Rainbow Man
Veteran
I think I posted before about crashy games on my new Dell XPS 720 PC.
Wellll.. The problems wouldn't go away no mattewre what I did with uninstalling and reinstalling various versions of motherboard chipset drivers and graphics drivers from either Dell's site or windows update or Nvidia's own site.
A tech guy came and replaced my power supply for me - whoich was a harrowing experience in itself - because I thought maybe the strong crackling and buzzing sound coming from it when loaded meant it delivered screwy voltages and caused these crashes/abrupt exits back to the desktop.
Well.. The tech guy who came tore apart my new multi-thousand $ system like it was the engine of some rusty old clunker of a car, denting the radiator of the CPU cooler and nearly scratching my flatscreen with the ATX cable harness connector etc. He also sweated profusely during the operation and wiped his forehead with his hands before diving back into my chassis. On top of everything else he also cut a knuckle on some sharp edge on the inside pretty mcuh first thing he did and rooted around everywhere with visible blood on his hand. Yuck!
And as if all that was not enough he'd been sent the wrong power supply from Dell so it was all for nought.
So I just silently sighed and decided I'm not dealing with this crap anymore and called up Dell after he'd left and explained they'd have to take the thing back and send me another one. Then another tech came the day after with the correct PSU and reassembled the system (not routing cables as nicely as when it was new). And the new PSU also crackles/buzzes, though not as much as the first.
So after many a day (like a week and a half) and several calls I had finally confirmation they'd ordered a new replacement system for me.
Of course it took several weeks more for it to be built and shipped, after which my troubles started all over again!
I mean the Exact Same Shit. WTF? How can two separate and exactly configured PCs crash and act up in the exact same way? Well, apart from user error of course, but I'm not an idiot.
First thing I did out of the box - I was assuming the new system was all healthy and stuff - was put in the harddrives from the first XPS box so that I could have access to a bunch of different games right off the bat, and stick in my own Fatality XFi sound board instead of Dell's weirdo Frankenstein card delivered with the system (there seems to be two distinctly different sound chips on it; an XFi on the front and something else on the rear).
Crashy crashy crash.
So I was first in shock for a while and despaired and then desperately thought oh well maybe it's Creative's fautl and pulled the Fatality XFi (even though I'd tried that before). Nope.
So I put in the harddrives originally delivered with the new XPS a nd reinstalled/patched up Supreme Commander on it because that game would ALWAYS quit back to the desktop after a while of playing once you got a heated battle going. I didn't touch the drivers installed on the default OS installation to not have to deal with too many parameters all at once. All I did was change some simple windows settings to ease my life a bit.
I then played pretty much nonstop throughout a whole night without issues and thought, whoah, what a weird set of problems to be caused by a bad harddrive! ..Only to have it crash out on me while I eas fiddling around in the menus.
So then I reinstalled HL2 Ep 1 because that one was also easy to test with. It complained the video driver was too old but I ignored that. No dice; almost as soon as the level loaded graphics updates started chugging badly and slowing down. Sound repeating like a CD player not tracking properly etc. As I and Alyx walked up to the monitor screen with her father on it the game rolled over and died.
Ok, so I HAD to update the gfx drivers it seemed. I did, and I'm not totally sure which drivers I used but but it didn't help, and around there somewhere Windows Vista decided it was no longer bootable. So I used the convenient menu option shown to restore the factory image of the main partition and start all over again.
This time I only installd Episode One. I was also sort of suspecting the chipset driver so I didn't download that one off of windows update. I was also thinking maybe the PC's drawing too much power from the socket and overloading my powerstrip. Coz I have quite a lot of stuff running from the same outlet. There's only one grounded wall socket in my entire apartement so PCs and monitors and flatscreen TV and all my games consoles get power from the same plug.
So I took a chance I wouldn't kill anything and plugged the XPS PC into a non-grounded socket. I figured it'd get grounding through the shield braid in the DVI monitor cord or through the USB cord leading to my printer (both having 3-prong power connectors). Well regardless this did not help. HL2 Ep 1 crashes while autosaving or loading a new level. It doesn't seem to hang or crash during gameplay itself. It also crashes sometimes when quicksaving or - I assume but never tested - saving through the menu.
