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Ok I reinstalled all drivers plus Direct X. Uninstall and reinstalled Madden 2004, but I still get the problem where it freezes and LOCKS up mid game; does not ctd, but stands still in the vid game and the sound squeals. I would think it is the game except this happened to me in ofp the other night too. Overheat? Gah!!! my comp has the cover off already 24/7...dust?

Reseating the CPU wouldn't hurt either - fresh thermal paste too. Just ideas mate, you never know. Fan spinning up to FULL speed?

check to make sure your power supply fan is working. you should have a stream of warm air exiting the power supply.

make sure your cpu fan is spinning up to a decent speed or not stuck.

does your video card have a fan on it? same thing, make sure it is spinning.

do you have that fan still? place it so it blows into your case...

dust will generally not cause this unless you have a very thick layer on everything in your case...

ive had that happen recently. i used caned air and blew off all the heatsinks etc. it seemed to help. but then it would do this pause during the game then resume.. this again started happening more and more till it was actualy freezing the computer.. i upgraded the Mboard recently ( and CPU. due to wanting a amd64 system ) and hey! it was still there... scratched my head for awhile ( along with some minor curses) and finaly pulled my vid card out and replaced it with a cheap one. ( the card im running right now is a nvidia 6800 GT) the problem stopped.. ok to make the story shorter here. i then pulled apart the heat sink assembly and found it was clocked with all sorts of gunk.. ( probably from when it was summer time and my old system was over heating and had a big fan blowing on open case.) i took a tooth brush and cleaned out all the gunk. aired it out and then put it back togather. and TADA! problem fixed.

not sure if this is the same thing your going threw or not, but it might be one of the things i would look at. specialy if you have one of those gigantic jet engine style heatsinks over your GPU.

And, if you can't get your hands on a can of press. air, there is always a car tyre and a small adapted tube(from a pump), and a 'gun' connection on the end.

or you can find the nearest person who talks alot, drag em over to your computer and squeeze his cheeks real hard...

( hey get away from me Hey HEY!!! ::::runs away::: )

One thing for sure is you need to put your case back on and more than likely buy another fan that will work in your current airflow configuration. It is a must you keep the case cover on so you can keep the proper airflow going over the various parts. Again consider the third fan, your problem may not be directly linked to your Vid card or Sound Card, it could be somthing else in there that isn't getting proper airflow which is affecting other area's ie. a chipset on your board that is over heating for whatever reason.

DA

"One thing for sure is you need to put your case back on"

not true...

1. if it is not overheat related, it does not matter.

2. the case may not be provide proper airflow - period. putting the side/top back on may exacerbate the problem.

until it is proven out that heat is in fact the issue, it is pointless to conjecture with fixes that may or may not be correct unless one is actually in front of the system and armed with sufficient troubleshooting experience.

the only reason i added my post. was that i did can air my system alot. i did this to the CPU heat sink, the power supply, the graphics card and lastly the mother board and HDs, dvd,floppy etc. then to be special i used the vacume to get all the little goodies that blew behind things.

i was amazed about the amount of gunk build up in the GPU cooler fines. you dont noticed this on the EVGA 6800 GT becuse it has a large plate covering it ot direct air flow. i was just sugesting to make SURE all the heat sinks are clean before buying another vid card like some ppl who will remain nameless :oops: and im hoping it will be a cheap fix for him ( cross fingers here )

Your right steel a tech needs to be in front of the computer doing the ABC's of troubleshooting, with the proper equipment. Grifter does your motherboard have the capability to monitor certain hardware ie hdd, processor and other heat sensitive equipment. Check your bios when you first boot, most if not all are capable of keeping tabs on your CPU power supply and all that jazz. I don't think its the CPU or HDD or PowerSupply, I think its either on the board itself or the video and or Sound Card.

