fkn computa

[Bignick]

my computah is fuckin up again, more often than not it freezes when i open games and sometimes videos.
its not overheating and to me it sounds like my vid card is fuckin up, anyone got any suggestions or helpestions?


*its not the drivers either (i think)

[Aphex]

ok this is only advice but by no means if you don't want to go ahead with suggestions then we'l' work around that...

Ok first things first...
What happens when your comp freezes? BOS? blank screen? in game freeze? or freeze then sudden reboot?
you mention that it may be your video card, is there anything to suggest that? like artifacts on screen when playing games? or video?
in regards to over heating have you used some kind of external thermal diode to test your components?, or next to that does your current video card have a built in temp sensor already?
how much RAM does your rig have? and what type including CL timeings etc?

now some suggestions, check your startup sequence for unessasary software that starts with your comp, eg msn messenger, steam, etc they have no need to run with windows, so disable if possible.
next thing, have you checked to make sure your comp, or video card isn't caked with dust... could pose to be a heat issue, same applies for fans and chipset coolers and fans etc... next phsically uninstall your video card and other peripherals make sure they don't have any evidant heat damage etc, reinstall , then do the same for windows, uninstall drivers, then reinstall with freshly downloaded drivers, preferably the latest.
next is probably not nessacary but in your case, if it's possible check to make sure your PSU isn't fluctuating to much, you could prolly check in Bios and see to make sure your positive and negitive rails are getting voltage to where is needed fine with out high fluctuations, i'm sure cvt will have more to explain on how unnessacary it prolly is... but that would be something i'd check.
then finally run a thourough diagnostic on any HDD's you may have... and maybe revert your BIOS to defaults for a while, some bios's can have certain things enabled that could play up in 3D appz etc...
next would be a RAM test using memtest or the likes... pleanty of software for diagnostics, i would have a look into those if all else fails... hope this has helped...

[Bignick]

when it freezes, it just... freezes. screen doesnt move, sound stops etc.
nothing to point to the video card as the problem, just seems to be a likely culprit.
i assume its got nothing to with heating, as it sometimes does it within 2 minutes of starting my computer, and someimes doesnt freeze after hours of playing games.
computa has 768mb of ram, and i dont know what these timing this are ;).

now a bit of history on my computer.... it started doing this ages ago (freezing during games, but not videos :S). i formatted it, didnt work. then for some unknown reason it started working again (not freezing, and not related to the format).

could be a dust factor, i'll get the compressor out and give it a blast.

i dont really want to do the whole drivers thing, they piss me off. and as for the psu with fluctuating rail guns and the stuff, well, lets just say i have no idea what you just said.

and as far as i know, my BIOS is the same as when i got it.

thanks for the help

[Zenon]

What time span was this over? perhaps it is over heating and its because of the season. Keep in mind it has been quite hot. maybe download some tempreture measuring software that will find out the tempretures from censors. and it could be freezing after two minutes because its a particulary hot day... all in all its a long piece of string

[Aphex]

when was the last time you did a format, could be worth your while doing all of that again, but yeah make sure you give your RAM slots and AGP, PCI slots a good going as well, from experiance if dust gets into your RAM slots it can have some strange effects, EG comp not booting, BOS, freezing etc...
run a memtest on your RAM, that would be number one test to do...
then a HDD integrety test if ya can...
if and when you can boot into windows, could you check in your Hardware device list and do a "scan for changes" in there, I have a feeling it may freeze if you did that, because my gut feelings are that it may be a hardwrae fault... but it's a matter of finding what peice of HW is giving your system grief,..

[SnooP]

also try stresscpu or OCCT, they're both decent at stress out cpus to see if their faulty/overheating/overclocked too much. Anyways give us a list of all the components (brand / model) you got and i might be able to help you more.

[themunga]

Yeah my computer was overheating at the last X, Kenny had a bit of a laugh, lucky i have a fan that goes over 5000 rpm

[Bignick]

i ran all those test thingy majigys and no errors in any of them.
scaning for changes in the hardware thing also did nothing.
i got the compressor on to it today, lots of dust, hopefully it fixed it.
i'll go game it up to see if it freezes.

