System Freeze w/ looping squelching sound

[sirRealist]

okay, i can finally say that im almost positive i have solved the problem, at least for my machine. It is the RAM bus speed (NOT RAM timings!). I have a 400MHZ frontside bus for the CPU. RAM run on the same FSB as the CPU, making its FSB 400 as well. In the BIOS, at least on my MSI mobo, i can set the RAM FSB from "auto" to "limit", where i can then manually set the FSB to 400, 333, 266, or 200. This is basically limiting the RAM FSB, or downclocking it. I have done extensive testing, and now i can run the game with 4.11, 4.12, 4.12 dna, and 5.1 drivers, all without a crash. I also have my AGP back to 8x, my RAM timings back to normal, bank interleaving on, and basically every other setting back on (except fats writes, i still dont trust it!). My system is back to the way it was before i installed HL2, except my RAM bus is limited from 400 to 333. Yes, this does impact performance, and ive had to lower my in game resolution to compensate for this. But, i have played for hours and hours now without a single crash. For those of you who are not yet fed up and are willing to try this (just a simple BIOS setting, which can easily be changed back if it dosnt work), PLEASE post your results, so we can see if this helps most people with this problem. good luck, ill be checking in to see how things are going.

 

[OliC]

OK, I got an A8V from asus, I got almost the same problem as you. Mine is that my PC restart (means hjard lockuo) after finishing loading a new game. What I did is to change the MEMCLOCK to LIMIT in the bios and change MEMCLOCK TO CPU RATE to DDR400. I also first try to DDR 333 with CL to 3 in place of 2.5 (I have Corsair ValueSelect RAM).
Then start the game and set it to Windowed (even if it is on 1024*780 that my screen max resolution). No Crash, hard lockups after finished loading. The I gave it a try in Full Screen.... BBBAAANNGGG Reboot and Magic Finger use.. Then Back to the Windowed mode and it Works..

Any idea why ???

 

[chalkfarmeruk]

chalkfarmeruk

have been following posts for a while can i just say thank you to sirRealist turning off fastwrites has almost cleared my problems at least now i crash to desktop instead of bluescreen and can play for hours at a time so if you cant take performance hit of underclocked memory htis is better than nothing

abit kv8 pro 1gig pc 3200
amd 64 3000
radeon 9800 pro cat 5.1
herculese fortissimo III 7.1

 

[billy269]

How do I get into my BIOS to change these settings? I have an HP Pavilion zx5000, when I press F10 it goes to the Flash BIOS utility, but there aren't many options. The headings are Main, Security, Advanced, Tools, and Exit but there isn't anything in those that you have been discribing. Please help. I would like to know how to try these options. I turned Fast Write and that did nothing.

 

[Troika]

How do I get into my BIOS to change these settings? I have an HP Pavilion zx5000, when I press F10 it goes to the Flash BIOS utility, but there aren't many options. The headings are Main, Security, Advanced, Tools, and Exit but there isn't anything in those that you have been discribing. Please help. I would like to know how to try these options. I turned Fast Write and that did nothing.

Proprietary BIOSes are usually not tweakable. On the other hand, changing memory settings in BIOS is the last resort, so try to fix other possible problems first

 

[billy269]

changing memory settings in BIOS is the last resort, so try to fix other possible problems first

Yes obviously I have done that. I have tried everything. So I can't even do that????

 

[Troika]

Yes obviously I have done that. I have tried everything. So I can't even do that????

I dunno about HP BIOS but I doubt it RAM settings can be tweaked. If you think problem is indeed memory settings and not a bad RAM stick or failing PSU or overheat or corrupt XP etc, then your only option is to buy a decent new mobo. Is 15-hour game worth spending $100 on a new mobo? You decide...

 

[michaelsil1]

I don't like being under someone else's control that's why I built my own Computer; now I'm somewhat the boss.

 

[billy269]

I dunno about HP BIOS but I doubt it RAM settings can be tweaked. If you think problem is indeed memory settings and not a bad RAM stick or failing PSU or overheat or corrupt XP etc, then your only option is to buy a decent new mobo. Is 15-hour game worth spending $100 on a new mobo? You decide...