Sometimes I get booted out to the desktop with a little windows vista error window that says HL2 stopped working properly and that it's checking the internet for solutions (and don't find any for me). About two times I got an error box with text from Microsoft's compiler saying the runtime requested to exit abruptly or somesuch. I can't quite remember.
And a few times HL2's engine popped up an error window saying it "could not allocate xxxxxxx bytes of memory; unable to load lump 53!!!", roughly.
So I thought - having run out of better ideas to try - maybe it's still a power issue and plugged it up to my 500VA UPS. If there's any problem wiht supply, noise or voltage or dips or spikes or whatever - that'll catch 'em.
Well - haha - it started beeping overload just by the PC being booted to the windows desktop, so I pulled one of the 8800GTX cards out of the box and it booted and ran HL2 just fine with nary a peep coming out of it.
And then HL2 crashed while loading the next level.
And after that I tried to reinstall the latest chipset drivers again from windows update first and then off of NV's own site and the game crashed a lot, and then I put in the latest (beta) video driver after that and the game crashed a lot again.
And I'm getting video driver stops responding errors, even on the desktop for crying out loud. A lot of them too considering I'd hardly ever seen one before I bought this system.
So WTF? Am I being haunted by a poltergeist or something?
I've not done anything to this box that I've not done to any of my previous PCs and they've never complained. I certainly don't know everything about PCs but I'm not dumb.. I know what NOT to do to keep a PC happy.
I'm at my wit's end here. PLEASE HELP ME. I'm going nuts trying to figure out what to try next.
Yeah yeal, I'll call up dell again in tomorrow and aks them but it's still sunday righr now, and you know tech support people... They can't beat some smart knowledgeable heads.
Is it a chipset issue? Is it a graphics card issue? Does it have something to do with the SATA RAID/storage drivers? I don't know! Different software bug out in different ways, it seems impossible to narrow my problems down to one single sub-system. I've run Dell's memory test utility repeatedly and no errors appeared, but I don't think that one's very comprehensive. I don't have a USB stick so I've not been able to make a disc image on it to try memtest x86.
Still I've never had a memory error in my life and then to have it on TWO different PCs in a row that both have the problem show up in the exact same way? Seems like a coincidence of almost cosmical proportions if it was to be the xase.
So here I am thinking and speculating aobut possibilities:
1 - it's the power supply after all cozx this unit also crackles/buzzes. Not as much as the very first power supply in the first XPS box but there's still an audible noise coming from inside there when it's working hard. Dell has a batch of bad PSUs on its hand.
2 - it's the motherboard. A design flaw or bad caps some other mobo component gives random problems that show up in different ways in different software. Not sure if this is plausible. Dell mobos are generally very high quality from what I understand. Certainly my previous Dells have performed flawlessly, pretty much like clockwork in fact. Hardly ever any crashes that aren't connected to poorly coded/buggy games or drivers.
3: Nvidia's nforce 680i is a shitty chipset full of bugs that like old VIA stuff just doesn't work very well, not even coupled with Nvidia graphics cards..
4: Nvidia's chipset drivers are shitty and full of bugs. Including those included with windows vista on the DVD and on windows update. I have to do some voodoo magic shit to get things to work - but WHAT?
5 - all my seemingly random problems are all because of the disk subsystem, hardware and/or drivers. Random transfer errors or other issues (naughty interrupts?) cause these problems SEEMINGLY at random because there's always some disk activity in a windows system, some swapping going on or whatever. Disputing this thory, windows itself always seems to boot properly. Well except that one time it became unbootable... And internet explorer (which is fairly disk intensive) and other windows apps I've run don't show any problems including running 7zip in benchmark mode for quite a while and PDF viewing and image viewing/editing and so on.
6 - videocard / PCIe errors cause all this somehow. Driver related or hardware. Curious tidbit of information that causes this suspicion: HL2 Ep1 often shows corrupted snapshots of saved games when trying to load a game, happens with all driver versions I've tried so far. That has NEVER happened for me before on my old system no matter which driver I used. Reading back data from video memory causes corruption = random crashes of games? *Shrug* I don't know what to think really.
ANY inpu5t appreciated. Greatly.