[mudgie]

Dust can fuck it up good... I hear some of it even conducts electricity, but I don't know if that's true. But it can for certain make it hotter.

What temperature does your CPU and video card run at? Could be heat.

[dominatrix]

yeah, the old compressor sounds like a good idea. my old rig is caking i the mud at the minute, luckily im not getting any gay problems like poor bignick

[Hammo]

shit nick
you seem to be in the wars as of late

[Bignick]

haha, yeah, maybe i was hitler in a previous life :P

but yeah, the dedusterisation seemed to work, there was a fuckload of the stuff

[*NoN*Da]rY*]

my sister shares her birthday with Hitler :)

[Aphex]

haha, yeah, maybe i was hitler in a previous life :P

but yeah, the dedusterisation seemed to work, there was a fuckload of the stuff


i love that word dedusterisation lol.. dust acts like an electric blanket on your hardware...
anyway well seeing as it's working for ya now, a little info about good flow for your comp,,,(give a shit about a little bit of noise) so here's some recommendations that come from Intel and mostly AMD, "A strong exhuast will increase air flow, and will increase the dust in your computer, because this will create a "vacuum", where as stronger intake instead of exhaust will result of slow amounts of flow of air in dead spots etc, but usually stop large amounts of dust to become caked on your components", but in general any kind of flow will result in a bad dust issue, therefore recommended you should at least blast your comp with compressed air once every 6 weeks, including all slots, HSF including CPU, chipset coolers, mostly anything with a HSF, and maybe look at getting high flow fans or increasing the air flow in your tower to keep the componets cool regardsless of small amounts of dust... next to that would be a high air flow able PSU, dual fan PSU's can keep a lot of the dust away from your CPU HSF, and a good rear exhaust can keep the majority of dust away from your vid card...
I think TechTV when they were around (if you ever watched them) had a great thing with a can of "smoke" that would be sparyed in front of your computer, or wherever the intake was, this would show your air flow, and if the smoke could leave the cases as quick as it went in there then the air flow is fine... not exactly sure how you can get your hands of a smoking device or such, unless you do smoke, then it's prolly not a prob!!! ;)

[themunga]

Just go postal Nick, it always seems to work for me :D

[mudgie]

You should invest in some filtered fan guards. It's amazing how much shit doesn't get into my computer, but stuck to the grill. Every month or so I wash them, and it seems to keep the dust down a bit.

[cvt]

(tl;dr, not feeling helpful, looked like aphex took my spot, so alls good ;))

[Aphex]

LOL..
i was waiting for your reply to this cvt, I'm not exactly sure in this case about trouble shooting an issue like this with out being there myself to see it.
I kinda had to be generall in this case with the information provided, but if your happy then we are all happy, especially me, cause i wasn't corrected on anything heheh ;)
but i usually leave it open for you to correct me if i'm wrong, as your the god of trouble shooting for these peeps on this forum ;) , so's "not to cut your lunch" so to speak...

[MR_PEA]

the 2 things that i would look at for unseady freezing.... would be ram and the psu... assuming that your temps are fine...
also try disabling your virus scans and firewalls temporarly to see if this has an effect! i know that avg has had that effect on my pc several times, but not during gameplay!

[Solace]

I agree with Mr Pea with the virus scanner if you have got AVG it has stuffed up on more then one ocassion for me.
it also sounds like it could be a ram thing try taking out non critical componets and seeing if the problem fixes itself, also if you have onboard graphics try running the or see if you can borrow another VGA from somwhere.
any way i hope it isn't anything to major

[cvt]

LOL..
i was waiting for your reply to this cvt, I'm not exactly sure in this case about trouble shooting an issue like this with out being there myself to see it.
I kinda had to be generall in this case with the information provided, but if your happy then we are all happy, especially me, cause i wasn't corrected on anything heheh ;)
but i usually leave it open for you to correct me if i'm wrong, as your the god of trouble shooting for these peeps on this forum ;) , so's "not to cut your lunch" so to speak...

I'll read this thread tonight (5.30am, when I finish work :P) and see what I think then...
you usually seem pretty up with it.. have more confidence in urself ;)