Why can you guys tweak it and not me? Is it because you built your own?

 

[Troika]

Why can you guys tweak it and not me? Is it because you built your own?

I have Dell mobo (I guess the only part of original Dell Dimension in my current config, he-he). Dell buys m/boards from Intel. Intel boards are not that tweakable; Dell makes them totally untweakable thru BIOS and also removes thermosensors. So no, I can't change RAM settings but then again I didn't have any problem with HL2.

Anyway, if you have retail computer you should look elsewhere for the roots of your problem. Most manufacturers like Dell, HP etc are very conservative about RAM timings and stuff, they don't want to push their systems to the limit, in part because of weak case ventilation, so it shouldn't be a source of your problem.

 

[Troika]

And if you have a PCI sound card and get "system freeze w/ looping squelching sound" the first thing to look is stability of your PSU rails under load, especially +3.3V. Especially Creative Audigy's are prone to causing total lockups when they receive unstable voltages from PSU.

 

[Beavis]

I know this is a stupid question but how do you check the stability of my PSU rails under load?

I have never had to do anything like that with my computer before and have been building them for years.

 

[Troika]

I know this is a stupid question but how do you check the stability of my PSU rails under load?

I have never had to do anything like that with my computer before and have been building them for years.

You use a multimeter

 

[sirRealist]

beavis, what PSU do you have?

 

[Beavis]

Brand new Thermaltake Purepower 420watt. I had a Antec 350 watt in my machine and thought maybe my problems could have been power related. Unfortuneately, the new power supply didn't fix my lockups.

Chalk up another $50.

 

[OliC]

OK, i replaced my 6800 with a GF2 m400 just to see if it would works and guess what ??? IT WAS !!!! It worked !!! could play HL2 in DX7 mode.
Then I replaced my 6800 and unplugged on of my DVD (then i would use 20W less), Crashed !!! added -dxlevel81 in command line, CRASHED AGAIN. unplugged some USB stuf.. Still Crashing.
I think that I can concluded that my GPU is Dying !!!

 

[OliC]

Ok, apparently my Silencer 5 is not in contact with 1 of the ram.. from there my probs I think

 

[Cr4$H]

same here

monitor turns off or
total system freeze with one frame locked and sound looping ;\

wtf?

amd 2500+
epox 8rda3i
9600xt
1,5gb ram
350watt modecom

everything high AAx6

greetz

 

[RogueAngel]

PLEASE post your results, so we can see if this helps most people with this problem. good luck, ill be checking in to see how things are going.

Well we have very similar systems. I have the AMD 64 3700 and the other stuff is pretty much the same. I am glad to finally come across this post and hope it solves my problem. Some nights I play for 2-3 hours without a problem. Others I have it happen a few times. I sometimes have to reboot the system but more often get the VPU error from ATI and can get back into the game (although the round of CS:S I am playing is a write off most times). I will test this out tonight and see if it works. sirRealist, you did a really nice job of trouble shooting this. I'll let you all know how it worked for me.

 

[traveller]

Here are the specs:

