Please help me with my PC

[bystander]

I'm getting (as far as I can see) random rebooting when I play Battlefield 2 on my PC. I've got a AMD Athlon 3800 X2, 2GB DDR400 RAM, 6800GT AGP on an AsRock Dual939Sata running Windows XP SP2.

It seems to mainly happen when I'm playing battlefield 2 (but I really haven't been playing many other games). There's no set time when this seems to happen unfortunately, it has happened in the server browser, or after 5 minutes of play or after 1 hour of play, there's no pattern that I could see (other than playing Battlefield 2).

I've restored stock speed settings on my components, although the frequency of reboots has not changed. And I'm using the latest drivers for the components in my PC. I have run Memtest on my memory and ran about 3 passes and it detected no problems. The CPU temps whilst playing have never gone above 50C (as far as I can see from alt-tabbing), and I have used the graphics card without any problems in another PC.

I have also disabled auto-rebooting for bluescreen errors however the PC still just reboots itself. Would I be right in assuming it is some sort of hardware issue?

Any advice or suggestions would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Go to "Control Panel" -> "System" -> "Start-up & Recovery" -> "Settings". Under "System failure" uncheck "Automatically restart".

"Randomly rebooting" is generally an XP system crashing with that option still enabled, it's enabled by default.

Try unchecking that, rebooting, and seeing if BF2 doesn't crash now instead of your PC rebooting....mebbe you can get some info on what the crash is?

EDITED BITS: Oh, and when is the last time you cleaned out the inside of your PC? I got real dust problems with mine, and I can tell it's time for a cleaning when my games start crashing on me.

A little dust in the wrong spot can absolutely cripple an otherwise rock-stable PC, I'd recomend at least opening her up and taking a peak inside with a flashlight.

HINT: If you can see the dust, it can affect your systems performance.

 

[Geo]

Try leaving your case open when you game too and check the temp on the card using NV's control panel. At least to see if it helps. I have a 6800GT AGP as well and I find it is temp sensitive and I avoid reboots by gaming with the case open.

Of course my case (which at least is goodly size and has three fans) looks like Medusa on a bad snake day inside. Opening my case up is good for at least a 6 degree decrease just at idle.

 

[Tim Murray]

do you need to set the processor affinity for BF2?

 

[Kurt]

Not trying to take over your thread, but I'm having similar problems only worse with the same board/A64 3700+/ASUS99999GT (6800GT) at stock speeds.

As soon as I install the ASRock/ULi AGP drivers Windows XP/SP2 hangs before the login-screen and then reboots automatically after 30 secs or so regardless if auto-reboot is on or off. Without the drivers installed the card will only work in PCI mode with dismal results as you can imagine.

I googled a bit and there seems to be pattern. See here:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=30;t=005325;p=0

Note I tried the latest BIOS (1.4) and drivers from both ASRock and ULi and it was always a no go. I swapped the GT for an old GF2MX and it worked fine, AGP mode and all, same with an 5900XT and even an old PCI S3 Trio
Bottom line is, you might get lucky and get both to work but chances are with NV48 (which is what my card is) or other revisions that conflict with the driver you'll end up being SOL.

I've emailed the place I bought this from and am currently waiting for their reply as to whether or no I should RMA the board /get a replacement/ different model etc since I'm unwilling to wait for a driver/BIOS fix which may never come (the problem has been known for a while too, apparently)
BTW does anyone know of a different brand of mainboards that also features both AGP and PCIE slots?

The other thing is I don't know whether or not to keep the 3700+ . But I guess they'd have to take it back too, am I right?

 

[_xxx_]

You have to install this board right, otherwise it won't work:

1. DON'T use any drivers/SW from the included CD
2. do a BIOS update
3. do a fresh windows install
4. install the latest all-in-one driver from ULI's website

Now everything should work fine. SATA2 works only with the latest set of drivers from the website, so you know what to do if there should be any problems

Good luck!

 

[Kurt]

snip!

#1-4 check, yet no luck.

