Computer Locks Up During Gaming

[Halcyon]

Thank you in advance for your time in reading this post.

It's a little long, but I'll be specific as possible.

A little back-story on this computer—

I bought it recently (October of '09) and it's has had a couple of problems beforehand. The first one occurred a couple of months ago when it was overheating. When I went to get it looked, the repairman diagnosed it incorrectly as a video card failure (it was just the fan.) In the end, he replaced my good video card with a horrible shoddy one I had to get replaced. In doing so, I bought a nVidia 9800 GT card, but my computer's power supply was too low (350w or so, if I remember right), so I bought a 500(or 550?) watt one to help compensate. Everything was working fine then.

Recently, it blue-screened on me one morning when I turned it on, and it wouldn't turn on again at all. (Not sure if this is related or not, but it happened the morning after my family replaced our home router because the old one died. The new one has been giving me a very hard time getting online, but I don't think it has anything to do with this...)

Anyway, when I went to get it repaired again (at a different place), the guy there told me that it was a video card issue (again), and replaced by 9800 GT card with a 9500 GT one of the same maker.

When I got home, it would constantly blue-screen on me after 10-15 minutes of use, so the repairman (Joe) told me to just leave it off for the night and see if it fixes itself in the morning, which it did.

That's the back-story up until now.

Now I'm having an issue that the computer freezes randomly when I'm playing a game (League of Legends, to be exact, but I think it would do that for any game.) To give you an idea (for those who don't know), a typical match in Leagues is about 35-45 minutes. When I say "randomly," it'll freeze sometimes 2-5 times during a single match, or none at all. When it does happen, the computer either loops the audio for a few moments, then freezes entirely, forcing me to hard reset it via power button, or it fixes itself after 10-15 seconds with some messed-up graphics (grass becomes complete patches of black, and so on) that fixes itself if I alt-tab in and out of it.

I'm also having a problem when watching live stream videos (like on JustinTV, not Youtube) that causes the video to "spike" (the image itself freezes, then catches up in a few minutes) but the audio is completely fine. I think this might be related to the freezing as well.

A bit about the computer itself:

This is my computer (I don't think it's on sale anymore, bought it last year for $500 as a cheap replacement to my ten-year-old tower.)
/>http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/cyb...-33847481.html

Motherboard: ASUSTeK (M3A76-CM)

CPU: AMD Athlon™ II X2 245 Processor

RAM: don't know the make/model of it, but I never replaced it.

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT (like I mentioned, I've gone through 3-4 different video cards since I got the computer last year)

PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371015 )

[Makcalable]

SEE HERE

There is a bit too much info here :)

go through the basic checks at the link above and lets see then what you come up with.

[Halcyon]

SEE HERE

There is a bit too much info here :)

go through the basic checks at the link above and lets see then what you come up with.

Better safe than sorry, right? :)

I've actually done a lot of those basic checks already, except for the chkdsk one.

The only thing that chkdsk itself came up with was replacing some "orphaned" files, whatever that means.

But I'm no longer experiencing any BSOD at all. The issue is that the computer freezes at random intervals

entirely without warning. Picture is frozen, audio is looped, mouse won't move. At that point, it either stays that

way until I hold down the power button, or sometimes if I'm lucky, it'll fix itself, but with distorted colors (which

is easily fixed by alt-tabbing back in and out.)

[Makcalable]

Ok, what AV are you using, just curious.

What are your cpu temps are you sure it is not overheating?

Freezing often is caused by bad drivers or hardware....

have you updated your bios at any time as this maybe be an option.

[Halcyon]

Ok, what AV are you using, just curious.

What are your cpu temps are you sure it is not overheating?

Freezing often is caused by bad drivers or hardware....

have you updated your bios at any time as this maybe be an option.

I'm using Malwarebytes Antivirus in addition to avast!

I've been using both for quite some time now with no problems.

When I tried taking a look at the temps, while idle, during games, and almost right before it freezing,

the temperatures were all under °50 celcius.

/>http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j43/AmonDerevex/untitled.jpg
/>http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j43/AmonDerevex/speed.jpg
/>http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j43/AmonDerevex/speed2.jpg

Here are some of the temperatures I took periodically. Two of them were while playing the game in question.

When I first brought home the computer, I wasn't able to update to the latest 9500 GT driver since it kept freezing and giving me errors.

I eventually uninstalled it and went to the Microsoft website and installed it through there, but it isn't the latest driver. Someone

had suggested that I uninstall the drivers, then run driver sweeper, and trying a fresh reinstall, but that hasn't helped it either. (granted,

I reinstalled using the same method through Microsoft. Should I try doing it with the nVidia drivers through their website?)

I personally haven't updated the BIOS (let alone how to access them or even how to use them! LOL)

All I've done are updated a couple of things through the Microsoft website (.NET passport stuff and security updates.) But I'm not sure

if the repair shop I took it to did any updates for it or not...

[Makcalable]

Yes, i recommend when getting drivers you should always get them from the official websites

if you go to your motherboard manufacturer website and look up latest bios update it should have a guide to show you or tell you how to update it safely.

i would repeat uninstalling the driver then running drive sweeper then re installing the driver which you should have downloaded from the official websites.

dont get drivers from microsft updates.

see how you go when you have done this, and hopefully someone who has more experience with this issue will hopfully jump in an lend a hand as you have looked at the link i gave and you have covered everything on there which is what i would have told you to do anyway.

lets us know how it went! ;)

[Halcyon]

Yes, i recommend when getting drivers you should always get them from the official websites

if you go to your motherboard manufacturer website and look up latest bios update it should have a guide to show you or tell you how to update it safely.

i would repeat uninstalling the driver then running drive sweeper then re installing the driver which you should have downloaded from the official websites.

dont get drivers from microsft updates.

see how you go when you have done this, and hopefully someone who has more experience with this issue will hopfully jump in an lend a hand as you have looked at the link i gave and you have covered everything on there which is what i would have told you to do anyway.

lets us know how it went! ;)

Okay, so my motherboard is an Asus M3A76-CM.

