computer locks up after playing games

Everytime i get done playing the bf2 demo, cs source, doom3, and any other game that i play my computer not always but 90% of the time locks up only after closing the game. As the game is closing all of a sudden my entire screen freezes and i cant even move the coursor and it requires me to do a hard reboot. I have the latest drivers for my video card and ive done a mem test on the memory for 11hrs and it showed now errors. I have also reformated many times with no luck. I have done a hard drive test to see if there is anything wrong with the hard drive, which it then says there is nothing wrong. Any idea would be helpfull. Notice that this problem only occurs after closing the games. This error also just started occuring in the past 2 weeks or so. I built the computer probably around 3 months ago now.

My Comp Specs:

Processor: Pentium 4 3.2ghz

Ram: 512mb DDR2 (A-DATA 512MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Unbuffered System Memory Model ADJKD1908)

Video Card: BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC 128mb GDDR3 PCI-e

Hard Drive: 160GB Western Digital

Mobo: Intel Desktop Board D915PCY

(I have a 500w power supply that came w/ my case)

Check your wiring, make sure everything is plugged in and secure.

Rewire to be on the safe side.

Also make sure you have the latest stable drivers for your Geforce

Alright, ill rewire tomorrow to make sure. I also made sure and I do have the latest stable drivers for my vid card.

The solution is simple - stop playing games. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JMK

(I have a 500w power supply that came w/ my case)

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Unless it's a top model case, that's just asking for trouble. Check your voltages.

However, the fact that it freezes as you leave a game suggests that the problem is actually driver related. That doesn't necessarily mean graphics card drivers, the whole system is stressed when playing most of these games. Make sure you've also got DirectX 9c.

Check for Bios updates too.

I don't think it's the wiring or even the PSU.
Were it either of those, it seems logical that the problem would occur during game play when the demand is highest.

Drivers seem the likely culprit to me as well.
Have you installed new ones lately?

yea check web for good drivers. I wouldn't run extra processes\programs that you don't use in the background too, it may hug your resources when you quit.

Thank you all replying, i reinstalled my drivers, and i rewired and the problem has seemed to stop. So far at least..

ok nvm.. the problem is still occuring, this is getting to be very annoying.. any other ideas?

what temperature is your PC running at>?>

What os are you running and whens the last time you formatted and ran virus and spyware checks?

Over heating? how many fans u got?

My power supply has dual fans, and then i have my exhaust fan, but i have no intake. Then i have my heatsink that came w/ the cpu.

Btw.. What is a good program to see the temp of the cpu?

I am running winxp32 w/ service pack2

Also, i am pretty sure i dont have a virus, considering that all i did after i reformated was copy my music and to the hard drive and install the games and that was it. I also downloaded adaware and it found nothing.

Well if you had a virus and u burned a cd from before you formatted it could have easily god on the cd and made its way back on ur comp.

Try speed fan:http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php, install it and report back to us.

Well, i downloaded speed fan. It said that my cpu was idle it was around 43C. Then i started up cs source and i ran that for around 5 mins and the cpu was running at 58C and it was slowly climbing even as I shutdown cs. I'm not for sure what is a good temp and what is a bad temp to be running at.

Hmm, im not an expert, but i think thats a little to hot. My comp idles at atound 30C.

Dont take my word for it, wait for someone that knows more about this than me to reply, but i think you might need some more cooling ;)

Alright, I'll wait for an expert ;). Thank you very much for your help. By The Way thanks for the extremely quick responses :)

Erm, yah i wouldnt play any games untill you get this sorted out too, just to be safe, dont want to hurt your comp :)

alright, ill try to keep myself from playing some more cs

How many processes do you have running in taskman?

23 processes when i first bootup my computer

I also just looked the name brand of the power supply and it is "Allied" i dont know if that is a generic kind. I really dont know what a decient brand is for a power supply.

I still say this is NOT a hardware issue.
If it were, the PC would lock while the games are running not when they've closed.
Something is wrong with the software environment...either drivers, Windows or the game itself.

At least that would be my guess.

Well, I have the latest drivers for my video card. I went to www.nvidia.com and downloaded them, but the games still lock up. I'm doubting the fact that it could be with my windows due to me just reformating it. Unless, it is service pack 2 screwing something up.

I'm going to update my bios see if that'll help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JMK

Everytime i get done playing the bf2 demo, cs source, doom3, and any other game that i play my computer not always but 90% of the time locks up only after closing the game.

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Just to chime in here...

The BF2 demo has a known memory leak, and I've seen several people comment on it on other boards. Game runs flawlessly, but takes like 30 seconds to quit, and then leaves all kinds of garbage in your memory so that to recover your system response time you have to hard boot.

This isn't a temp, and unlikely to be a hardware issue. Lockups on game shutdown sounds like trouble not in initiating, but shutting down software 3D acceleration/rendering. Reinstalling board graphics/Direct-x/video card drivers in that order might help.

HTH,
-Noble

i blame the RAM. get another 512 ;)

It's unlikely to be system (CPU/GPU) temperatures, even more unlikely to be RAM-related, probably not any other hardware.

If it was hardware or temps, games would typically produce artifacts before freezing (temps), would either fail totally to initialize acceleration or crash the game(s) immediately (hardware), or you'd get a error code with module access error message (RAM).

Sound like he's playing games fine until he shuts down? More info please. ;)

Cheers,
-Noble

My games wouldn't really do anything. You'd go to exit and then everything would freeze (no artifacts) and the sound would repeat over and over really quick. I also wouldnt get any error messages of any kind, my screen would just freeze.

Well, I updated my bios (someone suggested earlier) and I think it may of been the problem. So far none of the games have froze. Hopefully it stays this way :)