# PC freezes while playing games.



## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

Hi i have recently gotten a sapphire edition x800 GTO 512mb graphics card. I had a x1300 pro which wasnt as fast. Now when i play games they freeze my pc. The screen makes color in vertical lines on which every seen of the game was last. The only game that i can play wihtout freezing is Shadow Run. All the other games freeze (Company of Heroes, CNC:generals, CNC3, BF2, and others).

Here are my PC specs:
Emachines T6216
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
300 Watt Power Supply
1x 512mb default ram 1x 512mb Kingston Ram
ATI Sapphire x800 GTO 512mb PCIe
AMD Athlon64 3200+
160gb 7200rpm HD

Thanks for the help in advance.


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## Fishpan (Jul 24, 2007)

Are you sure you have the latest drivers for your motherboard, sound and graphics adapters? They could be the cause of the freezes. Also, does the freeze occur outside of games? Does your pc freeze up whilst playing games and force you to manually restart (or restarts itself.) 

Also, your mismatched RAM could be the cause of the issue - try playing with just one Kingston RAM module and see whether the freeze occur then. However, the freeze is most likely to be caused by your graphics driver. Download the latest version from the ATI website.


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

Yes i have the latest drivers and ive also tried previous drivers.
No it only freezes in game. And i have to manually restart my pc.

I had no problems with my x700 and x1300 so i dont think the ram is the problem.


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## Fishpan (Jul 24, 2007)

Those freezes might be something to do with your PSU. But in the meantime try this:

Start your pc, then press F8 during the boot-up (where your computer shows the BIOS loading screen) to bring up the Vista advanced boot-up menu. Then select "Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure" and boot your pc. Then try to get one of those freezes again and then record the Blue Screen of Death should you get one. 

If you don't get a BSoD after a few tries then report back.


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

I never got a BSoD. When i say my pc freezes, the sound freezes and the screen freezes with the colors of the frozen screen in a vertical line. I have to hold in my power button and shut down my pc like that to shut it down. I cant ctrl+alt+delete, i cant alt+tab, i cant do anything. 

If u have a cell phone i can send u a pic of my monitor when it does this. I unfortunatley dont have a digital camera so the phone is the way im gonna have to go.


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

This is the exact same problem that I have, and I also use a Sapphire x800 GTO. I have mis-matched RAM, and my problem is also during gaming and gaming only.

The freezes can only be dealt with by force-quit, and only seems to happen on the most recent of games. I have fiddled about with drivers, because the latest does not run on my pc, and I have yet to find a driver that stops this. My PSU is 350watt, but getting a little old.

If you need any more info, then let me know what and I will let you know. Anything to solve this!! Thank you


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## Fishpan (Jul 24, 2007)

Do any of you by chance get a "Severe Error" message when you try to install the latest ATi display drivers?


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

No, i dont get that error. I just get a frozen screen of vertical lines, mostly white with a some colours mixed in. I can do nothing but force quit to restart, and windows does not tell me that I have just recovered from a serious error when I do restart. Its really odd, and only happens with newer games. 

I did have a thought. Would it have anything to do with .Net framework? I have version 1.1?


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

I found out that the problem was windows vista. My friend's old pc is the exact same as my pc (emachines t6216) and for the hell of it we checked to see if it worked in his pc. (he has windows xp on his and i upgraded to vista). And it worked without a hitch. I couldnt believe that windows was causing it but i guess i was wrong... 

You had it luckier then me syree, it froze my pc, i couldnt alt+tab force quit or nothing except hold the power button in(which is really bad for my pc).


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

Actually i do have to hold the power button in, thats what I meant--scuse terminology 

I am running XP SP2. DirectX9c. The latest version of the ATI driver is unusable, but I am still assuming that this may be a driver fault of some kind--or maybe .Net. Still, I will keep trying to resolve!

Glad you fixed yours, howell


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## Fishpan (Jul 24, 2007)

Since you mentioned it, why don't you try updating to Net Framework 2.0 or even 3.0?


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

Will give it a go.


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## Fishpan (Jul 24, 2007)

Great, try reinstalling the latest ATi drivers after you install the new frameworks. During the driver installation you get a "Severe error" dialog, act like it never happened and click through it and continue the installation normally.


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## AndrewMSA (May 4, 2007)

I blame ATI.
I have used NVidia cards for over 5+ years now and games never crash on me.
i recently built a new computer and the RAM caused my computer crash several times a day, and forget playing games.
What type of RAM do you have? Was it changed recently? Is it similar? Make sure they are exactly the same looking.
Try downloading and running MS Memory Tester and see if any tests come up as failed.
It needs to be burnt to a cd and booted from. Solved my problems.


