This has two techies and a few forums confused..

[Confusedracoon]

Hi,
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post...it made the most sence to post here.

Ok, my problem is, i recently reinstalled winxp pro sp3 onto my home built system which has had xp pro sp3 on it for over a year now. i reinstalled it last week with some help with my local techie, every thing went smoothly.

Alltho now, No game on my system will load, except Red faction guerrilla, which only plays when windowed.. if i maximise it, its just a black screen, sound and every thing works just no picture. Need for speed shift allso launches, but as soon as i enter game play, it crashes to desktop.
Nothing else loads, downloaded from steam or installed from a disc.


Now, when my tame techie reinstalled windows for me, he tested the hard drive, the ram and everything else. no problems showed up
I have installed all windows updates and i made a real point of installing the most up to date versions of the drivers i need and use, G-card, lan chip, chip set, mouse + keyboard, and everything else.

Previously to this reinstallation, my copy of Steam stoped opening and just ghosted in the background, I had redownloaded and installed it but nothing changed. It showed up on Task manager but.. but not on the screen or task bar, Itunes allso did this. (the reason i reinstalled windows, i felt like a system refresh anyway) but other then that, everything worked hunky dory. games ran seemlessly, no problems anywhere.

Current specs are:
intel duo quad core at 2.33ghz, OC'ed to 2.45ghz
4gb DDR2 installed ram (xp uses 3.5ish)
WD eco green hard drive
500watt storm silent psu
Nvidia GTS 250 core edition 1gb
Generic dvd drive + floppy drive

Any idears?
any serguestions would be much loved.
Cheers, Jim

 

[Saga Lout]

Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums. Try going from your Start button to Run and in the Open box, type dxdiag and hit Enter. See if that shows up any graphics problems - perhaps a need to alter acceleration settings.

 

[Confusedracoon]

i did the direct draw test, it was fine, then i did the direct 3D draw test, that changed my resolution but still i could see the spinning box. no problems found.

the direct draw, direct3D and AGP texture acceleration settings are all on enabled. should i try disableing them one at a time or is there another way to alter the acceleration?
No problems were found on any tabs of DxDiag.
and there are no yellow ?'s in device manager.
thank you for the fast responce

 

[tigsounds]

Any idears?
any serguestions would be much loved.
Cheers, Jim

I'm going to exploit the word "Any" from above.

It would appear XP is fully loaded and ready to go, "but" (yea, that word that smashes so many dreams), is the BIOS properly setup for your video card? Is PCIe selected as the primary display adapter?

Is the 4/6 pin power plugged in? (I think it beeps like hell if it isn't)

That is a PCI Express card and many new Mobos have a BIOS that manages several things that affect the video card, such as how much power to allocate to it. Check BIOS settings, if the card is only allocated 25 watts, maybe it won't work in high-powered graphics situations. There are other settings also, check them all, ask Nvidia tech support about unknown settings and values.

Of course, one of your games could have a nested virus.

 

[mibix19]

You say you've got an overclocked chip. Was this long before you had problems? Is your power supply and cooling fans working OK? Is your chip OK?

 

[Confusedracoon]

@mibix19 - yes my bios comes loaded with preset OC settings, i have never uped it more then 5/10% as im still running a stock CPU cooler, i have a big, BIG 22/24cm case fan plonked right on the side pushing air over the G-card and cpu fan, since its an asus board it came with asus probe which moniters temps, iv never seen the mobo temp go higher then 32C and the cpu rise above 37/38C. but like i said iv never gone over 10% max, and it was running at 10% oc since i found the settings and decided to have a fiddle about 6/7 month ago, I have had the G-card for about 5/6 months. i allso have a rear exhaust fan chugging air out the rear, my pc is sat on the floor, but i give it a good clean every 2/3 months max. I learnt the hard way about keeping things cool and clean due to a nicely blown cpu =D

