Issues with multiple games

[LiquidFlames]

Hey floks,
This is my first post in the Vista forums. Thanks for having me!

Ok so straight to business...

I just built a new system and here are the specs:
Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard
Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz (not overclocked, stock fan/heatsink)
BFG 8800GTS SLI 512mb vid card (only one of these for now)
Four OCZ DDR2 2gig Ram (8 gigs total, which, thankfully Vista is recognizing all of)
500gig Maxtor SATA hdd
And I've got a DVD write all burner which is also SATA
600 Watt Power supply.. not sure of the brand as it came with the case
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1
Dell 22 inch wide screen monitor (not sure of the model) connected via DVI
Im using the on-board sound, lan, ect for now

Games I am (attempting to) play(ing):
Starwars Battelfront II
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Lord of the Rings Online
Quake 4

I haven't a big gamer for a long time with the exception of LOTRO. Ive been playing that one since beta. So I went down to the local game retailer after I got the system up and running and purchased COD4. What a fantastic game... except it locks up my system. It seems random when this happens. Sometimes I can play for several hours with no issues. Other times it will lock up within five minutes of play. And by "lock up" I mean it completely freezes the whole system so that the only way to get out of it is to hit the reset button on the tower.

With Battlefront 2 it runs great. The graphics are flawless... but the sound kind of stutters every once in a while. This one, I am ready just to write it off as an older poorly programmed game that is having trouble with all this new hardware.. unless you guys know of a fix.

With Quake 4 it tells me to insert CD1 into the drive when I launch it. CD1 _is_ in the drive.

Lord of the Rings Online (which utilizes DX10) has locked up on me once the way that COD4 does.

What I've done so far:
I have ran system stress tests using Everst. My CPU temp has maxed at about 55c after about 3 hours. The motherboard temp stays below 50c at all times. I am not sure what is an acceptable temp for a non-overclocked system.

Ive tried removing RAM and running one 2 gig stick at time. System still locks up no matter which stick of ram I have installed. I have run a little program called memtest over night. It reported no errors with all 8 gigs installed.

I have tried shutting down all programs running in the background. When playing LOTRO on my old system I would have Trillian, Ventrilo, and Windows Media Player on random in the background while playing. On the new system I have tried shutting down all programs except the game I am playing to no avail. I have updated all drivers and updated the bios on the board (which I had to do to fix an issue with it reporting the wrong processor speed). I have tried fiddling with the resolutions and graphics settings in both LOTRO and COD4.

This problem has really got me stumped. I am usually pretty good at troubleshooting but this is really frustrating. Is there anything I am forgetting? I'm not even sure if its a hardware or software problem at this point. I'm not so much worried about Quake and Battlefront. Those are older games and I don’t expect much out of them anyway. But LOTRO has an expansion coming soon and COD4 is hella fun in multiplayer. They seem to be sharing the same issue, so if you folks have any other suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
-LF-

 

[locoeng]

stock fan/heatsink

My guess is it's heat related. With as nice of a system as you've built you should really invest in a nice aftermarket heat sink for about $40-$50. I'm not sure how Everest taxes your system as I use OCCT. There is also Prime95 and some others to try as well.

 

[LiquidFlames]

Thanks for the reply Iocoeng. I was afraid you might say that, though. One thing that has worried me from the beginning is how close the ram sits to one another. The ram did come stock with head spreaders on them but when all 8 gigs are installed they nearly touch. Are there any other cooling solutions for ram?

I will be shopping for a CPU cooler today. I haven't shopped for that stuff in years so I was wondering if you might have some recommendations. Zalman seems to have nice stuff but it looks like it might be more pretty looking than functional.

And obviously the cooler the better but what is a safe temp for a system to run at under full load? I just assumed that 55c is fine.

 

[locoeng]

55 is fine and I actually missed that part of your post until I after I posted. I would recommend Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120, but you will need to buy a fan separately for it. I've got my eye on a Tuniq right now and think they are in close competition with the TRUE120.

