Computer freezing

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 25, 2007, 09:39 AM

My computer has been sitting without being used for a week while I was at college. I plan to take it back up there with me, but it's been having some problems when I run WoW. Twice now it's frozen while running WoW and the second time it was making a high-pitched squeal. It runs fine when I reboot as long as I don't start WoW, and the gpu temp hasn't gone above 60. I can usually solve these things myself, but I'm stumped as to what is causing this, the only source I can determine at the moment unless I run another 3D game is that either WoW is corrupted or my gfx card is almost ready to kick the bucket, it's a Sapphire x850xt. Thanks for any help.

Dyre Straits · Aug 25, 2007, 02:14 PM

Run Memtest86+ on the system for several hours. It could be one of the sticks of RAM going bad.

Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

You might want to check the Latency settings and Timing also.

Good luck!

Tipstaff · Aug 25, 2007, 05:15 PM

Squealing, eh? Usually that kind of noise indicates a bad capacitor. Problem is there are 3 main areas in your system that have caps that could do that: power supply, motherboard, and video card. Any idea which of those 3 areas the squealing is coming from?

Something to note: since your video card (if it's X850XT in your sig) is also drawing power directly from the PSU via the molex connector. If it's your PSU that this squealing is coming from it could effect the video card directly. If possible, the first thing I would try doing is to use a different PSU.

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 25, 2007, 06:12 PM

Alright, thanks for the advice. The squealing only occured once and I think that might've actually come from the speakers so that may have been a recurring sound in the game that happened to sound like that, i'll see if the problem occurs on other games so I can rule out software. I'll run that memtest thing tonight. Also, I unfortunately don't have a spare PSU or cash to buy another so I'm hopin that squeal was from the speakers since it only occured the second time. When I get about $600 I plan on rebuilding this system, but I'll keep my case and PSU and hard drives and cd drives.

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 25, 2007, 06:15 PM

Ok, I downloaded the ISO version of memtest, but I am at a loss on how to run it. Any help is appreciated

Dyre Straits · Aug 26, 2007, 01:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spaztic_Reaper

Ok, I downloaded the ISO version of memtest, but I am at a loss on how to run it. Any help is appreciated

Just use your burning software to burn an Image to a blank CD/DVD and then set your BIOS to boot first from CD/DVD.

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 26, 2007, 09:21 AM

Ok, thanks dyre.

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 26, 2007, 09:52 AM

Ooooo-k, well it seems that the problem wasn't associated with my RAM, PSU or anything power related. I never ran memtest, though I may still do that just to do a check-up on the RAM. I'd completely forgotten that this card has had dvi issues in the past, so after I switched back to the standard vga cord everything worked fine. I have no idea why this card acts the way it does with dvi. It will work on dvi for awhile but eventually it causes problems which I s'ppose the card just isn't powerful enough unless you guys have other ideas that's all I can think of. So I'm sorry if I wasted anybody's time, but the advice is definitely appreciated anyways

.

Dyre Straits · Aug 26, 2007, 02:06 PM

Thanks for the update.

However, it still could be a PSU problem if this only happens when using DVI output. Here's why:

If the PSU isn't supplying enough juice for the video card, that could be why it freezes when using DVI.

Which particular model of the 520 are you using? There are a few to choose from. If your model is providing less than 30A on any of the +12V Rails, that could be the problem. One I checked shows 18A on either of the two +12V Rails.

Tipstaff · Aug 26, 2007, 02:23 PM

Come to think of it, this isn't the first time I've heard of people having DVI problems with X8xx series cards. Most times it's with cards that have both an analog VGA and digital DVI connector. However, in those cases DVI wouldn't work at all... just a blank screen, but when they used a DVI to VGA converter it would work just fine, and so would the VGA connector too.

What monitor do you have, btw? Is it a Samsung Synchmaster 193P or 931BF? And when you have it hooked up (be it VGA or DVI), are you using the displays actual drivers, or do you have it setup as a Plug n Play monitor?

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 26, 2007, 11:16 PM

This display is an acer AL19116W, i think i'm using it as plug n play. I'm not sure what the amps are on the 12v rails, I'll open the case sometime and check. The wierd thing is that the DVI will work for weeks at a time, but if something happens to up the refresh past 60 it will screw up. But i've got my desktop refresh set to 60 when I use DVI and WoW is also set for 60, well it's set to vsync as well so it keeps the same rate.

Tipstaff · Aug 27, 2007, 02:49 AM

Have you tried using the drivers that came with the monitor, or downloaded updated drivers off of Acers site? If anything I'd give them a try.

Head over to THIS site, and under 'Product Line' choose 'Monitor', under 'Product' choose 'AL1916', and under 'Download' be sure to choose the one that says 'AL1916W LCD Driver', and download that driver.

I'll have to look into this a bit more.

Spaztic_Reaper · Aug 27, 2007, 02:19 PM

Well I downloaded the driver you specified, only a 7 kb file, but I've no idea where I should extract it to.

Dyre Straits · Aug 28, 2007, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spaztic_Reaper

Well I downloaded the driver you specified, only a 7 kb file, but I've no idea where I should extract it to.

Just extract it to a designated folder/directory. Then, go to Device Manager, select the monitor you want to Update the drivers for, select to Update the Driver and navigate to where you extracted the drivers.