Need Help With Repeated PC freezes
 

I have a home built system,
BioStar motherboard,
1Ghz AMD processor
Audigy,
64mb eVga GeForce 4
80Gb WesternDigital HD
3-1/2 floppy
LG DVD-ROM
LG CD-R/RW
Win 98SE
256Mb SDRAM

During normal operation (Surfing, typing, etc.) I don't have any real problems, but sometimes when I am playing games (the newer the game, the more often this happens) My comp will freeze and emit a med-pitched tone from the speakers. The only thing that will do anything is either a cold or warm boot.
Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated.

It might be a problem with the version of directX you have. You may want to visit the windows update site and see if there are any critical updates and any windows updates that pertain to directX.

Do you have a lot of programs running in the background? In other words, are there any icons in the box at the bottom right hand part of your screen where the clock is. With 256mb of Ram, this shouldn't be a problem though. One way to see how your system is handling a current load, you can right click on My Computer and click properties. The box that pops up will have system performance and show you a percentage. See what that is.

This can also be a sign of an IRQ conflict. Devices can share IRQ's without problems most of the time, but every now and then... A game can cause your cards and drives to be used pretty intensely and that increases your chance of having a confict arise.

Check to see what everything is set to. Make sure to consult your MB docs to see what slots are sharing interrupts. You did know they do that right?:) Your bios can be used to "hardcode" IRQ's to a particular slot if required. Pisses me off that all those slots usually can't be used in the real world. Win XP helps there with virtual IRQ management.

I'd look for what IRQ your sound card is using (by default 7 or 5) and then look to see what else is sharing it. It's not necessarilly the sound card that's in conflict, but it's a good place to start.

Perhaps it has something to do with your 1GHz CPU--that's fairly slow and probably isn't able to keep up with the newer games that require something closer to a 2GHz or faster CPU.

Having too slow of a CPU wouldn't have anything to do with the CPU crashing, unless the CPU is working too hard and building up heat. Heat is probably the reason for your computer crashing so much. If it only crashes during games, your hardware is being pushed to it's limits. Try taking the side off your computer for a little bit and aiming a fan in there.

Check your ram, do you have another stick to try in the system? I have had countless people come to me with your problem and 8/10 times its that there ram has gone bad. The other 2 are Driver problems as abearaware said, Conflicts as mtsgsd said or finally your Hard Drive getting bad sectors and crashing.

Those are the only hardware problems I have seen to cause a crash such as this (unless I am forgetting something....could happen :) ) But the other thing to check is the heat in your system, make sure your vid card, proc and northbridge are not too hot.

I agree with BoCo::MoFo:: (*damn I miss that*) A lot of these games are total processor hogs.

I dont think so, sound like and IRQ conflict or you need to update the Direct x media on your machine.

That or update the drivers to your gear..

Ok. Here some possible problems. And a possible course of action. Some have been listed already. But I relisted in the name of creating an order of operation.

Edit: I listed this later on. But decided That he should check this first. vid cards have cheap fans no matter what brand you buy. If its not spinning that prolly your problem.

Always start with all the latest drivers and DX9.1a or what ever its up to now.

If ya got and extra hard drive around stick it inplace of your main drive and install windows and all + games that lockup. If it still locks then its the hardware and not the OS. This will save you from data loss.

IRQs might be the issue. But its prolly not. IRQs generaly cause slow downs and pauses, but most of the time it wont lockups.

Heat is a possibibity. That CPU is a very hot running processor. Dust is a demon. Its summer time and heat is up... You might have a cpu fan thats running slow. Other system fans failing can cuase the same. I.E. vid card fan, chipset fan, PS fans.

A bad PS can cause the same things, but usually causes reboots. But not always.

RAM can cause exactly these sort of problems.

Failed or abused vid card can cuase these things. Or bad fan.


These issues are pretty simple ones. Their may only be one way to solve the issue, and that is swapping suspect parts until you find the culpret. I.E. ram, ps, vid card. You may want to contact a local technician and pay to have it fixed properly. Its generally cheaper then buying parts on a hit and miss basis.