Locked up system

[Commander Klarg]

I am having a problem with certain games causing my PC to lock up tighter than a drum.

I suspect that I am having problems with OpenGL games (Half Life, Q3ademo). When I run any of them, they run for about 20 seconds before locking up the PC. Only recourse is to reset or power down.

Games running under Direct3D work great.

System stats:

AMD-K62 500
AOpen AX59Pro MB (latest VIA 4in1 drivers)
250 watt Enlight power supply
128 MB PNY PC100 RAM
eVGA NVidia TNT2 M64 AGP video (Detonator 3 drivers installed)
6.4 and 3.8 Gb hard drives
HP 9140i CD-RW
SB AWE64 sound card
3Com Etherlink III NIC (10Mb)
Windows 98SE


Help!

[Radical Dreamer]

Go to GLSETUP and upsdate opengl

[Commander Klarg]

Did not work. No change from before.

[Zerotech]

I'm running an AMD K62-550 on a FIC VA-503+ (also VIA MVP-3 based) and the standard list is:

Make sure USB is enabled in BIOS (whether or not you're using it doesn't matter).

When you install the 4-in-1 drivers, install the AGP driver in Turbo Mode.

In BIOS, set "PnP OS" to "yes" and "Assign IRQ to VGA" to "yes".

You may need to set your AGP port to 1X for maximum stability (there's not a noticeable difference between 1X and 2X performance anyway).


I hope one or more of these helps. Good luck.

[Commander Klarg]

Originally posted by zerotech:
You may need to set your AGP port to 1X for maximum stability (there's not a noticeable difference between 1X and 2X performance anyway).

Pardon my ignorance, but how exactly do I set that?

Thanks!

[Zerotech]

When the computer is booting, press DEL to enter setup, the AGP port setting should should be under 'Chipset Features' or 'PNP/PCI Configuration'. Also make sure that your AGP Aperature is set to half the size of your system RAM.
Hope this is more helpful than confusing, good luck.

[Commander Klarg]

OK...updated to the 4.31 4in1 drivers, Detonator 3 drivers, even tried GLsetup with no luck; OpenGL games still lock the machine.

One thing that I tried was to shut down some of the tray icons to free more resources. When I did that, the games run a bit longer, but still eventually lock up.

The BIOS does not have an AGP port setting.

Any more ideas?

Thanks!

[Zerotech]

Checking your first post again, the only other thing I can think of is your sound card. I notice you have an AWE64, I've heard here and there that they can be twitchy sometimes. Maybe it's worth bumping up to an SB Live! or other PCI sound card.
If you haven't already, you might try setting the 'Assign IRQ to VGA' to yes in the motherboard BIOS and also make sure that the primary video adapter is set to AGP.
Outside of that, I'm running out of ideas.

[tablesalt]

Originally posted by zerotech:
You may need to set your AGP port to 1X for maximum stability (there's not a noticeable difference between 1X and 2X performance anyway).

I have to argue this point, there is definately a noticable difference between 1x and 2x AGP. Although on such a low end system you really will not notice it. In this case, setting it to 1x will definately give much more stability though.

There was at one point many incompatibilities between the TNT/TNT2 chipsets and the MVP3 chipset from VIA but these should long be solved. Make sure the latest 4in1 drivers are installed. Get them from this link.
http://216.122.141.7/drivers/4in1431v.zip

[Commander Klarg]

I had an interesting development last night in relation to this problem.

For some reason (I can't remember why) after starting Q3ADemo, I almost immediately shut the game down. Later, I started it up again, to see how long it would take before locking up.

I was able to play one entire deathmatch and half of another one before locking up. <IMG SRC="smilies/eek.gif" border="0"> Before, I couldn't even get far enough to start the game.

Does ANYONE have an idea on what's going on? <IMG SRC="smilies/confused.gif" border="0">

[Silverman]

You may have to download a utility called Getune for Nvidia cards to enable socket 7 compatability mode. www.tweakfiles.com has or had it. I used it for a long time on ALI V and MVP3 motherboards and cures alot of problems with these 2 chipsets.

[charlescpu]

OK. I had a problem like that. There's three solutions:

1. Change the MOBO (can be the chipset)
2. Format the hard-drive
3. Change the sound card

Try to put your sound card off (if it's an onboard card)

Good luck

[Commander Klarg]

Silverman: I will try to find the Getune utility and give it a try.

charlescpu: I'm not changing the motherboard, cuz it's a new one and everything else works great. The HD was re-formatted when I put this system together less than 2 months ago.

I do suspect the sound card, since there are other times when the sound is just terrible. I will be purchasing a new one very soon.

Thanks for the advice!

[Silverman]

I found a copy of it I can send to you if you aren't able to locate the utility.

[Commander Klarg]

I did find the Getune utility, but it didn't seem to help.

I DID find a different one that allowed me to set the AGP port from 2x to 1x. One thing about my setup was that there was no place to adjust the port setting.

Setting the port to 1x had a tremendous impact. I was able to play Q3Ademo thru 4 games without locking up. Performance is just fine. <IMG SRC="smilies/cool.gif" border="0">

I played Half Life for a while, and it DID lock up eventually, but that was after at least an hour of gameplay. Also tried playing Q3ATeam demo but it locked up right away. I checked the AGP slot using the utility and it was at 2X, so that may have been the trouble.

So, Zerotech and Silverman each gets a cookie for their parts of the solution. <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">