I wouldn't call myself an expert on your issue by any stretch and would be willing to bet someone else will catch something I've missed or don't know about.

 

[Adrian Wainer]

I don't see why, you would be having a problem with the CPU as regards over heating, if it is in fact over-heating unless your your current cpu fan-unit/heat sink is actually faulty or you have it mounted in a case with inadequate air-flow, ( and anyway apparently the idea that there was a problem with your CPU cooling originated because lcoeng missed your temp stat ). You say you suspect too that the RAM may be overheating ( because of the proximity of the heatspeaders to one another ) but with only one 2gigabytes stick installed, you apparently have the same problem, so maybe we are back to the possibility of inadequate air flow through your case. My best shot at this stage if your CPU cooling is good and your RAM cooling is good and your case ventilation is good, is that you have power-supply problems, I would advise you if that is the story, try to find out more about the PSU, in that 600 Watts should be fine for your system but unfortunately many power supply makers are overly optimistic about what their equipment can do.

the following is what BFG is quoting for 8800 GTS OC 512MB


425W PCI Express-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 28A or more (Minimum system power requirement based on a standard PC configured with an Intel® Core™2 Extreme X6800 processor)


Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

PS Just like locoeng I'm no expert either

 

[LiquidFlames]

Thanks Adrian..
As far as the PSU goes, all i know about it is that the brand is Ultra, its 600 watts and it came with my Ultra case. Heres the product on tiger direct:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3634728&CatId=1846

Bit of an update..

I played LOTRO tonight for about 4 hours and COD4 for about 5 hours. Not a single lockup or issue to report. The only thing I changed is I'm running on 4 gigs of ram instead of 8. My CPU temp sits at around 65c while in both of those games. I am def going to invest in a nice cooler for the cpu. Probably add a couple more case fans while im at it. I am still not convinced that Vista doesnt have something to do with the issue... I hear nothing but horror stories about Vista and RAM problems. I know of a couple of people who reverted back to XP because of all the issues they had with the RAM in Vista. This machine, though, sees all 8 gigs when I have them installed and seems to run superb until I get into these graphic intense games... I'm so stumped. I think I am going to keep running it with 4 gigs for a couple more days. If there are no problems I'm going to try adding in another stick to bring it up to 6 and see what happens. Ill keep at it and keep you all updated. Thanks again!

-LF-

On a side note I am downloading Ubuntu 64 bit and I am going to dual boot this machine with Vista as the primary OS... Which i have never done before so i hope it works... im just curious to see what happens in another 64 bit OS.

 

[Adrian Wainer]

Hi whilst Vista does have its faults, it is getting better and will continue to get better I have the 32 bit Vista home Premium on my laptop and Vista 64 ultimate on my desktop and I like them a lot. Well the memory thing if it is working well with 4 Gigbytes does seem a likely possibility as the cause of the trouble. As for adding a second operating system in a dual boot configuration, make sure you have everything backed-up that you might need, in case it all goes horribly wrong and you can't even boot in to the pre-existing Windows system after you have added the Linux.

Personally I think, that dual boot systems are a bad idea in that even if they work perfectly, as a dual boot system if they go down say e.g. because of hardware disc failure you can lose both operating systems and their associated files together. I really can't see the advantages of dual-boot systems and with disc drives being so inexpensive, I think it makes much more sense if one wishes to have multiple operating systems on a single computer, is to give each operating system its own hard-drive and allow it to boot independently. Fitting the drives in mobile racks allows one to switch from one operating system to another simply by powering down the computer turning the keys and then powering up again. Since the operating systems are physically seperate, there is no issue of cross system contamination and as I keep the application software and files associated with an operating system on the same disk as the operating system, the files and application software are safeguarded too and if I want to transfer anything between one operating system and/or its file base and another I use a USB stick. This is really a very robust system and I don't understand why more people don't use it. Furthermore with a set up like this and say Windows XP on one drive and Vista on another drive and both of them housed in racks, all one has to do make a full and complete copy of a drive is to slide one of the operating systems drives out, replace it with a dedicated copy drive and use an imageing software like Norton Ghost and then one has an identical copy of one's drive.

