Forgive me if this seems long but I've tried a lot of things already...
Recently I've been having probs where after typically 10 mins - 1 hour after being in RvR, the game (and whole comp) will freeze and the screen will go weird colours, audio will either continue for a few seconds then cut out or more generally go into a very fast loop (kind of buzzing). There is never any BSOD but always a similar pattern on screen with only variations in colour, sometimes with a square area around the mouse that will continue moving if I move the mouse. The computer sometimes resets after a few second but will usually sit there until I reset it, and windows never recognises that it's crashed the next time I start up. I've shown a couple of photos as it's hard to describe well.
From the screenshots it would probably appear to be graphic card related, but while it occasionally happens in PvE too it does so much less often, and also seems to happen more in RvR the more I move around different areas which would suggest more a ram problem. And since I've tried a hell of a lot of software fixes and even reformatted with no effect, software problems are pretty much ruled out. The problem occurs both in DR and the original TOA client, both in fullscreen and windowed mode (that is the whole system still crashes not just the window)
However no matter what I do I can't get it to crash outside DAOC. I've tried stress testing the graphics card with 3dMark05 by running the tests 15 times over, and a similar amount with aquamark and a couple of other small progs. I've tested the ram with both memtest86 and microsofts ram tester for about 8 hours overnight, and run prime95s memory torture test for several hours straight. These should all stress the hardware a lot more than DAOC and yet they all run fine. I've also checked temps while running DAOC and they are not especially high, max low 60s for the graphics card and mid 40s for the ram iirc. I also checked voltages with speedfan and they were all close to the ideal values, no more than 5% off
I've tried using previous, new beta and very old versions of graphics drivers, as well as updating directX etc. I've tried disabling AGP fastwrite and side adressing in the BIOS, tried underclocking the graphics card a little while raising the voltage, tried relaxing ram timings (they were not beyond what the ram is rated at anyway), and again none of this helped. Nothing is overclocked etc.
So basically I am out of ideas what to do next. I can keep stresstesting but I have the feeling if it hasn't shown anything up by now it won't, yet I'm almost certain the hardware is at fault since its exactly the same after a reformat and fresh install. Any suggestions?
System specs if they help are:
-DFI lanparty UT NF3 250GB
-Athlon 3000+
-2x 512 mb Geil ultra-x 3200 (something like that)
-Geforce 6800 GT
-WD Caviar 120GB HDD
-Win XP home, using service pack 1
Recently I've been having probs where after typically 10 mins - 1 hour after being in RvR, the game (and whole comp) will freeze and the screen will go weird colours, audio will either continue for a few seconds then cut out or more generally go into a very fast loop (kind of buzzing). There is never any BSOD but always a similar pattern on screen with only variations in colour, sometimes with a square area around the mouse that will continue moving if I move the mouse. The computer sometimes resets after a few second but will usually sit there until I reset it, and windows never recognises that it's crashed the next time I start up. I've shown a couple of photos as it's hard to describe well.
From the screenshots it would probably appear to be graphic card related, but while it occasionally happens in PvE too it does so much less often, and also seems to happen more in RvR the more I move around different areas which would suggest more a ram problem. And since I've tried a hell of a lot of software fixes and even reformatted with no effect, software problems are pretty much ruled out. The problem occurs both in DR and the original TOA client, both in fullscreen and windowed mode (that is the whole system still crashes not just the window)
However no matter what I do I can't get it to crash outside DAOC. I've tried stress testing the graphics card with 3dMark05 by running the tests 15 times over, and a similar amount with aquamark and a couple of other small progs. I've tested the ram with both memtest86 and microsofts ram tester for about 8 hours overnight, and run prime95s memory torture test for several hours straight. These should all stress the hardware a lot more than DAOC and yet they all run fine. I've also checked temps while running DAOC and they are not especially high, max low 60s for the graphics card and mid 40s for the ram iirc. I also checked voltages with speedfan and they were all close to the ideal values, no more than 5% off
I've tried using previous, new beta and very old versions of graphics drivers, as well as updating directX etc. I've tried disabling AGP fastwrite and side adressing in the BIOS, tried underclocking the graphics card a little while raising the voltage, tried relaxing ram timings (they were not beyond what the ram is rated at anyway), and again none of this helped. Nothing is overclocked etc.
So basically I am out of ideas what to do next. I can keep stresstesting but I have the feeling if it hasn't shown anything up by now it won't, yet I'm almost certain the hardware is at fault since its exactly the same after a reformat and fresh install. Any suggestions?
System specs if they help are:
-DFI lanparty UT NF3 250GB
-Athlon 3000+
-2x 512 mb Geil ultra-x 3200 (something like that)
-Geforce 6800 GT
-WD Caviar 120GB HDD
-Win XP home, using service pack 1
