I purchased all the parts needed for a decent gaming pc system: ASUS P4P800 SE Motherboard - (AGP 8x) Pentium 4 3.0e Prescott Intel CPU, socket 478 eVGA eGeforce 6600gt AGP 8x, 128-bit, 128mb CORSAIR XMS DDR400 (PC3200) 2x 512mb RAM Memory dual mode Random Brand Memory of 256mb extra Seagate 200gb IDE HDD ASPIRE 550 Watt PSU Water-Cooled with Thermaltake BigWater Kit Now, heres the deal. When I ordered everything, I originally ordered a XFX Geforce 6800gt AGP 8x VGA Card, but it was all artifacting and locking up/rebooting within 2 seconds of gameplay or something. It wasnt pretty, so I RMA'ed it and got a refund, so I purchased the eVGA Geforce 6600gt instead to save money. When I put this in (which was about the beginning of summer) I think...THINK...but Im sure, that I played FarCry and beat it on my PC, then I played some multiplayer in Call of Duty and had fun in that. Now, somewhere down the line, Call of Duty during multiplayer, a pop up came up saying that the game was shut down the wrong way and the colors are all nasty looking and weird, and it locks up and reboots during multiplayer now. Then I go to try FarCry, it doesnt even get to the menu and locks up and reboots also. I reformatted multiple times to no avail. My brother has the exact same motherboard as me, and his games run perfect. Now, I bought Doom 3 about a month ago and everything runs just great! Its like perfect, but everytime I reinstall FarCry and Call of Duty, it still does the same crap. I just bought F.E.A.R. the cd version today. Installed on my PC, and it locks up before getting to the menu then it reboots. This pissed me off so much. I played it on my brothers PC and it runs great. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY PC??!! My best best best guess is its the motherboards AGP slot or the board itself. Idk if its the graphic card or voltages from PSU, I have no idea. I contacted ASUS about it and they dont reply. I am seriously thinking about upgrading to a SLI board and going to AMD but in order for that, I'd have to spend about $1000 including a CPU, board, and a 7800gtx Video Card. I dont want to spend that much now. I cant take back the motherboard and get a new one bc I through out the box, and I cut the cpu bracket off bc I had a hard time getting it off so I could install my waterblock from my water-cooling kit. So I dont think they will take that back. In fact, I through all the boxes away from all the parts I have, but I did keep the cd's and manuals for them though. I need your best suggestions and help, because this has been going on since the beginning of summer and I really really really want to play games on my pc instead of bringing my keyboard/mouse to my bros pc or his tower to my room. Too time consuming. I tried to look at drivers and bios on ASUS, but nothing seemed to catch my eye about my problem. I looked through my bios, and Im no expert, but I didnt see anything in there either. Please help and I would seriously appreciate it.
i would like to know what advice people give on this, as i am having the same sort of problem when playing battlefield 1942 online.
Ok, I took out my Aspire 550 watt PSU and put in my brothers PSU that came with his case, so it only has like 350 watts or something. What do you know! It works!! But I only played F.E.A.R. so Im not exactly sure its the problem, but I have high hopes, because I already ordered a another PSU, the Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480 watt PSU since alot of people like it and says its good. This better be the problem, lol, because I spent $65 on it and if it doesnt work, should I take it back or keep it and sell the other one for cheap and then I would need a new solution or idea of what might be wrong. I forgot to change the video cards, but my watercooling was in there and it was tight to get to. So far, I think it is the PSU too, THANKS SHADOWED FURY!! Lets hope it works when I get it!!
he seems to be having trouble on the software end... im thinking drivers over a PSU. if far cry and COD wont work but fear and doom are fine it souinds driver-related. somethings not jiving.
Then why did it play F.E.A.R. without any rebooting or locking up? It also played Doom 3 with no problems too. I already ordered a new PSU, but what should I do in the meantime while waiting on it. What software-related things can I do or check at the moment? More help would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.
fuss arround with drivers. looka rround for any issues similar to yours. im thinking a good place to start would be the NVidia website. Update yours to the latest. maybe try a beta version. and do check your current PSU for voltage fluctuation even if it is a longshot.
