General lockup problem also affecting me playing JJ2

[MaliceX]

Okay, I have this problem (had it for a long while now) where my computer would COMPLETELY freeze up that is unescapable without hard-resetting the computer.

Details:
While I'm playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2: TSF, the game works right, but at one point while either in the middle or at the end of a level, the game would just suddenly FREEZE with a stuttering sound of what happened just then. This has been happening not only on this game, but it's happened to a few other games as well, INCLUDING Rescue from Space Invaders... (surprisingly it didn't affect Quake III arena but Postal2 won't go beyond loading because of this. Worms World Party even!)

Information you need to know:
Processor: AMD Duron 950mhz
Audio: SB Live! Value using Web drivers from official site
Video: nVidia GeForce4 MX420 with 64MB SD-RAM
Motherboard: VIA KT-133 chipset. Brand is EPoX, model EP-8KTA
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) XP(tm) Professional with SP2(tm)
HDD: appx. 80GB Seagate Barracuda
DX version: DirectX 9.0b
Anti-Virus: Norton Antivirus 2003 Professional Edition
System Restore: OFF
Run Spyware scan: Yes, with latest references on Ad-Aware 6 pro

Other information:
Strangely enough, sometimes running the DirectDraw tests would freeze the computer the same way..! I'm forced to playing some of these games in windowed mode, but I can't do that for all of them.

I'm asking for desperate need of help. Instructions on how to log the problem, please tell me!
Any other ideas will be GREATLY appreciated, this problem has been bugging me for ages now so I'm kindly asking if anyone could help me out here.

Thanks in advance!

[Torkell]

I've got a couple of ideas here. You could try updating the motherboard and graphics drivers - those often solve random problems.

Another thing is the graphics card might be overheating. I had a similar problem with one nVidia card in my machine (same mboard, Duron 800 at the time, Win2k). If the display freezes, but the sound continues to play without any problems, then that might be the problem.

[MaliceX]

That may be what my other friend said as well, except in this case, the sound goes from:

"Doo-daa-dee-dum-dee-la-ma-mee"

then freezes, it just goes

"me-me-me-me-me-me-me" like a broken record.

My video card couldn't be possibly overheating, it never done this to me before, and even froze on simple programs. Another thing is, Quake 3 Arena should've been affected but surprisingly isn't.
Fullscreen on emulator programs doesn't seem to be a problem.. (zsnes sometimes is.)
Also, it plays SOME older 3D games perfectly, while heavy-loading 3D games, and games like CHICKEN INVADERS freeze up on loading.

I cannot afford to spend any money on any upgrades at this time.

EDIT: I've also tried this with my other sound card and got the same result.

[Hazel-rah]

My computer does that, too.

The only thing we have in common is the Sound Blaster Live! card.

I wonder if that's been doing it all along...

I always thought it was a cooling issue... my CPU fan stops turning for a few seconds once a day without any reason... I can't explain it.. I cleaned the (-)(-)(-)(-) thing.

[Link]

Do you ever get a stop error message? Or does Windows say anything about it when you restart?

Has this always happened, or did it start suddenly?

Could there be other programs causing a conflict? Try closing everything you don't need (through the Task Manager processes tab).

A cooling issue seems possible - can you use a program to monitor the CPU temperature leading up to the freeze?

[Torkell]

That may be what my other friend said as well, except in this case, the sound goes from:

"Doo-daa-dee-dum-dee-la-ma-mee"

then freezes, it just goes

"me-me-me-me-me-me-me" like a broken record.

Right, that means the computer's locked up solid. You get the broken record effect because the sound card uses a circular buffer (when it gets to the end, it goes back to the beginning), and whatever program was sending stuff to the sound card stopped working.


My video card couldn't be possibly overheating, it never done this to me before, and even froze on simple programs. Another thing is, Quake 3 Arena should've been affected but surprisingly isn't.
Fullscreen on emulator programs doesn't seem to be a problem.. (zsnes sometimes is.)
Also, it plays SOME older 3D games perfectly, while heavy-loading 3D games, and games like CHICKEN INVADERS freeze up on loading.

Ah. Quake 3 uses OpenGL, but most stuff (including JJ2) uses DirectX. Try graphics drivers, and try installing the latest version of DirectX


I always thought it was a cooling issue... my CPU fan stops turning for a few seconds once a day without any reason... I can't explain it.. I cleaned the (-)(-)(-)(-) thing.
I've seen that happen on a friend's pc, and it was a bit worrying seeing the temperature climb. I think modern motherboards do some fancy temperature-sensing stuff and control the cpu fan speed based on temperature. You may want to look and see if there is an option in the bios to disable the speed control for the fan.

[MaliceX]

Link: Nope, I get nada from Windows. It doesn't say if I recovered from a critical error, and I don't get an error box upon error happening. I've already tried that method closing processes, but still got the same thing. What's also peculiar is, when I use another user profile that's barely used, some things that don't work on my profile work, but the heavy-loading stuff still don't load.

CPU cooling issue? I don't know, I somehow doubt it, but maybe I'll try seeing about that. Thanks. (I remember seeing a lockup issue with a friend's old PentiumII without a CPU cooling fan, and it locked up just the same...I think)