Crashes

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:00 am

When I play Never Winter Nights I frequently Crash. Is ther any way to be able to tell if the Crash was software related or Hardware?? I though it was my Video card but apparently not...still crash. HELP plz.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:09 am

try than seting things back to stock and cleaning and reinstalling drivers.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:20 am

Did that already. I am mostly wanting to know IF there is a utility or some other way to be able to find out what is causing the Crashes. Sometimes my whole system locks up and I have to re-boot.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 6:00 am

check event viewer in XP/Win2k

might tell you where the prob is

Otherwise, roll back gfx card drivers
run system @ stock and mayby reinstall chipset drivers?

Soliex · Post by **Soliex** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 7:12 am

I know this is probobally not the answer, but im going to say it anyways. Could it possibly be overheating?

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 7:23 am

I really don't think so but I suppose anything is possible. I know its not CPU overheating since no alarms are sounding...unless the Mainboard is malfuctioning and not taking accurate tem readings. Where do I find XP/WIN2K ?

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 9:49 am

I used to have the same thing and found out it was the memory. try to run memtest and if thats the problem try it with one memory stick and then the other to see which one is faulty. at least in my case it was one of the memory sticks.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 11:17 am

That is the next option to retest for stablity using Prime95 and Memtest. You also might want to look at your voltages with a DMM if you have one MBM5 if you dont.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 3:26 pm

Tested memory with Memtest86 v3.2 and had no errors. I guess I will try prime 95 next...what voltages should I check?? Is there a program like memtest 86 I can use to test a Video card?? I bought a used one on E-bay and I need to be sure that it is working well before the return time is over.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 3:59 pm

Merlin wrote:Where do I find XP/WIN2K ?

It's "Event Viewer" in win xp or win 2k

May tell you if crash is caused by system or application..

This might help...

Your GFX card doesn't have an option to check it's temps (9800pro)

Motherboard monitor will tell you your voltages and temps (of cpu and mobo)

Each voltage "rail" should be within 5% of rated voltage

If you see any big spikes or dips in voltages when you stress your system, PSU might be the cause

voltages should be 3.3v - 5v and 12v (or as close too as poss)
Remeber Motherboard monitor is software! It's usually off by ~.05v give or take and upto ~10c temp (depending on motherboard)

Have you tried driver cleaner? uninstall everything and reinstall (drivers that is)
Have you applied all patches?

Try running 3dmark and loop for a couple of hours, this will stress your GFX card.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 7:30 pm

I ran 3Dmark 05 and it caused a VPU recover error...it said the card stopped respnding to the drivers. I have ran Driver cleaner as well as the ATI driver uninstall utility from their site that says it will remove all ATI drivers.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 9:39 pm

thats a good thing to do. I've run into stuff like that before as well, and whats helped me is removing the chipset drivers, video card drivers, then reinstalling the chipset and DirectX, and finally the video card driver.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 11:22 pm

capper5016 wrote:thats a good thing to do. I've run into stuff like that before as well, and whats helped me is removing the chipset drivers, video card drivers, then reinstalling the chipset and DirectX, and finally the video card driver.

Man did this turm out REALLY bad for me!! I used the Driver cleaner to remove the chipset drivers and I then re-installed them and BAAAAM!!
could not run windows some driver file was corrupt or missing and could not be repaired....$35 to Microsoft and many hours of phone and work and I will still have to wipe my boot drive. I am now running on a new install using my old 30 GIG drive and trying like hell to recover hours of family video and pictures from the corrupt drive. Not to mention I know have to re-install about 8 programs and I will never get back all the "little things". I guess the good news is that I will have a clean install which should eliminate my crashing problem.....but I also lost the Neverwinter nights Mod i have beeen working on for the last 6 months....well I guess that project is now OVER.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:16 am

I've never used Driver Cleaner to clean chipset drivers.....most have their own unistall program from within "Add/Remove".
Have you tried to repair using the windows disk, when you get to the install screen, hit the "R" button and it will take you to the windows repair console.....at the prompt you can type "chkdsk /p" which will try to repair the windows install.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:22 am

Sorry to hear that man....

You could also try "sfc/scannow" in recovery console
It scans only system files for corruption and coppies from your windows disk.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:48 pm

I did try to repair with recovery console but that didnt work. I was more upset yesterday than I am now, I did manage to get ALL my pictures back so that was the mosr important part I still have the RAW video footage so that isnt really lost it will just take time to re-load. In the end I will know if my crashes were hardware related or not which may save me some money in the end.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:06 pm

Glad to hear that!

I'd suggest a second HDD when you get a chance...
I'd partition it.. say 20% for a working directory and the remainder for backup..
It will also help alot when your working with large files (video)..

Thats what I do... I can "safely" use windows without any worries..

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 4:13 pm

How do you do that? I have a second Hard drive. I did have my 120 Gig as the boot drive with my 30 Gig as the storage drive so I just swotched and installed windows on the 30Giger...now all my old data is on the storage drive and I am recovering it slowly. When I an done with that I had planned on doing as you say but I dont know how. Also can I still make another partition on my boot drive to protect my Windows??

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 9:03 am

I found an event in the log right after a game froze and I was wondering if any of you could help me fix this problem. The following is the windows help center explanation:
Details
Product: Windows Op sysytem
ID: 26
Source: Application popup
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: STATUS_LOG_HARD_ERROR
Message: Application Popup: %1 : %2

Explanation
The program could not laod a driver because the program user doesn't have sufficient priviledges to access the driver or because the drive is missing or corrupt.

User action
* Ensure that the program user has sufficient priviledges to access the directory in which the driver is installed.
* Reinstall the program to restore the driver to the correct location.

I have no idea what any of this means and I was playing Half life 2. I have never heard of a game needing to load drivers, I thought all the drivers needed for a PC where loaded by the user and not indevidual programs as they are used.