Quite honestly, I dont know where to look or what to do with PSU voltages stuff..I see voltages and stuff in my bios, but they are all above like 3.3, 5, and I think 12? Well, that was the last time I checked which was about a month ago, and it shouldnt matter because it was doing it since the beginning I think. As for nVidia drivers, I think all they provide is Video Card drivers right? Well, my driver for the video card shouldnt be the problem, because I switched PSU's and it worked. I checked the ASUS main page for drivers and bios, but nothing comes out of their site that looks like it will fix the problem. More help again, is appreciated.
If it works, it works. Don't worry about checking Voltages and stuff since if its stable enough to play games then its stable enough.
Yeah, true. But, what if my new Thermaltake Silent PurePower 480 watt PSU doesnt work? Anything else I should check while waiting for it to get delivered here?
I'm doubtful that it won't! Its not generic stuff If anything is playing up, a reinstall of everything might help. But like I say, if the PSU was the root problem, the PurePower should be capable enough.
dont ask me why but it appears the PSU was the culprit. if it works now drop what I said about drivers. to explain why though: drivers work with low level hardware and they come up with bugs all the time because there is so much to concentrate on when writing them. if one game plays fine and another doesnt it sounds like a driver issue to me.
Ok guys, update: I got my new Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480watt PSU, put it in, booted up, and ran F.E.A.R. and it rebooted/restarted the first time, grrrrr. I reinstalled the game to make sure and it worked on the first try after installation. I was also messing with screen size resolutions while the game was installing. Thinking it was good, I took out my PSU and reorganized my whole case and cleaned everything. Putted everything back and booted up with 2 extra gigs of RAM too, total of 2gb's. Tried the F.E.A.R. game.....didnt work!! I was pissed. Kept trying after everytime it rebooted. After the about the third time, it ran. I was like, wtf. The next couple times worked too, just to make sure. Then it stopped again and is back in the rebooting scene. Im seriously thinking its not the PSU now. Im thinking my motherboard, video card, or drivers. Im going to reformat tomorrow to make sure its all good. For some reason during all this time, DOOM 3 worked, Resurrection of Evil worked, and Im really caught confused. Can someone please, please, please help me out with this big problem I have had for over 6 months. I wanna play my game!! Im going to test FarCry, Call of Duty to make sure and see if they work, if they dont either but Doom 3 still does, Im going to be very mad and confused. Please help me out, thanks..
UPDATE: I installed Half-Life 1, FarCry on my pc. So far, all the games that work are FarCry, Half-Life 1, Doom 3, and Doom: Resurrection of Evil. Still, F.E.A.R. works occasionally, but lately, everytime I tried to play it, it works. But theres still that chance its going to restart instead of loading up to the menu as usual, but sometimes it works. Keep in mind, FarCry wouldnt work before with my older PSU, but now it works, thankfully. My main concern is F.E.A.R. and any other games that might not work. Is there anything I can to update/check while Im on this topic? I went to the nVidia website to look up the latest video drivers, but Im not sure, but it looks like I already have the latest. I check the ASUS (my motherboard) website and I see nothing related about PSU problems, video problems, memory problems, or anything like that, both either driver or bios, nothing looks like it might work. I dont think there is PSU drivers as far as Im concerned. What can I do? Please give out suggestions. I dont think its my PSU because all my other games play fine. F.E.A.R. is the one giving me problems. Thank you for your time and help.
have you tried to run the various benchmark programs in a loop to see if it crashes. that could help rule out weather it's now stable or not. try running memtest to see if it passes. perhaps if you know someone with a post card you try to see if anything is wrong with the mobo and rule that part out. and finally try the videocard in another computer and try to rule out that part.
FEAR is more RAM intensive than most games. It could be that it's hitting a bad part of the memory when you load it... try running HCI memtest until it gets to at least 600% coverage.
Did anyone mention CPU temperature? Check your temperatures, it could be that F.E.A.R. is taxing it that bit more, and is causing the system to overheat, thus random restarts... Post your temps!
