i hate new computers sometimes....

everything was going fine, alittle trouble with the realtek onboard sound , not a big whoop when suddenly im playing a steam game and it freezes for like less then a second with extremely fast looped sounds and it shut my display off , everything else was working as if i put my pc on standbye but couldnt do anything but restart. i figure it was a one time thing , but ive found out everytime i play a graphic intensive game for some games it crashes for others it doesnt , which i found extremely strange. so i tried switching my graphics cards around took one out used the other as a main vise versa even switched their places while in crossfire. nothing. then i thought maybe its the ram , being that unless configured to do so a 32 bit system doesnt recognise more then 2.5-3 gigs of ram when i had 4 in there , just figured hell y not try it , so i try that still crash for certain graphic intensive games mostly source and aspyr games, but im kindof stuck on what to do next , i mean its one of the things keepin me from playing some of my favorite games like anything source. any suggestions if u guys got any ill try anything right now i spent $900 on this system not including the 130 i shelled out for the tower , so im willing to try anything .....any ideas?

Do you have a list of what your components are? Motherboard, gfx card, CPU, power supply brand and wattage, amount of RAM? Did you buy this as a package, from Dell or the like? If so, a brand name is helpful, and we can look up the info on the web.

I dunno if I can help, but regardless, a list of these things are a standard starting point for problem-solving. so it may be a help to someone.

First thing to double check is your powersupply for this kinda problem. Are your video cards equipped with a pcexpress power connector and properly connected? Also cheap power supplies dont' use two pipes for +5v on that connector and may not be able to handle the cards you have.

I've found the 79xx cards are more power hungry than the 8xxx cards for example.

If your using two video cards, you should max the power supply as much as you can afford, and not just the cheaper ones touting high wattage.

I've also read a few people are buying dedicated power supplies just for their sli cards, while others are simply dumping them in favor of a 8800 gtx oc instead.

Get us the details of your gear to start with.

However, it almost sounds like a heat issue to me. Try running a game that crashes the system with the side of the case open and see if that solves it.

You might also try running just a single video card and see if that works.

Definitely check on memory/motherboard mix. I've run into problems where certain models of certain brands won't run on certain motherboards.

I talked to Kenny earlier and asked him to post this. I was thinking power supply as well.

Try the case open and maybe a fan blowing in if you have one handy.

If that doesn't work, simplify your system a bit. Take out 2GB and 1 Video card, then do whatever it is that causes you to crash. If it still crashes, trade out one piece at a time, testing each time.

Also, make sure all of your drivers are latest up to date stable drivers.

Manufacturer:
MSI
Processor:
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory:
4000MB RAM
Hard Drive:
500 GB
Video Card:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
Monitor:
Gateway EV700
Sound Card:
Realtek HD Audio output
Speakers/Headphones:
Cambridge Sorround Sound
Keyboard:
USB Root Hub
Mouse:
USB Root Hub
Mouse Surface:
Mousepad
Operating System:
Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)

well it only crashes for certain games , then for others it dont , and ive already took in and out and fiddled with the cards and ram

You listed everything except your power supply. I also have that same CPU and I bought a Arctic super cooler for it as they get hot as hell.

I have a brand new xbrand power supply that couldn't handle the video card, so I went out and bought a 550w Astec one.

I get an annoying pause in my system every few minutes, but I've yet to iron that one out.

If some graphics intensive games are locking you up its either power or heat.

Along with what they all said, though I ask are you running a crossfire setup? I would eliminate that first and see if it helps.

Which MSI board? MSI's are great but rather well known for having memory timing issues. Also what brand and model is the ram.

Heat and voltage sound like strong possibilities.

power supply is a master cooler 650 watt 12 v rail , im using g.skill ddr2 1 gig pc26400 ram got 4 1 gig chips in there allready tried disableing crossfire and switching cards around , i think the vid cards i have require 550 watts for crossfire to boot , so dunno if thats it or not , but im stumped after trying all this stuff and also tried updating my dx to the latest 9c , didnt wanna go to 10 since alot of my older games i run wouldnt run under dx 10 and i also tried different drivers with the same result , but , im still open for suggestions , could i not have a good heatsink? or could the power supply really need to be upgraded even more?

Assuming your power supply is good, and it certainly looks like a good one, I'd have to suspect the cpu is the culprit. Best way to determine it is to find a system software checker, Syslis? Something like that. It will max out your system and do 24hr burnin testing.

