Fancy new computer don't work

Factual Questions
1

The setup

Windows 2000
P4 2.8 Ghz 800 FSB Hyper threading
Gigabyte 8KNXP Mother board (Intel 875 chipset) (Onboard sound and Lan)
ATI 7000 32MB Video Adapter
256 MEG RAM KINGSTON HYPER X 3200 DDR RAM
430W ANTEC PSU

The Problem

Everything seems fine, until I load up Quake 3, at which point I usually freeze after 5-15 minutes. The screen will either go black, or it will freeze with a “ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…ugh…” sound loop.

This is my first computer I’ve put together and I assume there could be many problems. Here’s what I’ve tried so far.

Assembled computer, noticed problem.

Downloaded latest Quake3 patch, which was neccessary.
Downloaded latest ATI driver for video card. Nothing fixed.
Downloaded latest Intel chipset drivers. Nothing fixed.
Downloaded latest Direct X drivers. Nothing fixed.
Turned graphics acceleration down in display properties. Nothing fixed.

Erased HD, reformatted, fresh install of Win2000.

Installed seperate network card instead of using on board one.
Did same steps as above with win98. Same problem.
Installed seperate sound card (I’ve heard onboard anything can sometimes mess with 3d games) Nothing fixed.
Flashed bios. Nothing fixed.
Even adusted monitor Hertz to 85 on advice of a friend.
Decided to look at event log after latest crash, which doesn’t really seem to tell me much.

Any suggestions before I toss my brand new expensive computer out the window?

2

How bout cooling?

3

DXdiag, check to make sure all directX drivers are certified and good to go.

Does Q3 work with Win2K officially?

4

No ideas here really except, why the hell did you get a 2.8ghz and only 256mb of RAM?

When you do fix this, please, for the love of FPS games, get some more RAM.

5

More thoughts, since you went to all the trouble already, I assume you’re willing to try these.

Try running seperate 3d games to figure out if its the graphic card, or the computer, or what.

If other 3d games don’t work, try a different operating system

Try an old crappy video card.

Generally what you want to do is test your computer parts individually to find out what is causing this crash.

6

Here’s a vote to look at GPU cooling. If there’s a card next to your video card in the case, move it to a different slot.

-lv

7

Also, if your graphics card is sharing an interrupt with another PCI card, try moving the other PCI card to a different slot.

8

Try also the manf of the game’s web site tech support:
http://www.quake3arena.com/support/home/home/

9

It might be a problem with hyper-threading vs. multi-processor support. IIRC, you need to have Windows XP for proper support of hyper-threading.

The “second processor” of your hyper-threading P4 might be causing problems with Quake’s multi-processor support. I know that my company’s product had a bug in multi-processor systems that cropped up again with hyper-threaded processors.

10

A 32 MB video card? Didn’t know they still made those. :eek: I’ll bet that’s what’s killing your PC.

Changing to a separate sound card should give a performance boost, so keep it in there.

You may as well take out the LAN card and use the onboard connection.

And yes, 256 MB of RAM is about enough for XP to load into and nothing else. Of course, the bad news is you’ll need another pair of RAM - get two 256 MB sticks, and you’ll end up with 768 MB. (Assuming your mobo has two banks, and most 875 boards do)

11

Oh… For the love of all that’s lovable, use an AGP video card. (the ATI 7000 is available in both PCI or AGP)

12

Uh…after 15 minutes…did you try turning off the screen saver? :slight_smile:

13

I got 2 80MM fans on the front, 1 on the back, a PSU with one on the bottom and one on the back, and a fan on the northbridge and cpu.

The airflow through the case seems good, but I could be missing something.

14

I got 2 80MM fans on the front, 1 on the back, a PSU with one on the bottom and one on the back, and a fan on the northbridge and cpu.

The airflow through the case seems good, but I could be missing something, I still have the ribbon cables knotted up in the case. They could be screwing up the airflow.

15

Yes, according to the box.

16

Hmm killer system but low RAM and the terrible video card seem out of place.

Add another 256 Megs of rAM to that bad boy and upgrade that ancient video card.
A Radeon 9600 PRO and higher is what you are looking for :wink:

17

Hehe, money. I just wanted to get the system up and running. I’ll be buying 3 more sticks of the mem I already have. I made sure I got a good stick of mem initially, because my system will only be as fast as the weakest link.

18

Yep, tried, still having the prob. There are still too many cables that could be messing with airflow, though.

19

If it were CPU temperature, you would get 2 BIOS beeps, so since you havent put that in the description, ill assume thats not it. If it were a GPU temperature problem, it would most likely freeze as you are telling us. Your RAM SHOULDNT be a problem in my opinion. Id make sure that your video card and mobo are compatible… i also had a similar problem of which that was the cause. Either way, id say you should buy a new video card, but make sure your mobo is compatible with whatever you buy (almost all new motherboards are compatible with the new ati video cards).

Good luck,

culov

20

I agree with others who have posted. You are short on RAM and have a practically obsolete video card, especially for playing high refresh-rate games. If you can’t afford the Radeon Pro, which is kinda expensive, you might want to go for the gForce 5200 or higher. Not as good a card, but will most likely run your games.