54 réponses à ce sujet

[Geraldine]

Hi All
After trying all the advice I could find within this forum (thank you all), I decided to post an "offical" HELP! thread.

My system specs are as follows:
Dual boot XP SP3/ Vista Home
2GIGs Of RAM
Nvidia Ge Force 9500GT
Pentium D 2.80 GHz
AS Rock G31M-GS Mobo
On Board Sound used (Realtek)
SCSI card (for setting up miggy drives)
Have updated and downgraded drivers as per advice.
Have re-installed Direct X 9.0c
All Microsoft updates applied to both OSs apart from some Net Framewok updates that are known to cause stability problems.
Avast Anti Virus & Zone Alarm Fire Wall. I have tried switching these off to no avail.
Hard drive recently checked for errors and gets a regular De-frag.

The games: Steam versions of Mass Effect 1&2 (All DLC added to ME2)

The problem: Both games run for somewhere between 5 to 10 minutes then the screen goes dark and the PC locks up. Unable to return to desktop. Alt tabbing, and Ctrl Alt Delete do not work. Have to switch off the PC and do a reboot.
Have tested ME1 on both XP and Vista with similar results.
A few months ago I also completed both the games on my setup with no issues. Next thing I am thinking of is doing a full system re-install from the ground up, but before I do that does anyone out there have any further ideas?

Modifié par Geraldine, 11 juillet 2011 - 10:08 .

[Gorath Alpha]

You have not mentioned your thermal readings. Both the CPU and GPU are low end parts now, particularly the old Pentium, and those already had huge overheating problems inherent in their dead-end design. ME-1, more than ME-2, works the hardware over thoroughly. I use SpeedFan for its temperature monitors, not necessarily to run my fans faster. It's free, and works very well.

[Bogsnot1]

The Pentium D is underpowered for ME2, so you will always experience problems with that.

That said, having already run the game through on your current setup you may have pushed the hardware beyond its limits and started burning out key components within the CPU.
The only way to know for sure would come afetr a full system rebuild like you said you had lpanned. If it continues to lpay up. then we will more than likely be looking at a cooked CPU.

[Geraldine]

Cooked CPU? Maybe. I did recently replace the fan on the heatsink as it was very noisy, but honestly it ran both games really well before. Speed Fan? I will certainly give that a go. It would be great if it is just a slower fan causing the problem. I will post back with results. Thanks guys! Actually just before I go, I think you are both onto something here as many of my Unreal based games are doing the same thing, as in, all of them have complex graphics and high processor demands. I was thinking of upgrading the CPU anyway, so this just might be the excuse I need.

[Gorath Alpha]

Unless you bought an AsRock "Dual" mainboard for your Pentium, to get ready for a change to a Core Duo, you may be out of luck now.  Only when the Core Duos were very new, some four years ago or so, were there any that would swap into the same s775 socket that the last of the Pentiums were designed for.  Since then, those particular Core Duos have long since been EOLed and been totally sold out of the retail channels. 

You would have to take your chances buying a used Core Duo from eBay or a similar resale site. 

Or else your upgrade has two parts: CPU plus the MB also. 

The reason I mentioned the AsRock brand is they made "bridging" hardware with an adapter slot to swap in a Core Duo later (and a similar AMD bridging mainboard from s939 to AM2), and all of those AsRock parts are long gone now. 

[Geraldine]

My mobo can take a quad core as I checked a while back at upgrading it. The PC shop said it could take one of those but at £140 ouch!
Anyways did a scan using Speed Fan and here are the results
GPU: 47C
System: 35C
CPU: 66C
AUX: 48C
HD0: 47C
HD1: 50C
HD2: 35C
Core: 47C
Amibent: 0C

So according to that it does look like my CPU is running hot as is one of the hard drives too.

[Gorath Alpha]

OK, that list actually isn't showing anything in it bad enough to be your problem, so let's have the list of claims off the label of the power supply, along with the brand, model number, and age of that unit. It begins to sound as if that part is about to go south, and has already lost a large part of its current capacity, or else was always was over-rated, as is often the case for far too many of the Asian Rim brands, like Chieftec, Raidmax, etc.

[Geraldine]

Well that's good to know the CPU at least is not running to hot. I might still save up for that upgrade though.

As for the PSU, the only way I could find out the info to it's spec is to strip it down as I cant see any labels on it. All I do know it that it is a 300 Watt unit. Not the most powerful by any means but has provided good service for the last 3 years. I suppose I could try running the hard drives from a test unit I use with my Amigas. That should take some of the load off the PSU? Dont know though, I would still like to try out the game on a clean install of XP as the present install is packed with obsolete updates and other junk it has collected over the years.

[Gorath Alpha]

A brand new 300 watt would probably be inadequate, actually. You need a good brand 400 watt (minimum).  All PSUs, good, bad, whatever, will deteriorate over time.  They lose literally 10% to 15% of actual current capacity (amps) each year, which is why builders of PCs such as myself start with a fat cushion.  If I need a 400 watt PSU now, I'll get one rated 600 watts so that three years from now, it will still be adequate, and I'll have "room" to add more load without replacing my PSU right away.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 13 juillet 2011 - 07:54 .

[d1sciple]

i'm having a slightly similar problem, haven't fixed it yet but after having a similar issue with dead space tried msconfig to find out if it was definitely a program conflict problem or not. turns out it was, after everyone i could find telling me to uninstall this and driver roll back this. should be the first place to go, you can turn everything non essential off and then if it crashes you'll know for sure it's not a program conflict like the new avast update that kills left 4 dead 2, or the zonealarm update that killed dead space(along with a bunch of other programs, i can't be stuffed diagnosing which one exact i just turn everything off and play lol).

