# Computer locks up during 3D games.



## jhallum (Apr 14, 2007)

I'm working on a problem with my PC where I'm having problems with 3D gaming performance. I play a variety of games from Half-Life 2, Quake 4, Civ IV, Warhammer 40K Dark Crusade. 

Occasionally (about every 10 minutes on Half-Life 2, or every 20 on Quake (and every 90 for Civ), my game (and, I believe my PC) will freeze right up. In game audio and video freezes except for pointer control (until I fill up the buffer, then It stops and I hear beeps). However, external music players continue to play. There have been NO crashes outside of 3D gaming. I suspect the video cards. 

I have the following setup. 

ASUS A8N SLI board, 
Athlon X2 4200+
2 PNY NVidia 7600 GS cards in SLI mode.
Antec TruePower 550 W PSU

Recently, I switched from an Athlon XP 2800+ to the 4200+ and I switched out the videocards, going from MSI Nvidia 6600 GT cards to the new cards. The problems didn't exist with the MSI cards. At first I thought it was the power supply, so I went from an Antec TruePower 550 PSU to a Antec Trio Power 650 PSU, but the problem still exists. 

Strangely enough, the 7600 GS cards are not from the same lot (that is the boards are made by the same manufacturer, they are the same type, but the boards look different). I'm wondering if that is causing the problem. Do you folks have any thoughts? 

JH.


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## Grove (Jun 21, 2005)

What your describing is a freeze within the game?

Ensure that you have the latest drivers from nVidia at the present time. Do you also have any 3rd party addons with either of these games? 

Give me a little time to think about this one.


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## jhallum (Apr 14, 2007)

Grove said:


> What your describing is a freeze within the game?
> 
> Ensure that you have the latest drivers from nVidia at the present time. Do you also have any 3rd party addons with either of these games?
> 
> Give me a little time to think about this one.


Yep, it's a freeze within the game. I'm not sure that other drivers aren't frozen as a result, since I can't alt-tab back to desktop, and am forced to hard restart.

I have tried the 93.81, 93.71, and 84.21 NVIDIA drivers. I also have no add-ons to remove. 

J.


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## Grove (Jun 21, 2005)

The only thing that I can think of is that your graphics card is overheating and thus the fan is not working. Resulting in a shoot in FPS and then lowering to 0 = freeze.


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