a slightly scarey problem

[Asmodai]

Ok I have no understanding or explanation of this problem myself;

 

When i have logged into EL for the past 4 days, after a certain amount of time(last time was 10 seconds) my compter freezes.

Then my monitor signal stops altogether(goes black and on standby)

The lights on my tower stay on, but the power switch doesnt work, none of the keyboard commands work, and i have to switch the poor beast off at the mains

 

I run ET forever and a day with no problems.

 

Windows XP Media center edition

Pentium 4 640, 3200MHz(16x200)(prescott-2M)

1024 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)

ATI RADEON 9550 (256 MB)

 

EL eats me

 

Any suggestions? I havent a clue

Edited September 20, 2005 by Asmodai

[Entropy]

Did you try to update your drivers? Try to get the Omega drivers.

[Soldus]

On a sidenote: your powerbutton on an ATX case is a soft-power button.

 

try holding it pushed in for more than 3 seconds, most bios's have that as a hard-power off.

[gadai]

From the reviews I've seen Windows XP Media Edition (the first release) was very..shoddy, even by Microsoft standards. Would suggest checking the Knowledge Base at the Microsoft site to see if this is a known problem.

[sirdan]

make limit fps 0 and turn off point particles in your el.ini folder thing that might work

[Learner]

make limit fps 0 and turn off point particles in your el.ini folder thing that might work

199214[/snapback]

I'd try low FPS values, but > 0. An overworked video board can do strange things if the rest of the system is under powered, or if it overheats.

[Asmodai]

This isnt the first release, and ive no idea how to update to omega drivers.

My fps doesnt drop below 20 under harsh/crowded conditions(apart from that cornfeild in c2 ), with most video options on and a 19inch size video mode, so will that make a difference?

 

Im trying it with fps 5 and point particles off, for the sake of trying....

[sirdan]

dunno seems to work fine on my peice of crap computer

[Sildegaar]

With ATI card, 2 things you should try is :

1. Isometric view mode (just to check if at least you can play)

2. Update to Catalyst 5.8 or Omega drivers

 

PS: I don't recommend mipmaps with ATI Radeon.

[Asmodai]

ok i have set fps back to 0 point particles still off and now vertex arrays off, the char movement reaction is generally better now. I hope im fine now.

 

btw People say you should remove the ATI control panel from the add/remove programs before installing updated drivers. There is no ATI control panel displayed there so...eh?

[Derin]

btw People say you should remove the ATI control panel from the add/remove programs before installing updated drivers. There is no ATI control panel displayed there so...eh?

199366[/snapback]

 

This means unistalling any previous driver installations, to avoid conflicts. That information is also found on the ATi support web pages

[kl4Uz]

Asmodai you can install the ATI catalyst drivers either with the control center or without. If you don't have it - no worries.

Edited September 21, 2005 by kl4Uz

[Asmodai]

I am beginning to think its my cpu overheating, seen as it is a Prescott-2M, and i just crashed in ET

Ive got Everest installed so i can monitor the temperature easily, but im not sure what to do about it.

im gunna get me a big fridge........

[Ujio]

coincidentally i have the same problem, but not when playing EL. i might be looking at something, or loading something, and my shitty computer then decides to do what you described in the first post here. i have 2 ways of restarting that dont require turing off at the mains: a little manual-reset button underneath my main turn on button on the tower, and the switch on the back of the tower itself, which turns it off.

 

i dont know how to solve this problem, but if you think it may have something to do with overheating (which i dont think is anything to do with my case, as when i try to run Freelancer it usually buggers up after a short while, for example) then i would recommend more ventilation around your computer. invest in an a/c, some fans, or just open the windows more than usual. other than that, i dunno. my pc i will guarentee is several years older than yours, and in computer technological terms, about 100 years old. all the specs you posted are better than mine, so i doubt its because of computer age. its probably deeper and more technical than that.

 

ah well, sorry to hear about it asmodai. hope its worked out soon

[Asmodai]

Well it seems EL doesnt bite anymore, but with lots of other programs open it gets my CPU to 70-80degreesC last time i looked. I have been informed that is higher than the recommended ceiling?

 

And yes this comp is actually only a month old

[Derin]

Well it seems EL doesnt bite anymore, but with lots of other programs open it gets my CPU to 70-80degreesC last time i looked. I have been informed that is higher than the recommended ceiling?

 

And yes this comp is actually only a month old 

199794[/snapback]

 

EL will try to grab as much CPU it can, so you might want to consider limiting FPS to something in the range of 20-40 (you will have to test what value will be best for you)