Video and Sound lockup in all games (XP)

For the last month or so, anytime I attempt to play any games I have installed, I get partway into the game and my monitor goes blank (similar to Sleep mode), the sound sometimes skips for a few seconds and I lose all keyboard control i.e. can't Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot. The only way I'm able to regain control is through a hard reset.

I seem to have had the most luck with Fable from Microsoft Games which lets me go for as much as 20 minutes. The games I've tried are Fable, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, Sims 2, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and Age of Empires III Trial. All of these except for Wolfenstein and AOE3 have worked fine before.

I seemed to have a little luck when I did a complete Disk Cleanup but, the problem came back and this resolution did not work again. Everything else runs fine. I've also tried shutting down everything in the System Tray as well as shutting down anything I reasonably can in Task Manager.

AVG Free scan shows a clean system. I've updated my Nvidia drivers to the most recent version. I've installed the Windows Defender and other updates from Microsoft. The only other issue I can think of is perhaps the fact that my motherboard is an ASUS A7V880 with the on-board SoundMax sound card but this was never a problem before.

I appreciate any ideas. If there's anything else I can post up for info, let me know. Thanks!

 

You said you've installed your NVidia drivers, have you also installed the latest motherboard drivers? Have you tried running chkdsk (chkdsk /f)? Also apart from running AVG I'd also run Adaware and Spybot. Have you overclocked your computer? I haven't personally overclocked, but understand it can cause massive system instability - especially if you don't know what you're doing. Have you just upgraded hardware in your computer or added any components? If your PSU isn't powerful enough, you can experience system instability.
Failing all that I'd try system restore.

 

My first suspicion would be a heat problem with the graphics card. Check that the graphics fan is spinning freely and there is air movement in that section of the case.

Games make the CPU, the GPU and RAM generate quite a lot of heat.

Has it been a while since you cleaned inside the case? Check the intake vents for dust build-up.

I loosen dust with a soft brush then take it outside and blow the dust out.

Try running with a desk fan aimed into the case.

Matt

 

Running with a box fan aimed into the case worked great so it's narrowed down to a heat issue (not using the fan now, just used it to test). I blew out the case and clean some dust from the processor's heatsink and it didn't seem to help. I removed the fan from my video card, took it apart and cleaned an impressive dust buildup from it. This seemed to help quite a bit.

However, I'm now encountering lockups within an hour of turning my computer on, even when the most powerful process I'm running may be a Flash game in Firefox or even just browsing with 2 or 3 windows.

I'm currently attempting a rollback from the current 84.21 Nvidia drivers to December's 81.95 drivers since there seems to be a chronological link between a driver update and my issues. I have little hope for this.

Any suggestions on how to test the video card further to confirm it is the problem or a possible resolution? Unfortunately, I do not have another video card currently available to swap out :-/

Thanks!

P.S. chkdsk /f worked fine. I'm not overclocking but, per the ASUS manual, I brought the bus speed up one notch (133MHz?) to match my Barton Athlon XP 3000 processor. Supposedly, by default, the ASUS motherboards are set on a lower frequency so as not to overheat a slower processor.

EDIT: Installed 81.95 Nvidia drivers and no change. Entered the BIOS and noticed something odd and, scarily, may be the problem. In the Power menu, the 3V range is listed in red (instead of blue) and reads approximately 2.8V. The 5V range varies but turns red at times when it drops below 4.5V. The 5V range doesn't seem to go higher than 4.7V.

 

Thanks for the update.

I'll throw a few more suggestions at you.

Have you checked that the power supply fan is working (and that means spinning freely)?
Here is a power calculator:
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
You might want to try disconnecting as much hardware as you can and checking the voltage readouts again.
Is the graphics card an upgrade? Can you try an older model? Recent graphics cards are using a lot more power than they did in the past (some need a power connector of their own).
If you think it may still be drivers, boot into Safe Mode and uninstall the drivers there (there should be a listing in Add/Remove Programs), installing "over the top" may not rewrite older file versions over newer ones. When you go back to normal mode and the hardware wizard runs, click Cancel then run the installation when you get to the desktop. Check the gaming forums for their recommendation for the best version of the drivers for your model (it's an artform for them ).

Let us know how it goes.

Matt

 

It's a custom built machine that ran fine for about a year. Using the power calculator and even taking into account a couple items that weren't listed by name, I'm at 249 watts but the power supply is 350 watts.

I don't have any extra internal devices I could disconnect. Only card in the system is the video card. My network card and sound card are onboard.

I'm going to get my old 64mb GeForce 4 Ti4500 back from a friend tomorrow and try that. I'll also try the Safe Mode uninstall of drivers tonight. Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

FIXED IT!

I had suspected a dust problem and, that's what it turned out to be. I'd looked at my power supply and it didn't look like there was much in there. Well, I took it out, took it apart and cleaned out what was in there. The fan was a little clogged but not bad and there wasn't much inside. I can only guess that perhaps it was shorting somewhere across some dust or some bits of animal hair or it's just especially sensitive to airflow.

Anyway, I've been testing the hell out of it and it's working great. Thanks!!!