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Geek Culture / My Evil Computer

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SageTech
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Joined: 3rd Dec 2004
Location: Orlando, Florida
Posted: 25th Jul 2006 13:18
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Hi everyone,

Ive never been much of a gamer, But recently Ive been playing games such as halo and call of duty on my computer. This is when I started noticing that my computer seems to lock up during the game, sometimes an hour after starting, sometimes 5 minutes. However, I have no access to the task manager, so the only option is to dhut-off the computer. Im not exactly sure what the problem might be, but I suspect that my new graphics card might be responsable. I use a GeForce AGP 8x 256Mb DDR. ANy one know what might be doing it? Thanks for the help,

Jase

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Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 25th Jul 2006 13:35
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I'd put money on malware rather than your gfx card. I've seen a nasty piece of spyware that disables the task manager before, and it causes all sorts of horribleness.

You should do a really thorough malware sweep (maybe Panda online scan - that's quite a handy free scanner), because really COD should run quite smoothly, I played right through with a 1.2ghz machine with a FX5200 - so it's not like the game is hardware greedy.

Aegrescit medendo
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Nicholas Thompson
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Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 25th Jul 2006 14:36
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I'm gonna blame the card. By saying its new - I assume it was a self/semi-pro (eg PC World) done upgrade?
If your case has insufficient air flow the card will overheat and the machine could lock (although you more often hear alarms or see dodgy looking artifacts first.

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UnderLord
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 15:25
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Im with van on this one, sounds more like you need to be spyware proactive =)

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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 15:43
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I'll suggest the power supply or graphics card is overheating.

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JerBil
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 16:53
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By no access to the task manager, do you mean your keyboard and mouse aren't working during the lockup?

-JerBil

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SpyDaniel
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 25th Jul 2006 16:57
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Ive had my share of spyware over the years and Ive learnt how to keep it away. Such things as Person to Person sharing software can give you spyware, as the maker puts it in the install, also any pop ups you get on sites some times upload spyware to your pc.
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Seppuku Arts
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Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 25th Jul 2006 17:11
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Kill the Malware, Adaware is a good freeby, but you have to buy it for 'real time protection' so you have to keep doing scans. I wouldn't replace your GFX card, unless it isn't supposed to fit the Mobo, it sounds like a capable card. I tried to sort my lagging out by getting a new GFX card (Plus I wanted a new one, so I could play more recent games and use shaders) but it still lagged, the reason being, my ram is crap. That could very well what it could be, lack of memory in the ram (taken up by other things, clearing up the desktop, disk-clean up, removing spy/adware or just closing uncessary processes, if you're offline, no need to keep your firewall on) or just a faulty ram

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 18:59
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if the whole jammer is frozen, including mouse + keyb then its sounding like an overheating issue to me, but we have seen stranger things too, havent we

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
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Van B
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 19:42 Edited at: 25th Jul 2006 19:47
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There's this spyware app that takes over your desktop completely, it's a real pain - sets your wallpaper to a fake bluescreen popup, and disables access to the desktop properties.

I'd love to meet a malware coder, just once...


...Heck I'd even travel for it, just sell his major organs on e-bay to cover the cost, problem solved.


The abscence of any warnings is what leads me to think it's software, really any decent motherboard would warn of overheating. If the GFX card has it's own fan power input, then that might be an issue - really that's best on it's own power line, like not sharing with a HD or CD/DVD rom, my card has a bolt on fan added, which has this problem. Heck, a good root around inside the PC might resolve it, like make sure everythings securely bedded, especially the memory and GFX card. It might just be that you've knocked something loose when installing the card - lost count of the number of times I've done that.

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Dark Eternity
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 19:55
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what graphics card is it? i find that my ati radeon x700 graphic card can run everything decent but then i get some pixel issues and then i know my computer is straining and sure enough 10 minutes later FREEZE

hope that helped...somehow

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JerBil
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 20:10 Edited at: 25th Jul 2006 20:12
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And make sure you have the latest video drivers. A new card does not
necessarily mean you have the latest ones.