AMD64 3500+ (s939 newcastle) (with latest amd drivers)
Abit AV8 (with latest via 4 in 1 and latest bios)
MSI Geforce nx6600gt AGP (with 66.93 drivers and latest bios)
1,5gb DDR 400Mhz Ram in 128bit Dual Channel mode (2 x Twinmos 256Mb & 2x Twinmos 512Mb)
160Gb Serial-Ata Hdd (with newish Via raid drivers)
350W antec PSU
Onboard 5.1 Realtek AC'97 Soundcard
Hauppauge Win TV PVR 150
Logitech Dinovo Media Desktop Bluetooth Keyboard & logitech MX900 Bluetooth mouse
BenQ FP937s+ (8ms @ 60Hz in 1280x1024)
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Now the soundcard was a pain in the ass to get working in the first place in 5.1. However that was like a walk in the park compared to this f***ing freezing problem. Atfrist the game (be that hl2 or cs:s) runs like a mixture of a kenyan man, a rhino and a Ferrari. That is ofcourse stable, determined and fast fast fast! Then somewhere from 2 minutes to 10 (usually around 2-3) the game just freezes and there's nothing to do but a reboot. Doesn't really matter if I'm playing or if it's just in the beginning menu. Still just freezes so it can't really be a heating problem or the card running out of ram or juice can it? No it cannot! Now I've tried like 10 different drivers for the GPU. Ended up with 66.93 cos the water actually looks like water, not pee. I disabled fast write in Bios. No change. I changed the "max frames to render ahead" value to 0. No change. I'm not going to change my card to 4x in the bios for the simple reason that I paid quite much money to get the speed. And now they tell me I should disable some of it? No thanks!Also tied various VIA 4 in 1 drivers. No change. Disabled my anti vir (F-secure). No change. And well I'm starting to get very very pissed off for I paid 49€ for this game. Just so you know 49€ = 6 x 12packs of beer. Which is ofcourse 72 beers! I'm a student and I get exactly 404€ a month from the goverment and that's it. No other sources of income for me. Now I very much feel like I've waisted 1/8th of my monthly money on very crappy code! Seems like a billion and one people are having problems with the game and what is Valve doing? NOTHING! Doom 3 runs perfect by the way. But that's opengl game, right? Prince of Persia 2 runs flawless too, don't know if that's opengl or direcX. Also Max Payne 2 I had no problems with. What to do, what to do..

edit. directX diagnostic tool says everything is working 100%

edit 2. i'm running the game in 1280x1024 Model Detail HIGH, Texture Detail HIGH, Water Detail REFLECT WORLD, Shadow Detail HIGH, Antialising Mode NONE, Filtering Mode TRILInEAR, Shader Detail HIGH, Wait for vertical synd DISABLED

 

[traveller]

Also tried putting Antialiasing mode and Filtering mode both to max. Game play just as smooth until the freaking freeze. Vertical sync didn't work which I find pretty odd. Had it in application contolled mode. Does someone know if there's an update coming any time soon that would fix this? SHAME ON VALVE! This game has been out for so long already that problems like this should be FIXED and forgotten! Definitely not game of the year. Sure it looks nice and all, TOO BAD IT DOESN'T WORK!

I see there were 3 updates to the game in December, but only 1 in January! Why is that since so many people are still having major issues with the game?

edit. also tried disabling the soundcard.. no change!!

 

[VirusType2]

5.1 drivers screwy for 9250 for HL2

It is amazing. Far Cry works perfectly. After downloading ATI 5.1 drivers, no problem with Counterstrike. But Half Life 2 is still screwed up. It has NEVER been able to get past the transporter part as soon as the guy with the white beard is about to say "...Freeman". It is the most frustrating thing I have ever had on a computer. I must have invested 100 hours to try and fix this, yet NOTHING works.

5.1 drivers screwy for 9250 for HL2

I have crazy looking character textures with the new ATI drivers, the drivers that came with my card work. ]

9250 256MB PCI
-----
-what happens if my soap gets dirty?

 

[traveller]

Okay just for the hell of it I did turn my agp rate to 4 in the bios and also had fast writes disabled.. still FREEZE

 

[sirRealist]

traveller, have you tried bumping down your RAM bus? NOT the RAM memory timings, but the bus itself? when i bumped mine down from 400 to 333, i havent had a crash since. Granted, the game dosnt run as smooth as it did, and ive had to tone down the resolution a bit, but at least i can play now without any crashing.

also, id just like to note that ive actually stopped playing HL2 for the most part since i got Chronicles of Riddick : Escape from Butcher Bay. The game is fun as hell, and i can play with my system set to normal settings (aka ram bus at 400). Everytime i sit at my comp to play a game, i realize that i can play COR without having to lower my system specs, and that alone pretty much keeps me playing that instead of HL2. thoughts?

