HeEeEeLp

[old.Fubs]

Ok, this is driving me nuts. I'm spamming every forum I know of with this problem, so hopefully i can get some feedback.

I upgraded my comp about a month ago, and since then I have had no-end of problems trinyg to get Unreal Tournament to work.

First thing was that D3D wouldnt work, I had terrible mouse lag, so I moved to openGL. OpenGL was just too dark for me, and the darkness slider doesnt work for some reason, so i got hold of a custom GL driver which fixes this problem. GL driver works great, wonderful framerates and lovely looking game.

The problem I have is that the gae locks up after about 20-30 mins of playing (sometimes shorter, somethines not at all).

I have tried varios versions of the nVidea drivers, the current official versions, the latest beta, and the latest driver from the card manufacturer. I also have the VIA 4in1 drivers installed. None of these made any differance. I have also tried various versions of UT, including the default one from a straight install (v400). No joy there, acts the same for all of them.

In a fit of desperation I tried changing my IDE cable. I was using the cable from my old MB, and when i started up i go a message between the RAM count and IDE detection saying "Primary IDE no 80 conducter cable installed", both my HDD's worked fine so i never bothered changing it. Anyway I replaced this cable with the one i got with the MB, and the message went away. UT crashed in GL mode, and just in case I tried it in D3d more... and it worked!

D3D was working fine, a little mouse lag, but nowhere near as bad as before, it was playable. After about 20 mins of playing UT in D3D, it locked up. I let out a sigh and reached for the reset button. Then i got a blue screen of death! "Error writing to drive D:" it said. I managed to get back to windows, but as soon as i tried to access a HDD, it locked up.

On restart neither of my HDD's are detected. My main one will boot if my secondary one is unplugged (unplugged IDE only, not power), and when i plug 2nd back in they both work again. When i play UT again, this repeats.

UT works fine if I play with only my primary IDE drive plugged in.

Any suggestions?

Its almost 1am, and the light in my room is broken, and my torch is almost out of power, so im not fiddling any more.

I will double check the Jumper settings on my HDD's tomorrow. Im sure one is set to master and the other to slave, and they are also on the correct IDE port. They wouldn't work at all otherwise.

I have also tried formatting several times throughtout my troubles. Also tried fiddling with BIOS, no joy :/

Is it possible that the freezin in GL is the same problem, or differant? I dont have any problems restartig after GL freezes and i dont get a blue screen of death. They do both freeze at roughly the same point.

----------
SYSTEM SPEC:
Windows ME (I actually paid for this!!!!)
1Ghz Thunderbird Processor
3D Prophet II - MX 64Mb
Soundblaster Live! 1024
Abit KT7A (not RAID)
100Mpbs Network Card
250W power supply
40GB HDD - Primary master (c:\5Gb, e:\5GB, f:\30GB)
20GB HDD - Primary slave(Old, drive D: )
CD-RW - secondary IDE
DVD - secondary IDE

 

[Testin da Cable]

on inpulse I'd say get a heavier psu m8eh

 

[Wazzerphuk]

I'd say check how hot you were getting (temperature wise, perverts)

 

[Wij]

UT is very sensitive to hot processors and the like, yes.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

As I know all too well

 

[old.RookieWan]

Not sure if it's a heated CPU, as that would give probs with heat warnings from the PC itself.

One thing might be possible, shared IRQ's. The SBlive is a bitch when it's sharing IRQ's with f.e the HD controllers. I've had major probs myself until I found out this was the case. I just moved the SBlive to another slot and all of a sudden it worked ( on my Intel 440 BX board). Perhaps the SBlive is sharing an IRQ with the vid card (hence the crappy performance). Or with the mouse ports (hence the crappy mouse performance).

Try this first before pulling all kinds of HD controller cables

 

[old.curtiswelt]

I encountered the same problem and this was a problem with the MOBO and video card combo..... had a vodoo 3 2000 and it conflicted with my MOBO and would run for 20-30 min then freeze..... I put my old card in and the problem was solved..... I suggest if you have a second reliable video card that you try that out!!

Hope this helps

 

[Wij]

250 watt PSU does seem a little low for all that gubbins.

 

[old.RookieWan]

It's not a matter of volts Wij, some 250W PSU's have the sustained Amps to run an Athlon no problem. A m8 of mine runs a PC store and he told there are good Athlon supporting 250W PSU's around, it's all about the Amps the thing can supply.

Any update on the problems

 

[Wij]

watts = amps * volts init ?

if u supply more amps u can only do so with the same wattage by reducing the voltage surely. of course some psus r of better quality than others and can supply what they're supposed to better than others at a guess...