PS: The AGP driver that comes with ULi's integrated set is older rev. than the standalone at ASRock's site. Not that it matters, though, as neither works for me.

 

[_xxx_]

The only thing left I can think of is trying to turn off sideband addressing and fast writes in your BIOS or limiting AGP to 4x and look if that changes anything.

I thought of buying this board as well, I wonder if I'll get the same problems with my 6800GT AGP

 

[Frank]

I agree with _xxx_.

 

[bystander]

Not trying to take over your thread, but I'm having similar problems only worse with the same board/A64 3700+/ASUS99999GT (6800GT) at stock speeds.

As soon as I install the ASRock/ULi AGP drivers Windows XP/SP2 hangs before the login-screen and then reboots automatically after 30 secs or so regardless if auto-reboot is on or off. Without the drivers installed the card will only work in PCI mode with dismal results as you can imagine.

I googled a bit and there seems to be pattern. See here:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=30;t=005325;p=0

Sorry to hear you've got a more severe problem Curt. At first I thought it might have been me, but after hearing what you've said there seem to be some issues with this motherboard (or at least with an 6800GT AGP).

I did have a hunch that it might have been the AGP driver and tried reinstalling it, but that caused all D3D games to give me a beige screen. I tried a different Nv driver 78.01 and that sort of worked, although it caused a few graphical glitches. If I do manage to get my PC working stably I'll post back here.

_xxx_ : Thanks for those suggestions and I'll try them and see what happens.

 

[Kurt]

Sorry to hear you've got a more severe problem Curt. At first I thought it might have been me, but after hearing what you've said there seem to be some issues with this motherboard (or at least with an 6800GT AGP).

I did have a hunch that it might have been the AGP driver and tried reinstalling it, but that caused all D3D games to give me a beige screen. I tried a different Nv driver 78.01 and that sort of worked, although it caused a few graphical glitches. If I do manage to get my PC working stably I'll post back here.

_xxx_ : Thanks for those suggestions and I'll try them and see what happens.

The readme.txt (which you only get to see if you unzip the driver package prior to installing it) also suggests to install the AGP driver in safe mode, then re-boot, and then the graphics card drivers on top to ensure a 'clean' install and avoid stability issues.

Maybe that could help with your stability problems which do seem different from what I'm experiencing.

When I did exactly that the Forceware drivers would crash during installation. I then installed them in safe mode too, which kinda worked, however, upon the next reboot Windows froze.

At one point I remember seeing a BSOD saying "couldn't unload ...blabla ... cancel...blabla. nv4_disp.dll" or something to that effect. Don't remember how I ended up getting this though.

What really irks me is it works with all other NV cards I tried, just not the GT. I can swap them in and out at will and Windows boots no problem. I'm typing this on the machine w/ the FX inside and it's been rock-stable so far (and much quieter than the 6800GT )

 

[Kurt]

Stupid. Can't edit my own post?

Just forgot to ask, Bystander, which brand is your card?

 

[bystander]

Stupid. Can't edit my own post?

Just forgot to ask, Bystander, which brand is your card?

Its a Galaxy Geforce 6800GT 256MB. BTW you can only edit your own posts after you been a member of the forum for a while.

 

[bystander]

Right after making the changes that _xxx_ suggested it does seem to reduce the frequency of the random crashes.

I set my AGP level 4X, turned fast writes off and set my AGP aperture size to 64MB (I'd changed this to 256MB earlier). It still unfortunately crashes but it doesn't do so quite so frequently.

AsRock have released another BIOS version (1.50) but appears to just add support for the AMD Athlon 64 FX60, so I haven't tried that version yet.

 

[Geo]

Stupid. Can't edit my own post?

Just forgot to ask, Bystander, which brand is your card?

One more post in the techie forums (like this one) and an overnight update cycle and dad will give you the keys to the car. . .

 

[bystander]

Right I believe I might have fixed my random rebooting issue. Turns out it's the memory at fault. I just tweaked the BIOS setting for memory compatibility/tolerance, and my PC's been fine for the last few weeks or so.

Thanks for everyone's help