Video freezing up during gameplay PLEASE HELP!!

[Ecilam]

This problem has frustrated the hell out of me and I can't find a solution for the life of me. When I play video games, usually Tribes 2, Diablo 2, and Baldurs Gate 2, my computer will randomly freeze up in the middle of the game. Usually its accompanied with the frozen sound (fast repeating of a sound). I have downloaded the latest drivers for my soundcard, video card, bios, windows update, I've tweaked my bios and changed settings to try and solve this problem but it won't go away. My irq's are not being shared by anything but PCI steering, and I've downloaded all the opengl drivers, as well as i've gone into Safe Mode and removed all duplicates of drivers in the System Menu. Can anyone please give me some more suggestions, this problem is keeping me from using my computer for its main purpose.

AMD Athlon T-Bird 800 (not overclocked)
128 Megs Mushkin Rev2 PC 133(not overclocked)
GeForce2 Pro 64 megs, (not overclocked)
SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer
Abit KT7-Raid
LinkSys Network card
IBM P260 Monitor
36x-Cdrom
Western Digital 20.3 Gig ATA 66 7200 RPM
Windows 98

[rjwilke]

You might consider looking in the system configuration utility and turning off unnecessary programs in your startup file. Perhaps some backround program is the culprit. Especially Norton CrashGuard (ironic isn't it?) and your antivirus utility. I would also upgrade to Win98SE - SE is much better than Win98.Good luck. It looks like you have a nice system there. I can understand your frustration. My son had problems playing Black and White until we turned off all the unnecessay programs. Balck and White is a huge memory hog - fun yes, but a hog no doubt. <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0">

[Ecilam]

Thanks for the advice but i've already tried that route too. I don't have an Anti-virus program installed, but i know its not a virus problem. The only 3 startup programs i have are Explorer, AOL INstant Messenger, Systray, and EM_Exec. thats it. NOthing else.

[Zerotech]

The AOL instant messenger could be the culprit (I'm not familiar with EM_Exec), Explorer and Systray should be the ONLY things open for maximum stability.
Does the KT7 use a VIA chipset? If so, make sure you have the latest 4in1 drivers installed. Also, the Soundbaster Live! cards seem to have compatability problems with some motherboards, might be worth checking into.

[Radical Dreamer]

Have you tried a format and then re-insatll of windows

[3D Prophet III]

Have you tried the most recent chipset drivers for the ABIT KT7-RAID mobo? Sounds like there may be a conflict with the SB LIVE drivers and the VIA 686A southbridge chipset drivers. Download the drivers for your chipsets from www.viatech.com

good luck

[Sowulo]

Originally posted by zerotech:
<STRONG>(I'm not familiar with EM_Exec),</STRONG>

EM_Exec is the Logitech Mouseware executable.

Make sure you are using the most current version from Logitech.

[IC3M8N]

My comp freezes all the time! i've been told that it is coz of heat coz i've got a 1.4 athlon and its getin tooo hot. So it might be a heat problem

[triipn]

Have you checked to make sure that windows energy saving feature is not setup? By chance that you dont know where its at its under display\properties\ screen saver tab, down at the bottom of page where it says "settings". Also if you have a screen saver running that could do it. Hope this helps.

[DeaJae]

try this... it worked for me with UT and the KT7 and SBlive, goto device manager, creative misc devices, sb16 emulation, and disable it. you should have better gaming now.
also EM_Exec is logitech's mouseware

[[NeoZeeD]]

alot of times this narrows down my problems, did you check to see if it freezes in bios and not just windows?

[KBPERF]

Could the power supply be too small or weak? I have heard that athlons require a good 300w at least and some of the video cards need more power and simply hang up during a game. I have that happen to me sometimes on 2 different machines. I only have 250w PS's on a 1ghz tbird and a 1.2ghz tbird. I know they need at least a 300w, but thats what came in the cases I got so I am ordering a 400w PS to see if that helps.

[imd14u]

I use to get lock ups with my Athy 1.33 while playing UT. Temps were reaching close to 80c. Then I got a better HFS (Vantec 6254) Noisey son of a *&%$#@! And then I rounded my IDE cables, originally had 2 case fans, then added 2 more, plus installed a HDD cooler, which I use to draw more air into the case. Now temps peak at 58c. Then I installed 12.41 drivers for my GF2 GTS and DirectX8. (From what I read around the web, these drivers are the best ones for DX8) No more lockups. My next plan is to get a full tower case also to get more room for a burner, DVD, and a couple more HDD.

Athlon 1333 [email protected]
Vantec 6254OD
A7V 133
256 Infineon SDRAM
15 GB IBM ATA66 (rounded cables)
20 GB Maxtor ATA100 (rounded cables)
GF2 GTS ASUS 7700
SBLive! Platinum (rounded cables)
3Com NIC 10/100
4 80 mm case fans
1 HDD cooler dual 40mm fans