5.25" Kingwin Serial ATA Hard Drive Aluminum Mobile Rack Kit with Fan: KF-91-BK (Black, Retail)

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer



-

 

[LiquidFlames]

All very excellent points. I have never attempted dual boot before. I was just going on the advice of a friend who swears by Ubuntu and refuses to use anything else. I too really like Vista. I think, as you said, it is getting better all the time. There will be some growing pains, just like with XP. I can remember my first impression of XP.. something like "sheesh it look so bubbly and cartoon-like. I'll never use it". Of corse, that was not true and XP became a fantastic operating system with time.

I just hope I can nail down this issue. As I said, I'm going to continue running on 4gbs of RAM for a few more days and im going to upgarde all my cooling parts just to be sure that is not the issue. Once I know that heat is not the issue and the 4GBs runs great for a week or so, I will try adding another stick of RAM. Thanks for all the advice and I'll keep this thread updated.

 

[Blaydrnnnr]

Just to poke in here...I play Q4 and CoD4, please make sure you have the latest updates as these made a big difference in running..especially Q4, there are still a few bugs going on with CoD4 though...I too am installing a Tuniq 120 tower cooler...and I am also running the OCZ platinum ram with heat sinks....I will probably install yet another fan pushing across them to cool them..mine are very close as well..Keep us up to date on your progress...most of my problems seem to have been fixed, but its good to have the info...

 

[LiquidFlames]

please make sure you have the latest updates as these made a big difference in running...

i had no idea there were updates available for these games until i tried playing cod4 multiplayer with a buddy. we couldnt figure out why i wasnt seeing the same servers he was. we then realized i was running an older version. i updated to the latest and voila! there were my missing servers. one question though. where do i find the updates for quake 4? i really want to play this game. long story short, i bought it right when it came out but i have never played it! lol. it has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust.


anyhow, i have been running on just 4 of my 8 gigs of ram with no issues for about 3 days now. i am waiting on the Zalman CNPS9700 to come in that i ordered. once i have that installed ill go back up to 8 gigs and see how it all runs. im also considering getting one of these. and im going to check out this other cooler you guys keep talking about. i think that will once and for all eleminate any possibility of my issues being related to over heating and i can move on to other things.

 

[SgtBaxter]

Thanks Adrian..
As far as the PSU goes, all i know about it is that the brand is Ultra, its 600 watts and it came with my Ultra case. Heres the product on tiger direct:

If there is one thing I've learned for the long history I've worked with computers, it's that PSU's that come with cases or stock in prebuilt machines usually suck and deliver nowhere near their rating, don't deliver stable power, and often don't last very long. I always recommend a bare case and buying a good quality PSU.

Case in point, two years ago I replaced the PSU in an old Athlon XP box that would crash regularly. It had a "500 watt" PSU, I replaced it with a 425W Enermax unit and it didn't crash once after that.

Electricity is the lifeblood of your system, if you feed it crappy juice, it'll perform crappy in return. Take the PSU out, if it doesn't have good heft like a brick it's probably cheapo and I'd replace it.

As for CPU cooling, what are you looking to do? Different coolers are for different purposes. If you're not overclocking, or not heavily overclocking, most will give you much lower temps than the stock cooler can. Take a look at newegg and read the reviews, some are built more for silence (like the Zalman), some more for high overclocking (like the Tuniq).

