I’m having problems with my computer at the moment, i’m hoping someone might be able to help.
For a month or so now i’ve had various problems when playing games with 3d graphics. Sometimes the colours go funny, sometimes i’ll get black or brown lines and boxes on the screen, or sometimes the game would just run slowly. The last few days though, games have started crashing completely with various error messages (abnormal program termination etc). I’ve tried three games today, Penny-Arcade, Lego Indiana Jones demo and Half Life. The first two have only just been installed but half life was working fine a month ago, now it wont load past the main menu.
I’ve tried updating the drivers and running the tests in dxdiag, but that hasn’t helped. As far as I can tell it’s not overheating.
About once a month my computer will crash overnight and get a BSOD saying “irq not less or equal”, but then runs fine afterwards.
Is there anything else I can try or do I need to look at getting a new card?
The first thing to test is for overheating; if you have no way of telling the temp already, Google for SPEEDFAN and install it. Anything over about 40 deg C is a potential problem. If it shows a problem, check the fans are all running, for dust clogging the vents or fans, and for the vents being blocked by stuff on your desk.
Failing that I think you probably have a hardware problem. If you’re comfortable with it, open the box and reseat everything you can - video card (if separate, not onboard) and memory sticks in particular.
Xp has got SP2 and all updates except SP3. I’ve tried reseating the graphics card, but i’ll try the memory later as well. I’ll also get the speedfan program you mentioned, at the moment i’ve been using the scientific method of puting my hand next to the case fan. It’s been a lot warmer than this before with no problems but I suppose there may be a warm spot inside the case.
While it is by no means conclusive, my first guess would be memory going bad on the graphics card. If it’s just down to overheating then atleast you can fix that.
I’ve just taken the ram out, blown away the little bit of dust that was there and put it back in.
The games do work again now, but I still have some graphical glitches (not as bad as before though). The only problem is, after playing the indiana jones demo, when I quit back to windows it kept flickering to a black screen. That seems fine now that i’ve restarted the computer, i’ll have to see what it does after playing tomorrow night.
I’m guessing this means the memory’s going/gone. When I took it out I saw that it was crucial “value” brand, so i’m guess it’s not very reliable. Would you reccomend replacing the memory?
Speedfan readings
GPU 50C
[COLOR=DarkOrange]Temp1 42C - This is flickering between a tick and an arrow ~40C
Temp2 40C[/COLOR]
Temp3 -3C
CPU -64C - surely my heatsink’s not that good
Internal Temp 37C
Remote Temp -64C
HD0 43C
HD1 51C - :eek:
Before you run out and buy new RAM, run Memtest86. Free download, very thorough program. It does take a while to run - this might be an overnight project. You can just let it run though.
I’ve finally got hold of a floppy disc and i’ve run Memtest86. It completed, but I wasn’t quite sure what it said at the end. It could have been ‘10 errors’, ‘IO errors’ or ‘lo errors’. Any idea?
It’s been a lot warmer than this before with no problems but I suppose there may be a warm spot inside the case.