@ Tigsounds - i dont think any bois settings have changed i will ahve alook, im pretty sure the cards set to primary display adapter. i will give XfXand Nvidia a support post and see if they know the right settings. the cords pluged in, as i swaped it for my older 8800GT earlyer today to see if that helped. same problem. NARF >.<
If a game as a nested virus i will be worried about the steam community getting it, as 70/80% of my games are downloaded off steam as i loose CD's like i loose brain cells sneezing.(aparantly you do o.o who knew?!). How would i check if the cards getting 25watts? il have alook at the bios after posting this and i will update.
I allso have been thining about ripping xp out and going with 7, but..its XP its so easy to use...Usually, 7 is so new and scarey looking
Thanks for the replys
Jim

 

[Confusedracoon]

jsut a quicky, just downloaded and updated DirectX drivers....tested a few games..they took longer to try and load, then crashed back to desktop... grrr

 

[Confusedracoon]

ok just checked bios. everything seems fine the 12v thingy say's theres 11.978V going to where ever its going to. so im guessing thats ok. im waiting for a new 650watt psu to arrive and i bet it will arrive when im at work ¬¬. other then that i dont know what else i can tell ya apart from posting a dxdiag save up, which i could do after taking out the personal stuff? would that help?

 

[tigsounds]

You could say what the mainboard is so we can have a look at your BIOS settings and see if there are things there waiting be set/unset.


Edit: By this I mean we can see what's available...

 

[Confusedracoon]

@ Tigsounds - Its an Asus P5KPL/1600

 

[tigsounds]

I downloaded your user manual and looked at available BIOS settings.
Your BIOS does not have settings specific to the PCIe bus.
Apparently ASUS has things pre-set with generic values that should accommodate those video cards.

This makes me wonder about other things that we take for granted but then again, maybe not...
Were the chipset drivers installed? This is rather routine, but if they weren't...
Are there any hardware problems showing in device manager? Any "unknown hardware" items?
I hope there is a clue somewhere.

 

[mibix19]

It might sound a strange one, but have you tried using an older version of graphic drivers.

 

[Confusedracoon]

@ Tigsounds - yeah the chip set drivers are installed, well, they are if they are on the mobo CD, i put that in and installed everything that looked like a driver. The device manager, For the first time acturly is showing that everything is as sweet as it possibly could be. i usualy have a usb device not quite right which still works.. but aparantly everything is A-OK.

@ mibix19 - i will give that a try in a min... will edit this after thats done.

 

[Confusedracoon]

hey again. just rollbacked the G-card driver.

Resaults:

Red faction guerrilla - is working with everything on max in maximised mode - steam downloaded

Need for speed shift - Still crashing to desktop when entering game play with no error message, what ever graphical settings are set. - Steam downloaded

Prince of persia the forgotten sands - Crashes to desktop when entering game play, with an error message but it dosnt say anything apartfrom "encountered a problem and needs to close." - Hard copie

Batman Arkham Asylum - Wont even boot. Steam pops up with its "prepairing to launch...." window then nothing. - Steam downloaded

Need for speed Pro street - Crashes when entering any races, with an error message saying " NFS.exe has encountered a problem and had to close". - Hard copie

Nothing has changed, apart from RFG will paly in fullscreen mode, i think that was resolution based. my screen has truble showing anything below 1024/756. thats allso the max resolution. it hasnt been a problem befor tho.

 

[mibix19]

Hi again. I am not an expert but it seems to me that somthing inside your pc is loose or broken and needs a second look. Did your tech help go inside your case? If tigsounds comes back he might have an idea.

 

[Confusedracoon]

im not sure if he did or not. i could take it all apart then put it all back together again once i get my new psu and case fan...make an afternoon of it =D change the heat paste on the cpu as well. i really hope something like that helps.
il go ask my techy if he would be kind enough to reinstall windows for me and just get it all sorted by some one whos qulified and knows what there doing..instead of me...just knows what im doing cos iv done so much of it while tinkering =D.

il see if tigsounds has anything else to say, if not il go talk to Mr. tech-shop.

could wait untill pay day and just buy a brand spanking new rig ready built with some excrement OEM software i love so much ¬¬

short of giving my rig to some one for a week or 2 just to poke everything in/on/around/near it untill something works, im all out of idears
thanks for the constant help and replys. its been nice to see a forum acturly answering back for once.