Peace.
Wellll.. The problems wouldn't go away no mattewre what I did with uninstalling and reinstalling various versions of motherboard chipset drivers and graphics drivers from either Dell's site or windows update or Nvidia's own site.
A tech guy came and replaced my power supply for me - whoich was a harrowing experience in itself - because I thought maybe the strong crackling and buzzing sound coming from it when loaded meant it delivered screwy voltages and caused these crashes/abrupt exits back to the desktop.
Well.. The tech guy who came tore apart my new multi-thousand $ system like it was the engine of some rusty old clunker of a car, denting the radiator of the CPU cooler and nearly scratching my flatscreen with the ATX cable harness connector etc. He also sweated profusely during the operation and wiped his forehead with his hands before diving back into my chassis. On top of everything else he also cut a knuckle on some sharp edge on the inside pretty mcuh first thing he did and rooted around everywhere with visible blood on his hand. Yuck!
And as if all that was not enough he'd been sent the wrong power supply from Dell so it was all for nought.
So I just silently sighed and decided I'm not dealing with this crap anymore and called up Dell after he'd left and explained they'd have to take the thing back and send me another one. Then another tech came the day after with the correct PSU and reassembled the system (not routing cables as nicely as when it was new). And the new PSU also crackles/buzzes, though not as much as the first.
So after many a day (like a week and a half) and several calls I had finally confirmation they'd ordered a new replacement system for me.
Of course it took several weeks more for it to be built and shipped, after which my troubles started all over again!
I mean the Exact Same Shit. WTF? How can two separate and exactly configured PCs crash and act up in the exact same way? Well, apart from user error of course, but I'm not an idiot.
First thing I did out of the box - I was assuming the new system was all healthy and stuff - was put in the harddrives from the first XPS box so that I could have access to a bunch of different games right off the bat, and stick in my own Fatality XFi sound board instead of Dell's weirdo Frankenstein card delivered with the system (there seems to be two distinctly different sound chips on it; an XFi on the front and something else on the rear).
Crashy crashy crash.
So I was first in shock for a while and despaired and then desperately thought oh well maybe it's Creative's fautl and pulled the Fatality XFi (even though I'd tried that before). Nope.
So I put in the harddrives originally delivered with the new XPS a nd reinstalled/patched up Supreme Commander on it because that game would ALWAYS quit back to the desktop after a while of playing once you got a heated battle going. I didn't touch the drivers installed on the default OS installation to not have to deal with too many parameters all at once. All I did was change some simple windows settings to ease my life a bit.
I then played pretty much nonstop throughout a whole night without issues and thought, whoah, what a weird set of problems to be caused by a bad harddrive! ..Only to have it crash out on me while I eas fiddling around in the menus.
So then I reinstalled HL2 Ep 1 because that one was also easy to test with. It complained the video driver was too old but I ignored that. No dice; almost as soon as the level loaded graphics updates started chugging badly and slowing down. Sound repeating like a CD player not tracking properly etc. As I and Alyx walked up to the monitor screen with her father on it the game rolled over and died.
Ok, so I HAD to update the gfx drivers it seemed. I did, and I'm not totally sure which drivers I used but but it didn't help, and around there somewhere Windows Vista decided it was no longer bootable. So I used the convenient menu option shown to restore the factory image of the main partition and start all over again.
This time I only installd Episode One. I was also sort of suspecting the chipset driver so I didn't download that one off of windows update. I was also thinking maybe the PC's drawing too much power from the socket and overloading my powerstrip. Coz I have quite a lot of stuff running from the same outlet. There's only one grounded wall socket in my entire apartement so PCs and monitors and flatscreen TV and all my games consoles get power from the same plug.
So I took a chance I wouldn't kill anything and plugged the XPS PC into a non-grounded socket. I figured it'd get grounding through the shield braid in the DVI monitor cord or through the USB cord leading to my printer (both having 3-prong power connectors). Well regardless this did not help. HL2 Ep 1 crashes while autosaving or loading a new level. It doesn't seem to hang or crash during gameplay itself. It also crashes sometimes when quicksaving or - I assume but never tested - saving through the menu.
