My computer self-destructed!

[staticprimer]

Last night it was working perfectly fine, nothing out of the ordinary. When I woke up this morning, WoW would glitch up with a high pitch screeching noise within a few minutes. I have also tried CoD, kotor, pandora tomorrow, and nfsu2 and all of them get that screeching noise even before I can get into the game. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, and installing new drivers. The only thing that I have changed on my system was my background, and I highly doubt that is the problem. Any ideas?

 

[IonizeMyAtoms]

If it only happens in games couldn't it be the strain on your video card? How long have you been using it? Maybe it's pooched

 

[sinkoman]

Screeching makes me think that a fan is down, then when you run the game, since the fan has to spin up to keep everything cool, it screems because it's dead. Can't really tell what fan it is though by what you said. Try taking off the case side, then run the game, and see where the screeching is coming from. Maybe it isn't even the fan. Maybe your HDD is screwed. Perhaps the HDD reader is touching the disc and when you run the game, the HDD spins faster, SCREEEE!

You really need to post your specs also. Can't do ANYTHING without those. Temps too.

 

[staticprimer]

Well I know for a fact that the screeching sound is not from hardware, as the sound is coming from the speakers. Also, my card is a year old 5950 Ultra that has always had a cooling problem, with the temps around 60-70C under load.

Full specs are:

AMD64 3200
Geforce 5950 Ultra, 66.72 drivers
1024 MB RAM
Audigy 2z

 

[IonizeMyAtoms]

Maybe it's just your sound card
Mess with the sound options in a game or something, turn off eax. I dunno, I'm just throwing shit out there.

 

[J_Tweedy]

power supply? what have you got?

 

[staticprimer]

Antec 420W

Maybe this is a sign I shouldn't be playing games right now, exams are next week afterall. If I can't get this resolved this weekend, I'll reformat after exams are over.

 

[Cole]

That happens to me sometimes if I have certain hardware settings set for my sound card.

Did you change any settings in any way in any game for your sound card?

 

[NetGuru42]

LOL, static, your sig cracks me up... awesome find, man! Some people make so many lame excuses because they're trying to get their account back. LOL, I love it.

 

[Asus]

Reinstall the sound card if you can't get it to go back to normal by fiddling with settings.

 

[staticprimer]

I'll give reinstalling the sound card drivers a try tomorrow.

 

[oldagerocker]

Stop gaming and do some work kiddo. its a sign from God.

 

[Mith']

You are pressing to many keys at the same time!

 

[staticprimer]

You are pressing to many keys at the same time!

erm what?

Anyway, I tried disabling the sound card and the problem still occured (this time without the noise) I'm starting to think my card is dying. Yeah, its only a year old but doesnt constant overheating shorten the life span? 70C are not uncommon for me, and Ive seen temps as high as 100C... so I need to get a new one.

 

[FictiousWill]

Anything over 55C is cause for mild concern. At the very least you should stay under 60 at all times.

 

[psyno]

Anything over 55C is cause for mild concern. At the very least you should stay under 60 at all times.

Well, for CPU, those are good guidelines, but I think he was referring to his 5950 with the 60-70 C figures (staticprimer, yes, no?). I'm afraid that card simply does get that hot, and it's not unusual -- not that it's healthy.

Your issue does not sound like it has anything to do with the sound system to me. I would be looking straight at that graphics card, and I would be looking awfully critically.

What I'm interested in is if this happens immediately, i.e. as soon as the game loads, or if you play around for a few minutes before it starts glitching out. If the former, I'd look to a driver/config issue, or possibly irreversible damage (probably thanks to excessive heat). Try completely uninstalling/removing the card and starting fresh. If the latter, I'd say your feeling about heat is more than likely correct, but maybe not fatal for your card. Try slowing clock significantly to see if that stops the glitches...

 

[staticprimer]

Well, for CPU, those are good guidelines, but I think he was referring to his 5950 with the 60-70 C figures (staticprimer, yes, no?). I'm afraid that card simply does get that hot, and it's not unusual -- not that it's healthy.

Your issue does not sound like it has anything to do with the sound system to me. I would be looking straight at that graphics card, and I would be looking awfully critically.

What I'm interested in is if this happens immediately, i.e. as soon as the game loads, or if you play around for a few minutes before it starts glitching out. If the former, I'd look to a driver/config issue, or possibly irreversible damage (probably thanks to excessive heat). Try completely uninstalling/removing the card and starting fresh. If the latter, I'd say your feeling about heat is more than likely correct, but maybe not fatal for your card. Try slowing clock significantly to see if that stops the glitches...

Yeah that does make sense. The only game that glitches almost immediatly is NFSU2. I can play wow for hours before it will glitch, and I played dawn of war for about a half hour before it glitched. It only happend once, but I even had FF7 glitch in the same way all the others have glitched. Unfortunately, thanks to the wonderous innovaters at Asus, I am unable to even unlock the clock setting without making my framerate take a nosedive to 5fps in any game, so thats out of the question.

correction: kotor and cod also glitch up at the loading screen.

 

[psyno]

Oh, I didn't mean as a permanent measure, just to diagnose it. And actually I was referring to fiddling with the clock on the 5950, which I think you can still get to with Coolbits... Yeah: linkage

/me tries so hard not to jump to Asus's defense...
/me succeeds for now...
You know, some of us, well, at least myself, and, well I think one of the mods, not quite sure which one.......are pretty big Asus fans.

 

[staticprimer]

Hey, I've got nothing against Asus... as a mobo manufacturer. They are quite excellent at that. Their graphics cards so far have been sub-par. I saw Asus made the card and I figured it would be quality. Ill try fiddling with the clock frequencies later, but it can only make a difference for the games that glitch up at loading.

 

[psyno]

Oh, heh. I totally forgot. Always embarrassing to find out it was you who misunderstood and not the other person.....

Well good luck.

 

[JellyWorld]

how do you check your CPU temperature?

 

[J_Tweedy]

mbm5 is a good tool- that's motherboard monitor- just google it.