Games crashing on 64 bit systems

[HoochShepherd]

Ok, this is a recently built system. The problem I seem to be coming into this, when ever running games they crash. Depending on the game I'm playing I get different reactions. L4D jsut crashes to my desktop, City of heroes crashes and gives me an error 14 Open gl crash error, prototype just freezes... After talking to EVGA they told me it was the video card and it was RMA'd. When that didn't work they told me it was the PSU, so I replaced it. Now they want me to RMA my mother board, and when puched they basically told me "Its software, shove off" I've tried on diefferent OS's (win7 RC and RTM, Vista) with the same results. Oddly enough it seems to be OK on XP. Any help would be amazing!!

Nvidia 750i FTW
Nvidia GTX260
Pentium q9550
OCZ Reaper 1066 DDR2 - 4 gigs
DVD/CD WR SATA
3 WD HDD - 150 IDE media - 150 SATA hackentosh - 260 SATA Win7 RTM
Corsair HX750 PSU

 

[badge]

Set the RAM to Mfg. specs. In BIOS manually set RAM speed, timings and voltage. Voltage for 1066MHz. is 2.0-2.1v. Try 5-5-5-15 at 1066MHz. Also run memtest and check for errors. RAM is often the cause of system crashing when running software. Games = software. Amazing RAM was never mentioned as a possible cause of the system crash. The 750i is picky with RAM. Especially with OCZ high performance RAM. Manual BIOS setup of Mfg. specs is necessary.

Edit BIOS defaults PC28500 at 1.8v at 800MHz. Not enough voltage for 4 DIMMs even at default 800MHz. Especially HP OCZ. If the system RAM is not set up manually as mentioned above, the system RAM is running 4 GB PC28500 at 1.8v 800MHz.

 

[HoochShepherd]

The Ram is set at mfg specs... 5-5-5-18 2.1v
I've run memtest86 multiple times.
Those combined with the fact that I'm golden in xp jsut not vista/win7 lead me to believe its not a ram issue. I lean towards it being a really minor bios issue, just damned if i can figure it out...

 

[badge]

Does the system give a blue screen, OS STOP error?

 

[badge]

Recently I had a system I built yeras ago we use in our lab freezing up randomly. We turn it on and let it run all day and it had ran perfectly for a year or so. Took me months to trace it down to a bad SATA cable. Move HD to different SATA connector and change to new SATA cable. No 'mo system freeze since. Happy.

 

[HoochShepherd]

No, the system doesn't crash... Just the game/drivers? Sometimes it crashes to desktop, other times the game freezes.. Alt tab out and back and I'm good to go. It's not the sata cable or port. I've tried different Hdd in different ports. I really think its a wierd issue with the 64 bit os, but for the life of me no idea where or why.

 

[badge]

Hmm, Windows 7 64 runs perfect on my Socket 939. Windows 7 runs perfect without system crashing issues on millions of computers currently. Has to be the hardware. Perhaps driver issues? I did not need to load Mb drivers for my socket 939 with Windows 7 64. Runs perfect since the 2nd day Windows 7 BETA was released. I will say 750i is not the most stable chipset out there. Have you tried other RAM than OCZ HP? Also, you might break the system down to the basics. 1 DIMM RAM, CPU/HSF, Video Card and hard drive. Unplug everything else. Have you tried a different PSU? Sometimes troubleshooting system freezes/crashes requires a lot of work like this. Took me 3 months to find the bad SATA cable. I was in shock when I changed the SATA cable and the freezing stopped. I haven't had any freezing problem since and that has been months ago.

 

[ulysses35]

Have you always used 4gb of RAM on Vista / Win 7 ? I had similar problems with my Vista build... turns out a clean install wont always work with 4gb - there is a patch from MS... might be worth trying just 2gb and see it if changes things

 

[HoochShepherd]

Yeah, I've tried doing clean install with nothing but the needed components.... Just recently replaced the PSU to the corsair hx750.
As far as the 4 gb issue, you'd get bsod etc if thats the issue... This is only an issue with games... But that issue hasn't popped up in win 7.

 

[badge]

XP and windows 7 installed on the same HD? Also, I would look to trying some different RAM if my system was unstable and I could not figure it out. No matter XP Prefetch runs fine, windows 7 Superetch unstable. 750i + OCZ OC RAM = potential problems.

 

[HoochShepherd]

Uhm, yes they were on the same drive, but not at the same time. One drive has osx86ne has whatever windows I'm using at the moment. And one I jsut use for media. I finally got some one at EVGA to really help me and he seems to think its a mb issue. We are currently playing around with voltages of my fsb to see if it helps... But I wanna attack the issue from all issues as the EVGA techs up till this guy have been anything but helpful... (Their techs are really hit or miss!)

 

[badge]

Yeah, added voltage to the MB chips supported in BIOS will be needed especially if you OC the system. Hopefully voltage adjustments will solve the instability issues.

Edit now EVGA tech can give you some system cooling tips.

 

[swifty_morgan]

It's the nvidia drivers that are windows7 capable. I had this trouble last night on a machine and had to install the 181.22 or 181.50 drivers. End of problem.

 

[badge]

Sounds about right.

 

[HoochShepherd]

So incase anyone comes into something like this issue, here is what the issue ended up being. There was a problem on my MB causing the Ram to no work properly. In that time the ram actually stopped working, probably cause the MB borked it. I rma'd the mb and ram. Currently waiting on both, but I'm running on an rma'd mb they sent me out with a bad PCI-e slot and different ram and I've been golden.