[NialskylineR35]

Geraldine What program do you use to measure Temps? I might have to do the same thing since we both seem to be having the SAME problem with these random crashes. Let me know please so I can measure mine to make sure it's not an overheating problem.

[Geraldine]

It was a suggestion by Gorath Alpha that prompted me to look it up. Its called Speed Fan, here is a link http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

[Geraldine]

Well, more strange behaviour. I attempted to backup my Steam install of ME1 before I re-format the hard drive and once again this same strange crash happened. It might be a bad sector on the hard drive, but error checking brought up no results. I dont think it is a power problem either as I have ran the hard drives from another power supply. A DRM problem maybe?

In any case, it looks like a lengthy download again once I get the system back up and running after a fresh install of XP. Saved my commander at least. Also noticed boot times have increased a lot lately, especially after Net Framework was installed. This could point to registry problems too. So I will start afresh and see how I go, I might be some time but I hope to have the system backup to were it is now by the end of the weekend. One way or another ME1 is going to run again!

[Geraldine]

Another update. Was just about to begin the reformat when I remembered something. I didn't disconnect the DVD drive from the internal PSU. I did this and ran ME1 again. This time I almost made it all the way through the Eden Prime mission before it crashed! It must be the PSU after all. Looks like you were right Gorath Alpha, time to start hunting for a 600 Watt!

[Gorath Alpha]

Twenty-five years of building PCs taught me a few things along the way. (Hmm, maybe just 24 . . )

[NialskylineR35]

So geraldine Did you manage to fix everything? Update me to see if I can try the same thing you did? Did you install XP and removed vista?

[Geraldine]

@ Gorath Alpha. Well that's a good bit of experience you have and no mistake. Certainly there are power issues are work here so I will hold off in doing a full re-install of the OS until I have a new PSU fitted.

@NialskylineR35, no the problem is not fixed as such, but I did manage to lessen it. It will last half an hour or so before crashing. So the problem maybe leaking caps in the PSU. Y' know they dont make em em like they used to. The PSU in my Amiga 4000 is 20 years old and it's still going strong, original caps and everything too. Modern tech? Bah humbug! LOL

Still, if replacing the PSU does not work and can always try the re-install and if that dont work then I will have to wait until another solution presents itself.

[NialskylineR35]

I posted some temps on my post. Seems like they are lower than your temps. I bought my PS about 3 years ago and it's a 750W. So it should still be holding up fine today considering how I also didnt abuse my computer and was almost unused for like the past year so I'm guessing the PS didnt deteriorate as much throughout the years. Well just in case someone would like to comment on this

GPU= 0C
CPU= -50C
Internal Temp= 37c
Temp3= 37
Temp4=34
HD0=41c
Core0=49
Core1=48

I really dont know what to do anymore so i can play ME on my desktop lol.....

[mcsupersport]

Gpu temp listed at 0? Is that a mistype or is it not reading ? Gpu is graphics processor of course, which will be one of the main interest.

[Gorath Alpha]

Geraldine wrote...

@ Gorath Alpha. Well that's a good bit of experience you have and no mistake. Certainly there are power issues are work here so I will hold off in doing a full re-install of the OS until I have a new PSU fitted.

So the problem maybe leaking caps in the PSU. Y' know they dont make em em like they used to. The PSU in my Amiga 4000 is 20 years old and it's still going strong, original caps and everything too. Modern tech? Bah humbug! LOL

Still, if replacing the PSU does not work and can always try the re-install and if that dont work then I will have to wait until another solution presents itself.

The power supplies in the PCs and ATs back 30 years ago next month for the PC, and 27 years for the PC-AT, never got warm, hardly.  I don't recall that they had any integral cooling fan in them at the time.  I had CompuPro Z-80A micros for CP/M, an Apple ][, and a Commodore C64, but never an Amiga, Macintosh, nor an Atari 520.  The first relatively clear recollection of fans in PC power supplies is about the time that 386s were upgraded from 16 MHz to 20 MHz, and 1 MB worth of RAM to four MBs.  

The oldest anything that still works around here is an AMD K6 / 300 that I have set to run at 180 MHz, for some old games I might play again someday.  It's so similar to what we have today that looking inside it, you'd hardly realize it's 15 years old now, until you squint your eyes to look at details (it predates AGP-1, for instance). 

[Geraldine]

The PSU in the Amiga 4000 is very similar to AT ones with a fan and everything, in fact many of it's parts are interchangeable, smaller (non big box) Amigas though did use the usual "power bricks" similar to what the good old C64 used.

And NialskylineR35? That is strange your GPU is reading zero!

[NialskylineR35]

Yea its reading zero for some reason. I just reopened speedfan and its showing me the same "0". Wow that is odd...I wonder why its reading zero. Also I noticed in the ME config utility under video card driver its blank. I probably have to uninstall all the video card drivers and reinstall the 258.96...if thats the case how do I completely uninstall all the video card drivers and install the compatible one?

[NialskylineR35]

Other than that I dont know what else it could be, but yea those are the temps.

[mcsupersport]

If your comp is actually reading that temp for the gpu it will not control the fan correctly and could easily cause an overheating issue. If it is a glitch only with speedfan then it isn't a problem. Do you have a listing of the fan speed at that temp, versus maybe some of the others??

[Geraldine]

Yep, I would clear out all your drivers and start again. Also perhaps Speed Fan is mis-labelling your GPU as something else? What are those Temp 3 & 4 readings?

Oh, as for me, ordered an Alpine 600 Watt PSU unit today. Hopefully I will get a chance to try that out next week, fingers crossed.

Modifié par Geraldine, 16 juillet 2011 - 10:01 .