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System instability, any ideas?

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FishDog3

Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2001
I am able to overclock my FSB to 166mhz and run HotCPU Tester, Toast, Prime95, or F@H for 24 hours+ without any system issues. But when I start up a video game the system locks up and I have to hard reset. This seems to happen a lot more frequently when I have multiple applications running, especially if they are running behind a game. I know I am pushing my system on second tier cooling but I am trying to figure out what might be causing the crashes. My first suspect would have to be the memory because running pc2100 at 333mhz is pushing pretty hard, but it seems odd that I don't get memory errors in something like prim95 or HotCPU.

Also some times my keyboard and mouse just stop working and I have to reset, both of these problems are aliveated when I go back to 133 FSB.

System specs are in my sig, anyone have any ideas?
 
try memtest. This gonna test your memory stick and show you any error your mem can give you. I'm pretty sure the problem comme from your mem, i use to get the same problem than when i test it with memtest, i found error. Changing your stick for pc2700 or 3200 would be the solution. test it, you'll be fixed.
 
Yeah I have run memtest overnight, but I can't remember if it was when I had 1 256meg stick or if I had installed my replacement second one. I will run that tonight and see if I can get any errors.

Any other recomendations?
 
Well, graphics, obviously.

Whether it's AGP related, or what, I couldn't tell you, but if you ONLY have problems when starting up a game (which is usually gfx intensive) then I would suspect that.

Try the opengl screensavers at high resolutions and complexities and see if those cause problems too.
 
its your vidcard ,back down the speed so she wont get so hot or have better casecooling
 
:\ I ran memtest overnight on the defult settings, no errors. I also ran 3DMark2k3 in a loop on the game and sound tests for like a hour and got no crash... yet games still crash at this overclock but not at 133fsb.

Like I said, it seems to be hapaning when I have multiple apps open. Hope I can figure out what is going on, don't want to upgrade my mem and have it not be the problem :|
 
Well scratch that, I ran trillian and winamp playing a shoutcast stream while doing the 4 game tests and the sound tests in 2k3 and it crashed twice when it got to the sound tests.
 
Sounds like a problem with the HDD or the controller on the PCI bus. What spec is your PCI at?
 
PCI is running at 166/33, I don't know much about the PCI bus or HDD and how they interact with overclocking other than having the PCI running higher than 33mhz is the cause of instability. Is there anything I should be looking at/for to help determin if that is causing a problem? and if so is there any way to twak it or get it to run better?
 
well if winamp's runninng while 3dmark is trying to do a sound test im not surprised. multiple programs dont like to play the game when it comes to playing sound.
 
I was able to get it to crash repetitively on the 2k3 sound test phase, and several times in 2k1. This was with only defult survices and norton anti-virus running in the back ground.
 
Ok, a starting point.

Three things I would try:

1. See if there are updated drivers for the soundcard, and updated chipset drivers for the motherboard.

2. Reinstall DirectX. (This cannot hurt, even if there is no problem.)

3. Move the soundcard to a different slot, to see if it can get a different irq. Frequently motherboards assign irq's based on location, so moving the card to the closest available slot on the opposite end of the row may help. (or swapping the card with something else, like you nic, etc.) Before you do this, research to see what items are using what resources, and what if any are being shared, etc.
 
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