-JerBil

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SageTech
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Location: Orlando, Florida
Posted: 26th Jul 2006 00:50
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When my computer locks up, I still have response from the mouse, So Ill have a look at that malware scanner, rather it be malware then the card. Cheers.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 26th Jul 2006 01:05
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If the mouse responds then its not overheating or hardware, which logically leaves software. I'm not getting the malware vibe from this. Is it only that one game that crashes? Does it often crash when its doing something similar each time (like when a grenade explodes, or a sound effect happens)?

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SageTech
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Posted: 26th Jul 2006 07:00 Edited at: 26th Jul 2006 07:00
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Bloody Hell! I took the most drastic steps and wiped my hard dirve clean (Was too much junk on it anyway) and it STILL does it. Same thing to, mouse responds, but nothing else. No error warnings, no beeping or noises, just the freezing of the game and no response from the computer. I went to the nvidia website and downloaded the drivers, though to be honest im not even sure if I got the right one, I was confused by it to say the least. Any Ideas?

EDIT: Also if someone could point me to the correct place to go for the geforce 6600 card drivers that would be great, though I though I got the right one. Cheers.

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stevenup 7002
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Posted: 26th Jul 2006 09:58
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Yeh, upon reading this topic I knew that it had nothing to do with spyware. That happened to me with my geforce2, and the colors went funny also. So instead of buying a new one, I built one, for €500.

My sugestion:
1. Get new parts from ebay.
2. Build a new computer from ebay.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 26th Jul 2006 15:40
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Quote: "correct place to go for the geforce 6600 card drivers"

Either nvidia.com or the manafacturers site (the people who branded your card... could be anyone like Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, etc ,etc)

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JerBil
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 00:01
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Yes, nvidia.com. Latest driver version is 91.31.
Select Download>Drivers then in the boxes
select Graphics Driver > GeForce & TNT > Windows XP/2000
or whatever os you have then click Go! and download English
or select one of the International Drivers.


-JerBil

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SageTech
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 00:42
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Strange thing, I just playedhalo with no isue for serveral hours. Even stranger, I didnt change anything.

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_Nemesis_
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 03:19
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Similar thing happened to me, CPU problem.
Evidently, it could be any number of things - I would have suggested (after eliminating the possiblity of it being spyware etc) finding a friend who has the same socket motherboard, same ram etc and use a process of elimination to find the problem.

Good to hear that it's working now though, hope it stays like that.

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SageTech
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 07:58
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Just played another session without problems, so I guess it fixed itself. Course this does pose the problem of me playing the game and not programming. But hey, beggers can't be choosers. Cheers.

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 17:46
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I used to get that on one of my older computers while playing Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear (and wrecking people in the ladders, I pwned that game). I'd quit the game and restart the computer and presto, problem solved for another 3-6 hours of play And before you say "woah, you'd play Rogue Spear for 6-12 hours a day?!?" -- yes, and if you haven't, then you never did a decent sniper battle on Bunkers


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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 17:53
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My laptop won't always boot properly now that I'm in an area with humidity


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 19:40
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Oh yeah, you're getting your first dose of humidity! How do you like water now You're between rivers, with the great lakes on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Bon Appetite!


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SageTech
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 21:24 Edited at: 27th Jul 2006 21:25
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What do you know, the problem has returned. This time was different however, It didnt just freeze imiedatly, it sort of got laggy then froze, but I could still hear the sound, and the sound would repeat over and over again, untill it stopped. Then I had to reboot. Strange stuff.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 27th Jul 2006 21:37
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Recently my old desktop has been shutting itself off. You get no signal from the LCD but the computer is still on. Reset it and everything works again without doing anything hardware wise. My friend had a similar problem last year and it turned out to be the hot weather making it shut down. Will probably wipe the thing anyway just to be sure.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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