hey everyone,

i got the valve complete pack for Christmas (very cool) and when playing Left 4 Dead or Counter-Strike: Source my computer will occasionally freeze completely. the clock stops on my G15 keyboard's clock, and the last fraction of a second of sound plays over and over in an endless loop.

the only way i can get out of this is to switch off the power or hit reset, and it'll run an automatic scandisk at startup and appears to do something but i have no idea what. i'll be back with more info next time the crash happens and i do the scandisk again.

what sort of stuff can cause a freeze like that?

it's ridiculously frustrating, as sometimes a game won't last more than a couple of minutes.

i haven't played the other games in the pack very much, so i don't know if it happens with them or not.

i've got a
Pentium D 3.00GHz & 3.01 GHz,
3.12 GB of RAM (actually 4, but that's how much i get away with on XP)
Leadtek GeForce 9600GT 512MB Extreme (extreme means they overclocked it i think),

and all my games are running off an external hdd - 500GB "Skymaster" connected by SATA. very occasionally my computer won't be able to see this drive (called "M" for "Massive") until i reset my computer again.

my drivers are the latest nVidia graphics drivers, and yes, i uninstalled my old one before installing the new one.

any ideas would be very much appreciated.

julz

tried from internel drive? have service pack 3?

Try another source game, hl2:dm or something? try deleting your user folder in

steam directory/steamapps then run your games again.

It might be an issue with the external hdd. I used to have a problem with external ones that caused bluescreens all the time until I connected them using USB. Try updating the SATA drivers or to connect the hdd using USB to see if it solves the problem. Also look at the settings for bluescreens, maybe you get one but can't properly see it.

a friend of mine had the same trouble with his computer. either the power-supply isn't strong enough to feed your hardware (the voltage sinks and the cpu stops) or your cpu gets too hot and stops as a result of that.
But I really don't know, what it could be. I'm no professional.

Greetz, Jörn

@Jorn:
those two both sound feasible given my situation. my computer has been moved so that our grandparents can have the spare room while they stay (they'll be here a few more weeks) and as of this move the power hasn't been sufficient for me to use more than a couple of USB devices (dodgy socket, i think).

also, my fan has been getting really loud lately. i thought of cleaning it, opened my computer, and saw that i had no idea how. but there isn't any correlation between the fan going crazy and the computer freezing, so maybe power is more of an issue.

@Quad: i have all the latest XP updates except a Microsoft Office Update seems to fail every time i try, but since i'm on holidays i don't need to use Office at all lately. my internal drive is old, small, and very nearly full, so i have to rely on the external hard-drive.

@Michael: where do i find SATA drivers? should i be looking for them based on my motherboard?

thanks so far guys. i've had no issues so far today, and i'll see what i can do to minimize power consumption from this particular socket. if it gets too bad i might reconfigure to just use one screen (using two atm) to reduce power consumption.

julz

yeah it's more likely, your gpu and external drive uses all the power(btw Kw of your power supply?) and cpu doesnt get eneough.

i don't know how good my power supply is at all, actually. but i do know the socket in the wall isn't attached properly, and that may be related. i ran an extension cord from another socket so i could power the main computer somewhat separately, but still had a crash. since then i ran a registry mechanic scan and fix, and haven't had the problem since.

it's so sporadic, though, that i'm not assuming it's fixed.

thanks guys, i'll be back if more happens.

julz

Also try to go to dxdiag->sound and turn the sound acceleration to "basic acceleration", sometimes directx problems/conflicts with sound can interfere and cause crashes or freeze ups.

okay, had the crash again. this time the scan at the beginning didn't come up with any trouble, so i'll attribute that to the registry mechanic.

still looking like it's probably power related, but my methods aren't solving it.

bed-time.

tomorrow i'll switch off one of my screens and see if that helps.

julz

EDIT: thanks TriNitro, i'll try that tomorrow.

Hi, I really had the same problem one week ago. I really thought my mainboard had a defect. But when I looked at BIOS, I noticed that the Memory Timings (CL-RCD-RP-RAS) were setted wrong. So I set them to "auto" and applyed the values.

After that I never had a freeze again. I hope this may help you, but a freeze can usually happen when you are using a onboard soundcard + external soundcard at the same time.