 

[tigsounds]

I'm to the point of questioning .Net Framework. There are so many versions now and all since 2.0 have frustrating issues with service packs. M$ saying to run a service pack to one version, for another. Framework is out of control and should have never been placed into such a dependency position.

How's your .Net Framework? Got any idea what version it is, what service pack to it you are using?
Your problems are in line with the failures of Framework.

If you read the M$ knowledge base articles on Framework, it'll scare you. Since everything you have is such good, reputable equipment, I have to suspect M$ Framework. Maybe you don't even have it installed, but alas, you must have it or many things will not work. I use versions 1.1 , 2 & 3.5. Next question might be, how so many versions at once? Because M$ didn't make the stupid thing entirely downward compatible, and yes, you can run many versions at the same time. Some programs will run under 1.1 but can't even see 2.0 is installed. It's sickening.

its been nice to see a forum acturly answering back for once.

All of the regular's here, with one un-named exception, truly want to see people using and enjoying their computers. We all have something here that was un-thought of to own just 30 years ago and nobody ever thought they would advance as fast as they have. So, we try.

 

[Confusedracoon]

haha thats awesome.
Thanks Tigsounds.

I just installed my new psu,the 650watt powercool jobby off Ebuyer. with a nice lime green fan =D. still no change. Im fully out of idears now.

Im runnings windows XP pro 32bit SP3

I just ran Asoft .net version detector X, Resualts were:

<32Bit>
2.0.50727.3615
->c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727

< Installed .NET Frameworks >
.NET FW 2.0 SP 2
.NET FW 3.0 SP 2
.NET FW 3.5 SP 1

In the program window i have these three in green and 1.0/1.1/4.0 are red. should i download these or just download NFW 4.0? or leave them be/uninstall them and reinstall them?

 

[tigsounds]

That stupid Framework isn't like a service pack where one includes the previous as an accumulation. They seem to be all separate and will answer the call individually as programs inquire of their presence.

Go you idea of "download these."

 

[Confusedracoon]

well i just installed NFW 4.0 windows did 2 updates after that. still no change. just a slightly longer boot time.... 0.o

Il go see if i can find versions 1.0 and 1.1 see if that completes the list ¬¬
thanks again tigsounds

ahh blast. it wont let me install version 1.0. its saying i should check that i have the right version, and that the right program to upgrade is installed yadda yadda yadda.

Would starting fresh with the frameworks work? E.G. uninstall all of them then reinstall them starting with 1.0 then 1.1....so on and so on?

 

[tigsounds]

I haven't seen 1.0 in a long time (skip that one). I don't think it will change anything to delete/re-install them.

Don't round up all of them that you can either. Your games/programs might say which version they want to run, but then they may not need framework at all. I'm not running those applications/games so can't see what their requirements are. I go to Framework as a possible culprit because it is used so extensively now and it has some bad issues.

 

[tigsounds]

Of course, the final answer may be to try a different vid card. Maybe yours has a problem, like in it's on-board RAM.

 

[mibix19]

Another final answer maybe c-4. I hope not because I want to see a good outcome after all yours and Tigsounds efforts.

 

[Confusedracoon]

aww thanks mibix. erm. whats the C-4? i havnt heard of that before

and i wont bother reinstalling all of them then il leave them be.
The cards fine, it worked fine in my other computer. and my older 8800GT which i tried in this one made no difference... nothing loaded Its so weird that only games have been effected.

Oh i got this error message last nite, i wish i wrote down what the crash report was for. but it said something about the
MSVCP71.DLL
file being ...either dead or missing....... could i just be missing some .DLL files? I shouldnt be.. this windows installation is only...just 2 weeks old.

=/

 

[tigsounds]

C4 is high explosives. That MSVCP71.DLL is a C++ runtime library. M$ doesn't say much about it.

You can copy it from another computer, mine is dated 9-16-204 so it doesn't change much with updates etc..