The crash with looping sound is back.

*sigh*

Well, it was a great 2 months of rock solid stability, but the problem is back again, and now it's slowly infecting every game I have installed - just like last time.

To recap, last time, the problem ended up being a combination of a failing video card, bad power connections, and a damaged IDE cable. This time that's not the case.

For the love of God, do NOT tell me it's overheating, because it isn't. Idle in the high 30s, load in the mid 40s.

SETI runs fine 24/7.

System specs:

Windows 2000 Professional SP4
DirectX 9a
ECS Elitegroup K7S5A (rev 1.0)
Athlon XP 1600+ @stock
512MB of PC133 Kingston
Asus GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB @stock (52.16 Forceware drivers)
SB Live! Value
Maxtor 740DX (40GB)
Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9 (80GB)
TDK 4800B (48x/12x/48x)
Antec ATX 300W

The problem started when I tried to play Opposing Force through Steam a few days ago. The game crashed with looping sound (from here on, when I say "crash", I mean "crash with looping sound"). I blamed it on DirectX9b, which I'd recently installed. OpForce ran fine in XP.

I formatted and reinstalled 2000 today. I played OpForce for a few hours, and it crashed; I disabled EAX audio and it crashed again a few hours later, so I stopped playing.

Then I started up Max Payne 2, played for about an hour, and guess what, another crash. I rebooted, got back into XP (where I knew at least MP2 would work) and played for a little longer. Another crash. I rebooted again, loaded up the game, and it crashed within 5 minutes.

People, if you waved a frustration-o-meter over my head right now, it would probably explode. This is due in part that last time I made a thread about this, I don't remember getting an answer. Mostly, though, it's because this problem is now nearly 5 months old.

I've been over this system a billion times since then, and ruled out anything it could possibly be. The IDE cables were replaced, so they're fine. The video card was replaced. The sound card was never a problem. The CPU isn't overheating, S.M.A.R.T. and numerous over utilities report nothing wrong with my HDDs, and the voltages on my PSU are all within spec. RAM has been tested.

UT2k3 and SimCity 4 haven't crashed yet, but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time.

If someone can point out something I've missed, or maybe a software conflict between DX9 and something else, I'd be a little less sad.

I had that board, still do as a spare, and it never worked right with sdram but worked fine using ddr ram. Probably not the solution but if you can borrow some ddr off someone to test might be worth a shot.

If that's the case, then I'll just upgrade the whole damn board and RAM. I'll try it.

Any other suggestions?

I've had such problems before, but they were intermittant. I also have an ECS K7S5A (w/SDRAM) and it does not work well at all. A mptherboard upgrae and OS reinstall might fix the problem. An OS reinstall by itself might fix the problem.

Sounds like it could be the OS...... over months things build up and cause these problems.

I just formatted.

I may just end up replacing the motherboard. I need to upgrade to something that can use the faster DDR RAM anyway (currently limited to PC2100 ).

I too strongly suspect something flaky on the motherboard. The PCI or memory bus controllers might be occasionally screwing up under load, or something along those lines.

Did you try totally yanking your sound card (remove device, uninstall all Creative's drivers and utilities) and see if that has any effect? Maybe their drivers aren't playing nice with this board.

I've done that, it didn't have any effect on stability last time this was happening. For the past few days the problem hasn't been around. I'm beginning to also suspect dirty power (I'm in a dorm built in the 60s). I'm sure a 300W running all my stuff doesn't have a large margain for error.

And if it was the drivers, I'd be better off just getting a new sound card... the ones I use are the 2000/XP pack from 2001. The latest drivers crash the system in various ways. I've tried them several times with no luck.

Dirty power is... bad. Just say no to dirty power. I doubt that your 300W PSU can't run that rig, though. Nothing in there but the CPU/RAM should be drawing a lot of power, unless you're somehow using both hard drives and the CD burner at once while running something really hardcore on the video card.

I'm concerned by the fact that more recent soundcard drivers make the system fail -- that's not a good sign.

That points to either an OS issue or a hardware problem. I'm wondering if you have any wierd irq problems... It could be some feature of the sound hardware that the new drivers use more often that doesn't work probably, but likely it's a screwy OS. On the other hand, when screwy things happen on an ECS K7S5A, I tent to suspect the board. I've had two, and my little brother used to have one. They were all quirky. The only one that still works won't let me use DMAon any of my drives without crashing.

Then I suppose it's settled. New motherboard & RAM for me.

I'll bet my mom will be happy with a 1.4Ghz system. Thanks, folks.

Good choice on the upgrade.

But beware...I had a similar problem a while back. Games would crash with looping sound, but the system was otherwise stable.

Turned out to be a PSU issue. Replaced the PSU with a 350w Sparkle and never had that problem again.

PSU might be cheaper than a mobo/RAM upgrade, but then again, you'll be happy with the performance of a new board/RAM. (While the KS75A's are great little boards, my ASUS A7V with its acient KT133 chipset would run circles around the ECS with SDRAM and a 1.2 AXIA in both running at the same speed....simply more tweakable.)