• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

PC crashes when trying to play any game

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

rmill9681

Registered
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
I have installed a few game demos from gamespot (call of duty, panzers, etc). I have got them to play, but all of them eventually crash. The screen turns into a rainbox of vertical lines and you can hear the music, but the PC won't respond (not even to alt-f4 or ctrl-alt-del). I have to manually restart. I have installed the newest drivers from ati.

I have an ati AIW 8500DV
AMD athlon XP 1900
Windows XP SP1
512MB
 
Check your system temperature in the BIOS under PC health. Remove and reinstall your video card. Got all the latest updated form microsoft? (all one million)
 
I had that happen once. Turns out it was a bad Driver installation. I had tried to upgrade to the latest Omegas but it borked my setup. Reinstalled them and i was fine.
 
I think the system should handle the games fine. Possible problems to check out:

  • RAM. Run memtest86 from www.memtest86.com and see if the RAM is bad.
  • Heat. What are your CPU temps under load?
  • PSU. What are the rails like? Particularly the 5v?
  • Video. Latest drivers you say? Is the card adequately cooled? Any chance of running 3dmark and seeing if the same problem occurs? Might be a problem with the card itself.
 
Back