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

well andrew that is ur opinion and a little bias. For my friend it was complete opposite. He had a 7900 which artifacted more then a cario museaum and crashed games frequently. It satyed below 45 Celcius and he always got the latest drivers in hope of fixing the problem. Then he bought a 2900 Xt and he has no more crashes, no more artifacts, and u can run bioshock on all high dx10. (4x AA). 

So ATI ftw. And dont say teh 8800 is better because the 2900 just came out and they dont have stable drivers for it yet. The 8800 has been out for atleast 6 months. and has perfected drivers. The last benchmark i seen was using ati's 7.5 drivers when they now have 7.9 out.


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

Heya. Sry been so long.

OK, I have tried loading .net 2 and the game won't load as needs .net vs1, so I can only assume that is not the problem. I also tried the latest drivers again, but on my poor old pc, the screen judders when I move the mouse. Have updated to a more recent driver anyway after a few attempts and a lot of trial and error. 

Sadly, I still have the same trouble.  

Only thing I can think of is trying the mem test and seeing if it is the ram, but why would that affect games like LOTRO and Stormhold but not EQ2 or Vanguard?

Anyway, thanks for continued support.


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

Tried the mem test and ram is apparently working ok.


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## 07clarkm (Jul 24, 2007)

Overheating or PSU trouble mate, nothing else.


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## 07clarkm (Jul 24, 2007)

I bought a X1950XTX and had no troubles with it.

Yesterday I bought a 8800GTX and have had nothing but heat problems.

So in my opinion ATi are kick ars, but that is another story.


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

i agree bro. ati + amd ftw


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

So if it is heat related, why do my other games work and this error occurs within 3mins of games loading? Scuse my ignorance--just want to know if I am actually going to have to buy a new pc to play anything post 2006


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

well, only some of your games crash correct? That happens to me now with my 7900 GTX, games like css, shadowrun, and bf2 crash on my pc. but the rest of my games work. My ****** 7900 has heating problems and will crash my games, and i will get a bsod if i dont keep my card running below 56 Celcius. So when your game crashes check what your graphics card temp is.

You can download rivatuner to speed your gfx card fan speed up to 100% which does make a difference.


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

How do I know what the card temp is? Is there a program I can download that sits on my window that can tell me? I figure that is prolly is the graphics card letting me down rather than the drivers, as I managed to get the latest driver to work (after clearing out everything else to do with ATi drivers), and still no joy.

As for fan speed, it's an ATi x800GTO card. Is there a program for ATi?


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## howell234 (Apr 7, 2007)

yea its called ati tray tools


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

OK. I have solved problem by putting in my humble old FX5500. The graphics are juddery, but it works. I also have a 300w PSU, which is lower than I thought, so maybe the PSU needs replacing along with a newer vid card. 

Anyhow, thanks for your input everyone. Hope I can call this over


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## hursty566 (Sep 29, 2007)

ive got no idea, bf2 crashes to a blue screen tellin me errors abouts drivers, got no idea wat it means, any help would b appreicated


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## Fishpan (Jul 24, 2007)

It'd be great if you could recall that screen and write down what the error is here. An example would be something like machine_check_exception or driver_irql_not_less_or_equal.


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## hursty566 (Sep 29, 2007)

Its says at the blue screen

The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itsself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly.

Plz check with with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates

Tech Info

*** STOP : 0x000000 EA (0x81aed020,0x81BOGE68,0xF897OCBC,0x00000001)
ati2dvag 
Begining dump of physical memory

Specs



Time of this report: 10/1/2007, 16:29:49

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: GBT___
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 507MB used, 742MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

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DxDiag Notes
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DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Music Tab: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.
Network Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D: 0/4 (n/a)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
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Card name: RADEON 9250 
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON 9250 AGP (0x5960)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5960&SUBSYS_7C26174B&REV_01
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6587 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail


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## Syree (Aug 26, 2007)

Heya. Another update as I have resolved my particular problem by buying a 600watt PSU rather than the 300w PSU I had before. I am now running the games I could not before on the X800 GTO with no problems at all. With the new unit I have a seperate lead for the graphics card--which I have used. Hope this helps someone else, and a BIG thank you to all for your help and advice. Would not have fathomed the PSU tbh


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## tototerrier (Oct 10, 2007)

I got vista recently but all my games keep crashing the games just turn off. please help 
Toughpower 6oo watt power supply 
by computer specs
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-N650 SLI
Processor Intell E6750 2.66 GHZ 4mb cache
RAM 2 GB kingston hyper X DDR2 800 MHZ SLI ready
Harddrive 320 GB Seagate 16 MB cache SATA II
Graphics card XFX 8600 GTS 256 MB DDR3 
20X SATA DVD drive Lite on


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