If the cpu is overheating those kinda programs should point it out. Otherwise, was the cpu a boxed version or an OEM model? If it was a boxed, you may want to send it back and get a fresh one, or at least discard the included heatsink/fan and go with a super cooler vented right out of the case.

i think it came oem but if i have to get a new one that could mean trouble because i didnt install it

Nah! We can walk you through it.

When you say switched things around, did you try each video card on it's own?

Also, did you rip out everything to it's minimum and try it? Aka, one hard drive, no CD (if possible), 2 Memory Chips, No Sound Card. Take it all the way down, then try it. Then start adding one thing at a time and try again.

I know it sucks, but it's the price you pay for DYI.....

well if i stripped it down i wouldnt be able to run that stuff anyways, anyways cant be the power supply because i tried each vid card individually, the cpu i dont know its a generic heat sink so could be, but im not even overclocking. anyways it doesnt happen all the time whats getting me is its only certain platforms that do it , like aspyr and steam games will do it but then games like americas army and dnd online dont crash it. so im wondering how can it be a hardware problem?

Kenny it really could be anything. The fact it is intermittent is bad for troubleshooting. The fact it only seems to happen while gaming would imply that when stressed something is going cablooey.

I would check for heat first. open your machine after it crashes and see if it's steaming or not. Check the vid card fans while the machine is running and make sure they are turning...etc. Try to spread your equip out as much as possible in the machine. Put a thermometer in there and get a reading, if you don't have some sort of built in temp sensor. It could be a better cooler will help. To test this open the rig and put a huge desk fan pointing into your machine and see if it crashes, (or open your window, don't let it get condensation cold though. AMD have always been way hot processors, Intel doesn't have the problem as much.

It could be ram, bad ram or incompatible timings. Check what the timings for your ram sdhould be, check in the bios if that is what they are set at. check with G.skill. Some Mb's just don't like some ram. There are plenty of ram testing software.

As for it being a bad CPU in my experience you would have noticed installing the OS or most likely sooner.

run a burn in software and see if it crashes it.

Limit the amount of hardware at all times to barebones. 1 video card until you figure out the issues, crossfire and multiple cards and heat from multiple cards are not your friend until you get a solution. Limit the possibilities of failure as often as possible.

Download Ubuntu and burn it to a cd, that cd is bootable and runs a live OS, see how things run there for a few hours.

If you leave windows running all alone doing nothign for a bunch of hours does it have issues? check your windows logs were are there errors. (Control panel--administrative tools--event viewer)

The problem most people have in troubleshooting is in keeping too many varibles, don't do this to yourself. Take the vid card out of your old rig and test with it.

I will gladly help, let me know as you progress.

You didn't give a model # for your motherboard, just make.

You didn't give a model # for your speakers. I'm going to assume they're standard 5.1 stuff, and nothing that requires unusual drivers to get some fancy THX uber-sound or the like. I'll admit, I'm not up on the latest fancy stuff. . .it's usually out of my price range, and I find the KISS principle makes for reliability. Every time I get something unusual or fancy, I never seem to have a satisfactory experience.


The Realtek HD sound is built-in to your motherboard, right? Many moons ago, I built a system for my ex's boy. We thought we'd save some money and use on-board sound. It was fine until the system was stressed by games, then we'd get stuttering sound, jerky gfx and momentary freezing of the screen, etc. As a test, I disabled the on-board sound and went without any audio at all. When the game ran smooth as butter, I knew we needed to get him a soundboard.


Simple test: go into BIOS, disable the on-board sound, save and exit, then play the game. Assuming it allows you to proceed without audio, see if it works better. If so, get a cheap soundblaster. If not, re-enable your on-board sound and check out the other ideas here. Hey, this doesn't require pulling hardware or anything!

lotta things to try out , should keep me busy , thnx for the suggestions ill keep ya informed

I know it's a pain, but if you don't take the time to do things in order, you'll miss the one thing that could be the problem and that's even worse.

Write down what you are doing as you do it.

Barebones - Worked
Swapped Video - Worked
Put Case back on - Didn't work.

You get the point.

I was having similiar problems a while back and it turned out I had accidentally unplugged the fan on the video card. I couldn't see it since it pointed down and I only noticed the problem when I had been playing games for a while. By the time I figured it out, the card was toast and I had to get a new one.