DA

Well, if you are going to cover all the basics here by cleaning out everything, and re-seating etc., you might as well go the whole hog and do the PSU as well - get it out of the PC box and dust it down with some air. And makes sure to give the PC box a good dust off too, else all the crap will just end up back in there. A good alternative external filter cover for the fans is a scouring pad (no more than 5mm deep, and I'll bet a lot of hardware stores or computer specialists stock that sort of item), which can be simply removed cleaned out and replaced, should do a very good job of keeping the majority of crap out. The main problem is, unless you purchase a top quality box, you'll find that the lack of quality extends to the (not so) close fit of the box access panels, another point of leakage for dust and crap.
The bottom line - purchase a quality box that was designed with good airflow as a priority, and has a good number of fan positioning options (or make them yourself). Then minimise disruption of that airflow during component installation, paying particular attention to PSU, HDD cables routing. Round cables (cables with a round heatshrunk cover along their length) can be purchased at little extra cost for HDDs, and there are several PSUs available on the market with modular cabling, to minimise the amount of cables in the box to only that which is necessary.
Everything mentioned here is aimed at basic cooling stuff, and preventative medicine for cooling issues. There is plenty more too, but once you go past that, and are still suffering problems without any indication what to do next, the best thing is to go back to basics. Start with the CPU, mobo and 1 stick of RAM and climb the ladder one step at a time - add the 2nd memory stick, then the soundcard, then the graphics card, then give it a good hammering with a decent game like Quake4 or FEAR using maximum setting for graphics, then sound, finally both at once, see what you find. You might not end up with the pure answer, but it will certainly point you in the right direction. After that, yes, unfortunately to provide you the proper assistance would require hands-on. It would be really helpful if you were able to monitor your system temperatures, if nothing else it might help you eliminate overheating from the equation. There are proggies like ASUS Probe, if you need a copy I am sure it is downloadable, but I can forward you one if need be.

WOW KODIAK....I could have sworn we all said that atleast once. :lol: :lol: We've beat this dead horse till the meat is tougher than beef jerky. Grifter Do this. Take PC Hang out window threaten its life until it tells you the actual problem. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

DA

Okay, my offering up of info and basic advice has been made in a genuine sincere manner. I make no attempt to make Grifter suck eggs. And, I am sure Grifter fully sympathises with my motives. He also, probably, finds the info quite reassuring - it tells him that what he is doing, and what he is thinking is along the right path. And to be honest, I'm not sure all the points I made were actually covered by everyone. All I was trying to offer him was the ability to provide himself a known good start point - it's a basic as far as fault diagnosis is concerned.
Dude, my experience on this sort of problem is a drop in the ocean in the experience and knowledge I possess as far as hardware is concerned, and PCs an even smaller part. Now start talking OS, and I am as lost as the next guy.

Kodiak I was kidding...really I was. Everybody gave him some good advice, now I'm going to give him the best advice. Since none of us can sit in front of the damn thing he needs to call in a tech or take it to a tech shop. This problem can get far worse in the blink of an eye if he dosen't, tinkering around with a problem that may or may not become bigger than that.


DA

Well that's okay then, isn't it!? Eh?!

GRRrrrrr...... GrrRRRrrr.............

:lol:

how i go about fixing most electronic related problems is what i call a 'technical tap #5' i seen this done in a movie and since then tried it and works quite well. of course there are other #s as well but #5 seems to work best for me ( involves my 19 oz framing hammer..)









( please not that this is not intended to actualy FIX the problem of the equipment involved. but to fix the problem of being pissed off about said electrical gadget... Please use at your OWN risk.... will not be responsible for damaged digits or said electrical do hickery..)

And don’t forget to flush your coolant or check for coolant leaks. :shock:

Yeah that trip me out too to here some computer systems run coolant through them.


I’m surprised that no one here mentioned it might be a sound card problem as well. A game will lock up if your sound card is not up to date. I’d try updating your Vid Card and Sound card to the latest driver first.

Actually you know what … more details are needed.

What’s your system like.

What sound card do you have.

What Video card do you have.

Do you have the latest Driver for your Video and Sound card.

Is your Video and Sound card DX-9 Compliant.

When did this start ? Has it been going on for awhile now , or all of a sudden it just started doing this. Do your have other high quality games that work fine on your computer , or is it affecting Madden Football only ? Maybe you unknowingly installed some program that is messing up your system configuration. ( yeah it happens ) Try doing a System Restore and updating your drivers. I’m not sure what else to tell you right now because we need more info , ya know.

It effects other games. My sound card is a SB value live, drivers are all up to date. direct x up to date. ATI 9500 pro vid card. 3200 Athlon XP Barton chip on a Soyo Mobo. Good system overall.

Funny thing is that if I pull my comp out on my desk away from the back wall and turn it sideways, it does not crash. I run IL2 PF with the comp tucked away in the booth of my desk, it crashes the game. Overheat I think?

Probably. Also a chance that it's interference from transformers or something, but it's far more likely a heat problem.

just send me the pics as soon as you can. i will get our thermals guy to look at it if i do not see something right away...