I can't seem to find their BIOS update (or any sort of download) on their website, http://usa.asus.com/index.aspx .

Is there a way I can find out what BIOS version I have and compare it? Or am I left in the dark about that?

I'll go ahead and try reinstalling to a fresh driver and seeing if the problem reproduces.

[Makcalable]

Do you not have the update utility like this

have a look here

And here

[Halcyon]

Do you not have the update utility like this

have a look here

And here

I downloaded the update utility, but it kept freezing/not doing anything for quite awhile when I tried

to update it through the internet, so I just downloaded the BIOS file itself and used it to update. No problems

updating, but when I started up the computer again, there was a black screen asking me to press F1 or F2 for different

options. (I think F1 was setup, F2 was for default settings and run), so I just pressed F2.

Uninstalled the NVIDIA drivers, restarted, driver sweeped, restarted, then installed the latest version (there was a

"clean install" feature too, so I clicked that to be safe!) with no problems.

So both are updated. I'll try running the game again and seeing how that goes.

[Makcalable]

Do you not have the update utility like this

have a look here

And here

I downloaded the update utility, but it kept freezing/not doing anything for quite awhile when I tried

to update it through the internet, so I just downloaded the BIOS file itself and used it to update. No problems

updating, but when I started up the computer again, there was a black screen asking me to press F1 or F2 for different

options. (I think F1 was setup, F2 was for default settings and run), so I just pressed F2.

Uninstalled the NVIDIA drivers, restarted, driver sweeped, restarted, then installed the latest version (there was a

"clean install" feature too, so I clicked that to be safe!) with no problems.

So both are updated. I'll try running the game again and seeing how that goes.

Fingers crossed for you!

[Halcyon]

Still not fixed unfortunately. :(

The game I was referring to before in question is an online game, so I played a practice game

so I wouldn't hurt others if I disconnected. About 15~ minutes into the game, I froze.

Not sure if it's because of the BIOS, but when I did freeze, the monitor went blank after a little

while and the computer restarted itself. I had my finger on my power button, but I didn't press (or I did, but not

very hard...).

So maybe it's a power issue?

I certainly have a strong enough power supply, but when I first bought the 9800 GT card, I remember, specifically,

I needed to plug in an additional wire (somewhere) so that it "would get enough power." I'm not sure if you get what I mean,

or if I'm even making any sense, but I remember in my head that the 9800 GT card needed additional power, and that I needed

to plug in a wire somewhere into it.

When I went to look into my tower the other day for the power supply, I noticed that there was a loose wire near the video card.

Maybe I'm being paranoid? I could take a picture of the wire and the inside of my tower if that would help you any.

[Makcalable]

Cable from the PSU "pci and then connect to graphics card and meant to be another wire the same which also connects to the card............ im pretty sure

[Halcyon]

Cable from the PSU "pci and then connect to graphics card and meant to be another wire the same which also connects to the card............ im pretty sure

I didn't quite understand that, but that was it— connecting the graphic card directly into the PSU for additional power.

The repair shop installed the new card for me, so I don't think they'd forget something like that... right?

[Halcyon]

Okay, so I did some researching. Apparently, the 9500 GT series doesn't have an external connector to plug

directly into the PSU like the 9800 GT card. This one, according to NVIDIA, only requires 50watts, to fully run

everything, so I don't think it's a power issue now...

I don't know what else left there is to check.

At this point, should I just buy a new video card and pray that that'll fix it?

Or should I take it back to the repair shop and have them looked at it? It'll cost $85/hour for them to look at,

not including any replacements... I just took it to them about 2~ weeks ago when my first video card blew out (he gave

me back the 9800 GT card in my computer, and when I asked him if it still worked, he said he didn't know and to just keep

it in case.) so do you think they'd give me a free replacement, or at least a discount on a newer card if that's the issue?

Of course, this is all speculation since you don't know them yourself... but a little support is always nice!

[Makcalable]

I would hold off spending more money for now, someone will lend a hand shortly, but as we know it is New Years Eve ;)

someone will be able to sort this out its just i have came to a stop as i cant think what else it can be but your PSU/Graphics in some shape or form these are the issue i think, but until someone else comes and sheds a bit more light on this for US BOTH ;):D

[Halcyon]

I would hold off spending more money for now, someone will lend a hand shortly, but as we know it is New Years Eve ;)

someone will be able to sort this out its just i have came to a stop as i cant think what else it can be but your PSU/Graphics in some shape or form these are the issue i think, but until someone else comes and sheds a bit more light on this for US BOTH ;):D

Definitely. I spent $200 last time getting it looked at and replacing the card... I'd really hate to spend more!

If I do, I might as well just buy a new computer, right? LOL

I really appreciate all the help you've given thus far, though.

[Makcalable]

lol

No probs, shame i couldn't solve it for you.

[Halcyon]

Still would love any help if anyone's willing.

I am willing to try buying a new video card to see if that would solve anything. If I take it back to the repair shop, it would be $85/hour for the work done on it, and anything else that they'd charge me to replace, so I'd really like to use that as a last option.