PC Hangs playing _any_ games

BugHouse · #1 July 28th, 2001, 09:35 AM

Just inherited an old PII 233 (uses the AL440LX motherboard), i've put more memory in it upgraded to direct x8.0 and installed a TNT2 graphics card. The machine is stable until i run any games, i get about 2-3 mins play the the whole machine freezes and has to be rebooted, any ideas??

lynnm · #2 July 29th, 2001, 04:48 AM

Please send a more complete description of your machine - How much memory do you have and are you using an autoexec.bat and a config.sys? If so send us the contents.

How big is your hard disk and how much free space is available?

Are you using a Joystick? If so, which one?

BigStu · #3 July 29th, 2001, 05:24 AM

Also check all fans in the computer and make sure they are working properly. If one is covered in dust or having a hard time running you may want to replace it. The system could be overheating and causing the lockup.

Check to see if there are any BIOS updates for the computer. This could also help solve the problem.

BigStu

BugHouse · #4 July 30th, 2001, 12:05 PM

The machine has 224mb of memory in it now, the hard drive is 10gb and currently has just over 8gb of free space, soundblaster live! value sound card and a netgear fa311 NIC.

Config.sys:

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE

autoexec.bat:

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
C:\PROGRA~1\REATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

The fan sounds a bit dodgy when starting up so i'll try cleaning and\or replacing it, but any other thoughts\ideas would be appreciated, thanks

**smurfy** · #5 July 30th, 2001, 12:13 PM

Hi bughouse.
Couple of suggestions:
1) RAM - 224 is quite an unusual total. How is it made up. Is there a possibility there is mis-matched ram or a bad stick? Games are some of the biggest memory hogs around so the problems may not show up in "normal" use and when it really needs the extra, the extra turns out to be bad, hence the hangs.

2) Heat - not just the CPU but the RAM and particularly the VID Card can o/heat (again only showing up on intensive use of graphics - games). Particularly if your PSU fan is struggling with dust etc.
Try running with the case open and see if it improves. Consider installing a fan on the TNT or a case fan.

BugHouse · #6 August 1st, 2001, 07:47 PM

Hi guys,

Thanks for the advice so far, the 224 RAM is made up of 1 32mb, 1 64mb and 1 128mb all 66mhz 168 pin sdram as described in the motherboard manual, the 32mb card is memory that was in the machine already, i removed the other 32mb card that was in there to make room for the rest. As the machine worked fine with the original memory i put this back in to see if this was the problem, but games still froze.

I then replaced the new memory and swapped the old vid card that was in the box (an ATI Rage Pro) with the TNT, this fixed the problem but is not as good a card! Swapped the TNT back in and installed a system blower in the PCI slot beside it and a chip fan directly on the card (probably overkill

) The problem still occurs with the TNT card, so possibly the problem is with this although it has been used successfully in other machines, so i'm basically looking at buying a new card for this box

Thanks for your help anyway!