Sometimes I get booted out to the desktop with a little windows vista error window that says HL2 stopped working properly and that it's checking the internet for solutions (and don't find any for me). About two times I got an error box with text from Microsoft's compiler saying the runtime requested to exit abruptly or somesuch. I can't quite remember.
And a few times HL2's engine popped up an error window saying it "could not allocate xxxxxxx bytes of memory; unable to load lump 53!!!", roughly.
So I thought - having run out of better ideas to try - maybe it's still a power issue and plugged it up to my 500VA UPS. If there's any problem wiht supply, noise or voltage or dips or spikes or whatever - that'll catch 'em.
Well - haha - it started beeping overload just by the PC being booted to the windows desktop, so I pulled one of the 8800GTX cards out of the box and it booted and ran HL2 just fine with nary a peep coming out of it.
And then HL2 crashed while loading the next level.
And after that I tried to reinstall the latest chipset drivers again from windows update first and then off of NV's own site and the game crashed a lot, and then I put in the latest (beta) video driver after that and the game crashed a lot again.
And I'm getting video driver stops responding errors, even on the desktop for crying out loud. A lot of them too considering I'd hardly ever seen one before I bought this system.
So WTF? Am I being haunted by a poltergeist or something?
I've not done anything to this box that I've not done to any of my previous PCs and they've never complained. I certainly don't know everything about PCs but I'm not dumb.. I know what NOT to do to keep a PC happy.
I'm at my wit's end here. PLEASE HELP ME. I'm going nuts trying to figure out what to try next.
Yeah yeal, I'll call up dell again in tomorrow and aks them but it's still sunday righr now, and you know tech support people...
They can't beat some smart knowledgeable heads.Is it a chipset issue? Is it a graphics card issue? Does it have something to do with the SATA RAID/storage drivers? I don't know! Different software bug out in different ways, it seems impossible to narrow my problems down to one single sub-system. I've run Dell's memory test utility repeatedly and no errors appeared, but I don't think that one's very comprehensive. I don't have a USB stick so I've not been able to make a disc image on it to try memtest x86.
Still I've never had a memory error in my life and then to have it on TWO different PCs in a row that both have the problem show up in the exact same way? Seems like a coincidence of almost cosmical proportions if it was to be the xase.
So here I am thinking and speculating aobut possibilities:
1 - it's the power supply after all cozx this unit also crackles/buzzes. Not as much as the very first power supply in the first XPS box but there's still an audible noise coming from inside there when it's working hard. Dell has a batch of bad PSUs on its hand.
2 - it's the motherboard. A design flaw or bad caps some other mobo component gives random problems that show up in different ways in different software. Not sure if this is plausible. Dell mobos are generally very high quality from what I understand. Certainly my previous Dells have performed flawlessly, pretty much like clockwork in fact. Hardly ever any crashes that aren't connected to poorly coded/buggy games or drivers.
3: Nvidia's nforce 680i is a shitty chipset full of bugs that like old VIA stuff just doesn't work very well, not even coupled with Nvidia graphics cards..
4: Nvidia's chipset drivers are shitty and full of bugs. Including those included with windows vista on the DVD and on windows update. I have to do some voodoo magic shit to get things to work - but WHAT?
5 - all my seemingly random problems are all because of the disk subsystem, hardware and/or drivers. Random transfer errors or other issues (naughty interrupts?) cause these problems SEEMINGLY at random because there's always some disk activity in a windows system, some swapping going on or whatever. Disputing this thory, windows itself always seems to boot properly. Well except that one time it became unbootable...
And internet explorer (which is fairly disk intensive) and other windows apps I've run don't show any problems including running 7zip in benchmark mode for quite a while and PDF viewing and image viewing/editing and so on.6 - videocard / PCIe errors cause all this somehow. Driver related or hardware. Curious tidbit of information that causes this suspicion: HL2 Ep1 often shows corrupted snapshots of saved games when trying to load a game, happens with all driver versions I've tried so far. That has NEVER happened for me before on my old system no matter which driver I used. Reading back data from video memory causes corruption = random crashes of games? *Shrug* I don't know what to think really.
ANY inpu5t appreciated. Greatly.
Peace.
I don't know much abotu SATA really. Most of my PCs have used good ol PATA.