[1394]

Randomly, when I am playing a video game on my computer, generally ones with higher quality graphics, my computer will freeze or the monitor will go into a sleep-like state, even though it is set not to do so. When it freezes it will usually, after 20 secs or so, goto the desktop and have an error about VPU Recover and something with an error report. When the monitor goes into a sleeplike state I have to restart my computer.

My system specs are
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
512 MB RAM
ATi Radeon 9600 Pro

I am using WinXP Pro.

Anyone have any clue whats going on and how to fix it? Thanks!

 

[ratchet]

1394,

Welcome to TSG.

Don't know if you have seen this but it mentions your graphics card and error.Call of Duty: system hangs or VPU recover error messages playing game

 

[1394]

No, I hadn't noticed that little.. notice. Yeah. Well basically all it says is to upgrade your graphics driver and I just updated mine before posting this.

Is it possible that my card is overheating (it is not overclocked) or.. something else?

 

[ratchet]

To see if is a temperature problem you could try running it with the case open.

Is the fan on your Graphics Card spinning?

What game are you trying to play when it freezes?
http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4291.html

What is your driver version?

 

[McTimson]

Yea, I would look into overheating, check the GPU fan, and try running with the side of the case off, and a fan pointing towards it.

 

[1394]

I took the side of the case off and have a fan pointed towards it and still get the same errors. I turned my AGP from 8x to 4x and that seems to have fixed it... but why? Is there something wrong with my video card/motherboard?

The game I am playing right now is Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind but it happens on other games too like Unreal Tournament 2003 & 2004, Lineage II and some others..

 

[dave01902]

check out this forum...http://www.elderscrolls.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat=

theres a hardware/software forum, dedicated to morrowind. The guys in this forum are pretty good. Thats where I got my help for morrowind hardware issues..
not putting down this forum or anything
The help here is great!

 

[3astCoaster]

I had a similar problem with gaming, and when I opened the case and put a house fan next to it, the freezing seems to have stopped. So they are correct in saying to take off the case and play :up:
I'm guessing that if I bought a pretty large internal fan, it would act the very same...right?? And if I do buy one where would be the best place for it inside the computer??

Rock on guys, doing great work.

 

[1394]

Well, I do know this much about cooling in your computer... its not so much having one big fan somewhere as it is about the airflow through the machine. You really need one or two in the front pulling air in and two or so in the back pushing air out to keep it cooled. Or you could go with some extremely expensive liquid nitrogen cooling system or something.

My problem cant be caused by cooling because I have a fan on the floor near the open case blowing air through now.

After changing my AGP to 4x it dosent crash anymore... but I want 8x AGP.

[edit]
Also, after having these problems and the fan not fixing it I switched to Omega's drivers. I grabbed the newest one that was there though I don't think it helped.

 

[3astCoaster]

Where did you change it from 8x to 4x?? :up:

 

[bkatz540]

Hmmm...i think its somewhere in the bios
Ive seen sumone do that...

 

[3astCoaster]

I'll give it a look over in the BIOS...Man I wish my computer was clockable :down: Lol


3ast

 

[1394]

In Windows XP, with an ATi Radeon card you right click on the desktop, pick properties, goto the settings tab, click advanced, then goto the SMARTGART (tm) tab, theres a slider for your AGP settings.

But then, you have a nVidia card

 

[ratchet]

You might check your mother boards manufactures website to see if this a common problem. Perhaps theres also a fix for the AGP issue.

 

[1394]

Browsed the FAQ list for my motherboard, a GA-K8N Pro, Gigabyte mobo, where it's FAQ should be it says "coming soon!!"

Thank you Gigabyte... couldn't put a FAQ together in 4 months I see.

 

[j2jensen]

I have a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB, 2.53GHz P4, and an intel motherboard, and Morrowind kept crashing on me. As soon as I tried to open the boat's hatch at the beginning, my computer completely locked up. I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until I found something that worked: Switching out of full screen. I don't know WHY that would make a difference, but it did. I hope it'll work for somebody else, too.

J²