Freezes With Looping Sound Fix

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Hello all!!!

Many of us have been experiencing freezes with looping sounds.

I recently posted a reply on here with my pc specs and the problem etc...

Thanks to a very nice player aka g4orce here is a fix for every1 to try out

goto Device Manager>Audio Codec Properties>Fraunhofen IIS mpeg layer-3 Codec Properties

Set the priority to 1.

Apply>ok etc...

Hope this helps and don't thank me... thank g4orce... we owe him a beer :cheers:
 
Hmmm...

ok this didn't quite work, however it did improve things everly for me.

So courtesy of g4orce again, here are some more ideas:-

In the bios under the PCIPnP (or equivalent) options set the PCI latency to 32.

I have also been advised to set the Windows PCM Codec priority to 2 as well. Now i can't find this in my audio codec list, so i presume he meant the Windows Media Audio codec. If not i will post some more info ;)

for any1 whose wondering....

My specs are:-

450 watt psu
Win Xp Pro Sp1(did have sp2 but got shut of it)
ATI Radeon 9600 XT bravo 256mb onboard
AMD 3200 Athlon Xp Barton (temp betwwen 60 and 70 degress)
768 mb pc2700 ddr (1 256 stick 1 512 stick in slots 1 and 3)
Asus A7V880 mobo
Sonic fury sound card
Soundblaster Live(disabled)
DVD writer (master)
Cd Burner (slave)
Gigabit onboard lan
40 gb seagate
120 gb maxtor
(drives need serious defragging tho i cant be bothered lol)
 
PLEASE post your results. I have tried everything I can think of to get this game to run.

It seems like every time I think I have it licked the darn thing crashes a day or two later.
 
I thought i had it cracked but ive still got the problem but i think i know what the cause is.

Ive been checking the event viewer under administrative tools in the control panel and i found several errors which pointed to my cd-rom drives. However, i have also found that every time i crash it coincides with information posted in the viewer by ATI Smart.

I now think that the problem is down to ATI Smart although i am not sure how to resolve it yet, though i will try my best to find out.

I think the best course of action is to try and roll back the radeon drivers to an earlier version.

I will keep you posted as soon as i have the info.

P.S Im not quite sure which results youe mean but i understand your frustration because i think im gonna have to see someone about anger management at this rate.
 
Ive tried the Omega drivers, althought the gfx were improved that didnt resolve the issue.

Ive tried downgrding the agp to 4x... didnt work
Disabled Fast-write... didn't work
(Both of these can be done in the BIOS)

So for my next attempted fix (sigh):-

Goto Device Manager
System Devices
Right Click CPU to AGP Controller
Click Driver Tab
Select Update Driver
Select Install from a specific location
Select Don't search i want to choose the driver (or equivalent)
Select PCI-to-PCI bridge
Click next
Finish
Reboot

And once again...(LMFAO)... i will let people knwo if this solves the problem.

P.S I tried disabling VPU recover, however this produced the error bout the init shader not being started. When, i re-enabled VPU recover i was able to play again (tho it still froze). When writing this i tried to re-create the error message by disabling VPU recover but CSS managed to load. Looks as tho my pc cant tell its ass from its elbow :/
 
Unfortunately no it didn't work. However, when i installed WinXP it was an upgrade from WinME. So i formatted and reinstalled but my DVD burner went boobs up :(

I've just had to by a new DVD burner today and i shall let you know if the problem still persists, which it probably will.

Im very pessimistic about it at the moment.

After reinstalling WinXP and got my DVD drive working, i went straight to using DirectX 9.0c. There are some known issues about the previous dirextX 9 versions so hopefully that will solve the problem as well. Although an over the top install of direct X 9.0c shouldn't really matter, in theory, it could see problems like an upgrade to WinXP from previous versions. Fingers Crossed people ;)
 
Well i'm still freezing, however i was able to get 30 mins play whichis the most ive had in days.

So i've tried a couple of changes i've already tried which are:-

Disabling VPU recover
Turning the PCI latency down to 32
Turning AGP down from 8x to 4x

These probably won't work but it's worth a try. :|
 
Well it hasn't worked. So any suggestions are now very much welcome :(
 
The speed was set to auto in my BIOS. I set it to 333MHz but i still encountered the same prob.

Trying at 266MHz
 
Well that didn't work either. Im sick to the back teeth of this problem and those people at Valve better be quick with a patch to fix it. Yes it has happened on other applications... but then i have to ask why can i play Psi Ops without a problem???

A recap of the problem... total freeze with last output from sound looping, my gfx card is agp btw, only a hard reset will let me get back to my desktop. No crashes to desktop and no other forseeable problems atm.

The other thing ive noticed is that the agp speed doesnt seem to enable in the advanced settings for the display properties. im gonna have a look on the steam forums but no doubt they wont be able to help me either. :(
 
Just, thought... please dont suggest to me latest mobo drivers, gfx drivers or soundcard drivers... none of these fix the problem. Dont think about the PSU either as i have a 450Watt PSU which has only been bought recently.

I am gettin increasingly cranky and angry now.
 
Last night for the first time in weeks i was able to play for a good two hours before my system froze again. The alteration made was removing my cd burner from my system. Whether that was the problem is inknown, but i think it was a shear fluke like many people have stated on other threads.

Thats all very well and good downloading the latest soundcard updates @ wolversdogs, but how does that help me and the other people if we don't have a clue whats in your PC?

Besides, i have all the latest drivers and i have tried using older driver versions as well.
 
Ahhh.... Valve have finally released a new update for CSS. Hopefully this will fix the problems that people have been encountering with a total system freeze and looping sound from last output of soundcard.

I have now come to the conclusion that the problem is due to Steam, and various updates of CSS and HL2 etc...

Although i have not tested to see if this is the case i can only assume this as when i formated and reinstalled OS, HL2 and steam were the first programs to go on my pc. So i think the assumption i now make is very valid. I would test to see if i still encounter the problem with other games but i cant be bothered to go through formatting and reinstalling all over again just to prove something i already suspect.

For me this only became a problem when HL2 and its appz were introduced to my system and considering we do not know what these "updates" are altering, it is impossible for the likes of us to pin point where the problem lies.

I hope this latest CSS update fixes it. Fingers crossed everyone. :dozey:
 
FINALLY... it appears to be fixed :D

On my mobo there is a jumper for allowing the core voltage to be altered. Mine was set to allow over volt. ive disabled it and my system appears to be running fine.

Other things to make sure of:-

Clean the cpu using a piece of kitchen roll and mineralised methylated spirit
Clean the copper plate on your heatsink using the same stuff as on the cpu
Re-apply some silicon cooling solvent to the cpu

Hope this helps ;)
 
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