest for a few hours came up with no errors and ran various
> burnin tests and cant get the ah heck to crash... only when playing games
> :-(
>
> running out of ideas, anyone help

As someone who has been assemling/repairing/updating PCs since 1987, I can
tell you that you'd be amazed at how much a generic power supply unit can
mess with your sanity. By all means, get a decent power supply. It will be
worth it even if that doesn't turn out to be the problem, although my first
guess-- based on the info you provided--is the power supply. If money is an
issue, go for a fairly inexpensive yet high quality brand such as Antec.
 

cookie

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Apr 13, 2004
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"Cookie" <lammBITSbretta@BITShotmailBITS.com> wrote in message
news:41f10794$0$19161$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
>I built a PC for a mate and it randomly crashes when playing
> fast 3D games ie. Richard Burns Rally, new Colin Mcrae
>
> Specs:
> Gigabyte K8NNXP
> Athlon 3200 64bit
> 2 X 512MB Twinmos Ram in slots 1+2
> Soundblaster Audigy
> Radeon 9800 Pro All In Wonder
> 200G SATA HD
> Win XP Pro SP1
>
> The temperature readings are normal and using stock speeds
>
> Ive tried changing setting AGP speed to X4, fast writes off ,
> VPU recover off Etc..
>
> Installed the latest chipset drivers and various other drivers.
> Catalst and DirectX 9.0c
>
> The PSU that came with the case is an eagle 350watt
> (never heard of that brand)
> that says Pentium4 on it, and im using an Athlon 3200 on a
> Gigabyte K8NNXP, is there any difference with athlon and Pentuim
> PSU's??
>
> Sometimes games can be played for upto an hour and half before crashing,
> its a solid crash/freeze only way to recover is to flick power switch and
> reboot.
> When I first built the PC strange artifects appeared in windows and games
> this turned out to be a faulty radeon and has since been replaced.
>
> Ive ran memtest for a few hours came up with no errors and ran various
> burnin tests and cant get the ah heck to crash... only when playing games
> :-(
>
> running out of ideas, anyone help
>
> Thx in advance
>
>
> --
> Remove BITS to reply
>
> lammBITSbretta@BITShotmailBITS.com

going to order a new PSU

thanks for replys ;-)