Can anybody see what the problem is?

[Nightmare415]

Now, the game gets past the logos for the game, starts loading the menu in the background (so I can faintly see HALF LIFE 2 & New Game, Load Game, Options, Exit) and then STOPS and a horrible screeching noise comes from the speakers. No error is there, and the only way out is to restart the computer. Every once and a while, if I keep trying to run it and restarting, I'll get into the game and can play, but it randomly does the STOP and SCREECH thing when I enter a new area. I tried Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines also, and it does the goddamn STOP and SCREECH thing too! I don't even know what causes this. I did however note that if I had the Sound Acceleration at Max in dxdiag, the screen would black out after the Stop n' Screech, whereas if it was at basic it would just stop and screech at the screen. Half Life 2 and Vampire: Bloodlines both run on my second computer, albeit horribly slow. Since this was the case, I tried swapping both video and sound cards, but it still wouldn't run. This is really friggin annoying, and I need some help here. Anyone else have this problem, or know what to do? Could it be my motherboard? I formatted recently, and it worked before that, but I don't know.

Windows XP Home Edition SP2
Intel Pentium 4 2.8Ghz
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Sound Blaster Live! Value
1024 DDR Ram
DirectX 9.0c

 

[doomed - uk]

Splinter Cell was giving me horrible screeching with a Soundblaster Live! card when I built a new machine and used XP for the first time.

I updated the drivers for the card and that fixed it, so that's something to try.

 

[doomed - uk]

I think this is the right info on the driver I use:

Driver Provider: Creative
Driver date: 24/07/2002
Driver version: 5.12.2.252

That might not be the right one for your card, though. Creative has a pretty good product download thing so that should help find a recent driver.

 

[giant384]

video and sound drivers are most likely the problem

 

[Nightmare415]

My sound and video drivers are up-to-date, as my SoundBlaster Live! Drivers are version 5.12.1.252 date 7/19/2002, the most recent ones up for download on www.creative.com. Can it be the sound card, though? I tried taking it out, and had the same problem.

 

[mongoloido]

Does your mobo have onboard sound, and if so, is it disabled?

 

[Nightmare415]

Yeah, I disabled onboard audio. Weird, HL2 worked before I formatted. Here's how it happens --

1. HL2 Works -
2. Out of Nowhere, Windows BSOD -
3. Buy New Hard Drive -
4. Format Both Drives and Reinstall XP -
5. Reinstall all Drivers -
6. Half Life 2 and Vampire do not work, but Fallout Tactics does -

I am confused.

 

[Nightmare415]

Somebody suggested this -

Stop and screech sounds like it could be an overheating problem, if you ask me. The screeching sound, regardless, comes from the sound card's buffer running out of sound to play (because the cpu probably halted all motherboard functionality) and repeating the last frequency in the buffer. To me, that indicates that the processor halted suddenly, which usually happens when it overheats. Windows XP is usually pretty good at recovering from software errors.

Could it be caused by the addition of my 2nd hard drive?