System Freezes During Gameplay

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 14, 2011, 02:33 PM

My machine has been freezing when I play Medieval II or Rome: Total War. I can play Doom3 at Ultra with 4X Anti-aliasing without problems. When frozen, the pointer may move, and the sound alternates between a loop and a short rapid burst of sound.

I have an AMD AthlonXP 2500+ Barton (1.8Ghz), ASUS A7N8X-X board with nForce2 chipset, 1024MB DDR RAM. I am not over clocking anything, and I am running most BIOS settings at default. My Graphics Aperture Size is set to 512MB, AGP 8X is on by default, and I have tried turning Fast Write on and off and am still experiencing trouble.

When I had an nVidia GeForce FX5200 card, I could play both games without a problem. Then I bought a PNY Verto nVidia GeForce 6600 AGP card @ 256MB, and the problems began.

I recently bought an nVidia 7600GS AGP @ 512MB and an Antec 470w PSU, thinking the extra power would help. The game is still locking up, and, while it was only locking up in battles, it is now locking up in campaign mode as well.

I am using the auto-detect feature in the Video Options without success. I just tried a game on the same settings I was using for my FX5200 and the campaign mode still locked up on me.

All drivers and games are up to date. I used Everest after rebooting, and my CPU was at 51°C; using nView Monitor, I recorded my GPU at a range of 46-8°C. I ran memtest86+ and Windiag and found one stick to be faulty, so I tossed it.

Note: I am currently using 1024MB RAM; I had been using 1.5GB RAM.

System Specifications:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Any assistance is appreciated.

**irishron** · March 14, 2011, 02:54 PM

Have you tried deleting the medieval2.preferences.cgf and let it build a new one?

Have you tried Game Booster to get you some more free ram?

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 14, 2011, 02:56 PM

I have not. I will try deleting the preferences file, as you requested. I ordered 2GB of RAM and shall have it within the week.

**irishron** · March 14, 2011, 05:46 PM

Good luck with both.

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 14, 2011, 05:48 PM

I disabled 'AGP 8X SUPPORT' in BIOS, and everything is working.

I'll post in a week with results.

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 14, 2011, 06:28 PM

It is now automatically rebooting in battle mode.

**irishron** · March 14, 2011, 07:05 PM

BSOD? If so, can you post the message benind it?

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 14, 2011, 08:35 PM

Nope. I disabled 'AGP 8X SUPPORT' and 'FAST WRITE CAPABILITY' in BIOS. The game runs fine in Medium Video Settings, but when I select 'Auto-detect,' my system reboots when I enter battle mode. Any guesses?

By the way, it's not a driver issue.

**irishron** · March 14, 2011, 10:23 PM

Turn your monitor to 800 x 600, no eyecandy and small unit size. Auto-detect caused me more grief than not. I always end up setting mine the hard way.

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 15, 2011, 06:40 PM

I just tried disabling AVG and reinstalling the video card drivers. I was able to play a battle in the medium video presetting, but it became choppy. So I disabled AGP 8X SUPPORT in BIOS, and the battle ran much smoother the next go-round.

Then I went for the gusto and boosted the video settings to auto-detect and tried a campaign. Everything worked fine in campaign mode. I fought a battle for at least five minutes before my machine rebooted; and now my machine reboots shortly after entering a battle.

I am very curious why the game works fine and then flakes out on me as if it were some halfhearted broad.

**irishron** · March 15, 2011, 07:08 PM

Battles are hard on a system because of the 3d textures. This is why I said no eyecandy and small units. This game was the start of needing a PCIe x 16 slot and AGP is old for what players want for graphics. If you love the game and could care less about graphics, you have a good computer, yet.

FYI, a game company developer finally admitted something about auto-detection. They have a habit of setting them high of which most fail.

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 15, 2011, 07:11 PM

I was playing both Rome and Medieval II: Total War without error using auto-detect - and enhancing some attributes - on a nVidia GeForce FX 5200 AGP card @ 128 MB. I began to experience errors when I installed newer video cards.

**irishron** · March 15, 2011, 07:33 PM

Okay, then, you got me. I odn't know unless it's drivers for some reason right now I don't understand. What drivers did you use with the 5200?

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 16, 2011, 01:27 AM

I don't recall which drivers I was using, but I do know they were up to date as of a few months ago.

I have formatted my system and am presently reconfiguring. Since my lesser machine plays Rome: Total War like it's a rag doll, I figured I'd try a fresh install of windows xp.

**irishron** · March 16, 2011, 07:41 AM

Good luck.

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 16, 2011, 08:51 PM

Thanks. I just got done reconfiguring my system. So I tried playing Medieval II and I experienced another forced reboot, so we can rule out software.

**PoleCat** · March 17, 2011, 01:48 AM

Originally Posted by Hrothgar Óhreinsaður

Thanks. I just got done reconfiguring my system. So I tried playing Medieval II and I experienced another forced reboot, so we can rule out software.

As irish said above this is likely a hardware issue. Now you said that you were able to play previously when you had 1.5 GB of RAM? You ran Memtest and found a faulty stick?

Your whole problem really sounds like a memory issue to me. Especially when you factor in the fact that the mouse cursor is still movable but the game doesn't respond. Can you jump out of the game using either the Task Manager or Alt+Tab?

I was playing both Rome and Medieval II: Total War without error using auto-detect - and enhancing some attributes - on a nVidia GeForce FX 5200 AGP card @ 128 MB. I began to experience errors when I installed newer video cards.

I'm almost positive that both these cards are below min spec. You say you had no trouble with these at all?

Have you considered adding a new 512 stick to bring you back up to 1.5 GB?

EDIT: Why disable AGP x8 support? That doesn't make sense to me....

**irishron** · March 16, 2011, 09:00 PM

99% forced reboots are hardware, unfortunately.

**Hrothgar Óhreinsaður** · March 21, 2011, 11:28 AM

Your whole problem really sounds like a memory issue to me. Especially when you factor in the fact that the mouse cursor is still movable but the game doesn't respond. Can you jump out of the game using either the Task Manager or Alt+Tab? Have you considered adding a new 512 stick to bring you back up to 1.5 GB?

When I can play the game, I can use Alt+Tab to exit to Desktop; however, when the system chooses to hang, I cannot. Sometimes the cursor recognises input, but it usually locks up as well.

Have you considered adding a new 512 stick to bring you back up to 1.5 GB?

I just bought 2 X 1GB sticks of PNY PC 3200 DDRAM and installed them today, removing the old RAM from my machine completely.

I'm almost positive that both these cards are below min spec. You say you had no trouble with these at all?

Well, I got the box out and looked, and the minimum recommended card is at 128MB, which is the size of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 I was previously using. And, yes, I could play both games without problem when I was using that lesser card.

Also, the box's recommended video card is a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7300 or better, and I was using a NVIDIA GeForce 6600 (256MB) and am now using a NVIDIA 7600 GS (512MB) card; and they are the ones giving me problems. How a card upgrade caused a system-intensive game to fail is a riddle.

EDIT: Why disable AGP x8 support? That doesn't make sense to me....

I tried disabling AGP 8X Support as advice from someone on another board. We're trying about every non-fatal option to see if we can pinpoint the problem. I've tried turning Fast Writes off as well with no change. I'm desperate to get my favourite games to play using the upgraded video cards and will try anything that won't endanger system stability.

**irishron** · March 21, 2011, 11:49 AM

What are your temps and voltages?

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