Game stops responding. Please help!

[Jangle]

well, the title says it all. The game just suddenly stops responding in the middle of playing, and i have to use ctrl+alt+del to shut it down. Anyone know why this might be happening??

i gotta radeon 9800 pro, creative audigy ls, athlon 3000+ and my os
is windows xp office proffesional.

would be really grateful if anybody ccould help.

 

[Jangle]

anybody?

 

[Beavis]

Sorry, I have given up on Half-Life2. There are too many other games out there that don't crash my system.

 

[kaf11]

i think i might be getting a similar problem. two updates ago all my HL2 related games began to exit/freeze during the initial loading. sometimes it is accompanied by the referenced memory error which i never got pre-update. i was literally running hammer and hl2 at the same time before the update and they were running perfectly for several hours. then i checked the news here and got the udate. immediatly i could not get into any HL2 game. I havent posted this as a topic here because i dont know if there can be a simple fix aside from another update by valve that adresses the problem. if anyone has any suggestions, please help. thanks.

 

[Jangle]

yeah, you heard the man. It's called community game support. Is anybody going to support us or what?

 

[kaf11]

ive been trying the steampowered forums and the only solution ive seen that MIGHT work is getting rid of SP2, which doesnt sound like something i want to do at this point...

 

[Jangle]

pointless, cos soon everyone will have to have sp2..

ive tried everything, turning off sound acceleration, changing graphics card options, underclocking.

The only thing i can thing of is that it is overheating. is 42 degrees normal temperature for a pc?

 

[kaf11]

my thermometer is fahrenheit and always around 70. but seriously, i need a solution to this problem. i tried the sp2 fix to no avail, its just a waste of time.

 

[Chris D]

pointless, cos soon everyone will have to have sp2..

ive tried everything, turning off sound acceleration, changing graphics card options, underclocking.

The only thing i can thing of is that it is overheating. is 42 degrees normal temperature for a pc?

Is that 42degrees centigrade/celsius? And is that your system temperature or your CPU temperature?

If it's your system temperature (i.e. the temperature inside the case) then you should probably worry. If it's a CPU temperature then that's bloody good for an AMD Athlon chip!!

Also, from previous threads that were made, you installed a new sound card. Did you try disabling the on-board sound in the BIOS? You've probably done this already but just check to be sure.

Additionally, it would be a great idea to validate your cache files. You can do this by typing steam://validate/220 into your internet browser.

Does it happen on any other games or is it just Half-Life 2?

If none of this resolves the issue then it can only be one thing, and that's what you must have running in the background. Do this:

1) Make sure Steam works in offline mode.
2) Disconnect your internet from the computer.
3) Click Start > Run > and type MSCONFIG in the box and press enter.
4) Click the Startup tab and click on Disable All.
5) Click Apply then Ok
6) Click Restart Now
**Warning this will disable your firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. Ensure you put these back in *before* connecting back to the internet**

Now launch Steam again and launch Half-Life 2. Does it still crash or freeze?

After this the next step would be to format your system and reinstall it. I *think* I noticed you say you had a Dell computer. Before running in and formatting the drive etc. check your user's guide to see if it has any sort of hard drive based recovery system. (They're getting really popular now as it makes the Windows licneces about £80 cheaper). If it is a HDD recovery, DO NOT go running diskpart / fdisk or format as you can mess the whole thing up.

Staight after the format etc. put only your anti-virus and firewall software back on. Then connect your internet. And before you go running off to www.****meoverwithavirus.com (like most people seem to manage ) just install Steam and Half-Life 2 and test the game again.

Hope that helps.

 

[Jangle]

ok, im reviving this thread cos i dont want to start yet another one on the same subject. Does anyone know how to stop this happening to my pc, it happens with every game i have except hl1 and call of duty. Nothing i have tried works. Pleeeeeeaaase somebody must know some way of stopping it ;(

 

[Jangle]

205 views and nine replies pleease guys somebody help.

 

[pEchep]

in source the console is updated where it is color coded(ooh ahh! steam is so L337) so you can see the errors it is making in the console, and if you are retarded you press the "~" key during gameplay to find out.

 

[michaelsil1]

It sounds like an overheating problem try opening the case and setting a fan beside it and see if it still crashs.

 

[Jangle]

nope, and nope. Nothing wrong in the console, and i checked my pc temperature and its fine ;(

thanks for trying..

 

[Jangle]

anybody else? ive searched the internet, but i cant find anything.