 

[ChrisJust66]

I would think the psu would probably be more likely than a heat issue. More of less any more, the computer will shut off if the temps get to high. But then again so would a power supply. One thing I would check is to make sure that your fsb is for sure set to 1333mhz in the bios. If it's set to 1066mhz for some reason, well, I know for a fact that your games will freeze like that. If all is good, then I'd run the stress again. Only this time, let it go over night, like 8 or more hours. I had a computer that was doing the same thing and I had to run the test all night because some times it would fail 30 mins into it and other times it would be 5-8 hours.

 

[LiquidFlames]

I have been running on 4 gigs of ram for a few days now with zero issues. The Zalman cpu cooler came in today so....

...got the new cooler installed. Peak temp under full load over night was 39c for the cpu. Core 1 got to 43 and Core 2 got to 42c. And that was with the cpu fan on its lowest setting.. between 1300 and 1350 rpms. I can jack it up to 2300rpms using the little Fanmate controller it came with if I see temps starting to rise drastically. Everest somehow splits up the cores and gives temps for those then an overall cpu temp. I still dont understand though how the core temps can be higher than the cpu temp (unless im reading it wrong). Motherboard temp got up to 43c. I still havent figured out how to test ram temps.

Compare that to the stock cpu fan/sink it was peaking at around 68/69c for the cpu.. cores would run anywhere from 80 to 100c under full load. Motherboard would get up to around mid 70s. Huge difference! I am very impressed with Zalman at this point. (keep in mind i am not overclocking anything).

Anyhow, I think I have effectivly elemented heat as an issue. Would you guys agree?

I have reinstalled my other two sticks of ram. I am now back to 8 gigs total. I am going to try running like this for a few days and see what happens. If it still crashes on me again... based on what everone here has said... I'll have to assume its either the PSU a ram/vista issue, correct?

I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for everything!

 

[Blaydrnnnr]

You can get the patch for Q4 here....id Software: Quake 4.
Maybe see ya online in Cod4 or Q4!!!!!

 

[LiquidFlames]

Well I think I have pretty well narrowed it down to a RAM issue. I have a Zalman cpu cooler. The whole machine runs icy cold even under a full load. I have a new 1000 watt power supply. I still have problems. I can run anything I want for as long as I want on 4gbs of RAM. As soon as I put in another stick, the issues begin. at 6gbs I dont have as many problems. But when I go to 8gbs I get the lock ups n stuff. I dont think that it is bad ram because I can run on any combination of two 2 gig sticks with no issues. It's only when I put in more than 4gigs total. Just to test this theory I borrowed two sticks of a different brand (but same specs across the board) from a friend. I run those two 2 gig sticks with no problems but again, when i try to go with more than 4 gigs total, even with his ram as 4 of the 8gigs I have lockup problems. Sometimes, with 8 gigs, I even have problems booting up. I will get to the Vista screen that says "Welcome" for a moment before the desktop loads, the screen will go all black like its trying to bring up the desktop, but never does. Sometimes it will go to the desktop but I'll get a perpetual spinning circle thing (which I guess is the pre Vist equivalent to an hourglass). The boot issues arent nearly as common as the locking up during games, though. I am completely stumped.

 

[ChrisJust66]

ok well I don't want to reread through all the posts, but have you messed with the bios at all? Maybe try setting the ram to 667 instead of 800 or try retarding the timings. I've heard it worked for some people with these problems but not all. Also have you tried using memtest to test the memory? I'd try running memtest before I mess with the bios though. Another and probably would be my second option before bios would be to update the bios. Sometimes mobo's don't like certain kinds of ram but they update the bios to improve compatibility with things like that.

 

[LiquidFlames]

Thanks Chris,
Im sorry I didn't update this therad. I actually discovered the memory controller on my mobo has a hard time with 4 sticks installed. After getting a new cpu cooler, power supply, and having OCZ replace all of my ram to no avail, I bought a new mobo and all 8 gigs are running like a champ! Thank you all for your time and help. I really apreciate everything.
-LF-

 

[ChrisJust66]

No problem. Anything to help. I know how frustrating it is when components start crapping out on you.