Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: RandomTiger on April 04, 2004, 12:00:26 pm
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Currently Im experiencing a lot of crashes.
I've got two installs of XP on my machine and it seems to be effecting both so that suggests a hardware problem.
It seems to happen a lot when Im playing Far Cry, but I've checked and nothing is getting too hot.
Also it happens a fair bit when Im just listening to music and web browsing?
Any idea of how to narrow it down?
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faulty mem or HD if you ask me,
2 partitions or two HD's?
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2 Harddiscs, one split into two partions
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are the OS's both on one HD or has each HD an OS?
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You think that's annoying? Try getting explorer to crash and restart whenever you click on a movie or music file, when explorer tries to 'preview' it. Meh. Bad codecs, methinks...
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A lot of the time, random crashes can be directed to a faulty motherboard.
Really though, it could be anything.
Best thing to do to narrow it down, is to try taking out all of your cards one by one and see if it still happens. (Replace the video card with a cheaper one or borrow another from a friend.)
Do the same for the Ram.
Try disconnecting one of the hard drives, the list goes on. Just run trial and eror test on all of your hardware bits.
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Is there any way to test memory, I only have one stick and dont have access to more?
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you have tryed reformat/reinstall, right?
if you do be sure to keep a copy of your wpa.jbl (I think that's the file)
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Im just about to start a reinstall.
Whats wpa.jbl?
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The reg number generated at install by XP, methinks.
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
Is there any way to test memory, I only have one stick and dont have access to more?
[color=66ff00]memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/
Runs fairly thorough tests on your RAM. :nod:
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it'll save you some hastle
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I'll give it a shot, thanks.
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
Whats wpa.jbl?
It's \windows\system32\wpa.dbl It's where the windows product activation stuff is held - back it up, reinstall, copy it back in and XP will be activated without having to go through any activation steps again.
You could try running chkdsk with the 'scan for bad sectors' option. I did that and found UT2k3's engine.dll was sitting on a bad block, which explained why it crashed everytime I ran it.
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not only will it save you from haveing to activate XP it will allow you to reinstall as many times you want to (on only the one computer, it's all hardware specific crap) otherwise you'll only beable to reinstall likely once before it'll say you'r over the limit.
and it is dbl, don't know why I said jbl, maybe becase they make good speakers :)
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There's a 180 day wait between activations. I know this from experience.
As an outside chance, try rebooting without a CD-ROM in the drive. I had a rather odd problem with that once....
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Memory checks out as OK.
Next step, reinstall OS
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I think I've found the problem.
My power supply isnt high enough.
Damn thing is running out!
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Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
There's a 180 day wait between activations. I know this from experience.
[color=66ff00]If I paid for that piece of junk OS there's no way in hell that I'm going to abide by that. Protecting the consumer! Hah! :mad:
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I was just gonna suggest the power supply. There's a good website that shows you how to pick the right one for you... Lemme find it...
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
Just fill in the blanks and it will tell you the MINIMUM you need for a power supply. Remember, you should only be running 30%-70% of it's power load at any given time.
Here's a link on some advice on picking one:
http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread.php?threadid=31880&sid=
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Currently I have a 230W power supply.
Apparently Im using 335W!
:nervous:
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How do you find out how much you're using?
That site says I need ~245, mine is 250. Will that cause performance drops?
Edited for correctness.
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Like it says thats the maximum, if everything was used all at once.
Clearly thats not the case with my system but Far Cry is literally pushing my PC to its power limits and crashing out.
I dont know if it effects performance.
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SO at a minimum you need it to be within 30 to 70 percent. So whatever # you get there, add another 30% to the number and you'll be in the range.
Also, keep in mind if you're planning on upgrading soon anything in your computer.
I have just a lowly 2500 AMD and when I calculated it for when I get my ATI 9800, it said I needed about 450 watts, so that's what I got.
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Yer, Im planning to get a new powerful graphics card, Im clearing going to need a new powerful PSU.
Thanks for the link, very useful stuff.
I've never really payed attension to this kind of stuff before.
Well I know now dont I?
Do you think I may have damaged any of my components?
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Originally posted by J3Vr6
SO at a minimum you need it to be within 30 to 70 percent. So whatever # you get there, add another 30% to the number and you'll be in the range.
[color=cc9900]Actually, if you want the system to be running at 70% of maximum, you multiply expected output by 1.429 or so.
Felt like being pedantic. Carry on! :p[/color]
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I doubt it, but I'm not anything near a computer expert. I guess the heat coming from the under powered powersupply doing his impression of "The Little Train That Could" could have given the processor a nice sun tan, but I really don't think you have anything to freak out about.
I never really paid attention to that either til I was getting problems with my computer. It's funny, it turned out that it wasn't my powersupply that went bad but a cooked processor, but only found that out when the new powersupply didn't do anything to help. But I'm glad I got the power supply anyway as now I know I'm not under powered and can upgrade as much as I pee-loving want.
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[color=cc9900]An overdraw is likely to kill the power supply first, the components attached to it ought to be fine unless it spikes while it's busy melting to slag metal.[/color]