 

[traveller]

am i the luckiest man on earth, just played both hl2 and cs:s for hours and hours

just in case i bought 1 more 12x12 atx cooler..

anyways apparently the fix for me was to uninstall the game and delete the valve folder and then reinstall the whole thing and do absolutely nothing else while doing that.. i'm suspecting something corrupted while steam was decrypting my game files or something..

ROCKS!

anyways if there's someone outhere with similar setup i suggest installing the 66.93 driver and latest via 4 in 1 and latest via raid and then the game..

running the game at 1280x1024 high details.. didn't do anything to my ram or agp settings.. and i've got fast writes enabled too

got around 100fps in the cs stress test

 

[sirRealist]

hhmmmm... i might just give that a try.
ill have to pry myself away from CoR long enough to deal with it

 

[sirRealist]

does anyone know if validating your files is the same as uninstalling/reinstalling the game? id assume not, since i think validating is just some of the files, but maybe not the game logic engine or the like. also, have anyone validated their files and had it find a problem? im wondering because i validated my files, and it didnt say it was DL any files or found a problem, it just went from 0-100%. So, im wondering if maybe it did fix some file and just didnt tell me. im hesitant to uninstall/reinstall the game, just because it takes so damn long and usually when i have enough time to play HL2 for a bit i dont want to eat a a huge chunk out of said time witha game uninstall/reinstall. college keeps me too busy!

 

[traveller]

c'mon it doesn't take that long to install. less than 5 minutes really and maybe another 5 for steam validation and a few to dload all the updates, less than 15 min altogether anyways

 

[RogueAngel]

anyways apparently the fix for me was to uninstall the game and delete the valve folder and then reinstall the whole thing and do absolutely nothing else while doing that

I am going to do this. Here's to hope!!!!!!!

 

[sirRealist]

yeah, im going to try it too, but for me it took WAY longer than 15 min total to install the game. keep in mind, i have the CD version of the game, so installing the game off 5 CDs probably takes a half hour or more, i f i recall correctly. or, maybe i was just so anxious to play when i originally installed it that it SEEMED liek it took forever

ill let you guys know after i uninstall, delete valve folder, and resintall if i am able to play the game with my RAM bus set to 400mhz.

 

[RogueAngel]

So I uninstalled and reinstalled HL2 right down do deleting the Valve directory. I then reinstalled Steam and Counter Strike: Source. Nothing changed. I still get the stutter crash. It's not that I get it every 15 minutes or anything. Sometimes I play for hours on end without getting one and then I get it a couple times in a 10 minute span and then I am good again for and undisclosed amount of time. I just don't get it! I have noticed that it seems more likely to happen when my desktop is set to 1600x1200 and the game is set to 1024x768 and that if my desktop is the same as the game setting it doesn't happen as much. I don't know what else to configure. I guess I am going to have to live with it! I really love this game.

 

[sirRealist]

looks like this thread is just about dead, hope it helped some of you!

 

[RogueAngel]

It gave me a better understanding I guess but I still get the same crash once in a while. What about you sirRealist? Are you still getting it?

 

[T.H.C.138]

I noticed that some of you have low wattage PSUs..I had a similar problem with CS:CZ..freezes,stutters,BSoDs..my 350w just couldn't hang with my 6800(found out that is the MINIMUM PSU for the vidcard)..so I get a 500w PSU,because I wanted to play HL2,etc. and wasn't even going to try if CZ was giving me hell.

problem solved!!

and then, I got my new mobo and A64 CPU..same thing started up again..now I have a 550w PSU,and no problems since...maybe that could help some of you get rid of this problem..I got my 500w for about $55 and the 550w for $60 or so..good luck to all!

 

[LeftyPunchmug]

sirRealist to the Rescue!

sirRealist,

I just bought HL2 a few days ago and was having the same lockups / black menu screen problem. I had this issue in both HL2 and Warhammer 40K. Here are my machine specs:

Athlon XP 2500+ (333 FSB)
Abit AK77-600N Mobo
512 Mb Kingston DDR 400 <-- my problem
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
Windows XP Pro SP2
Latest Catalyst drivers

I changed the memory clock to 333 and my problems miraculously went away. I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work in troubleshooting this issue so that people like me can benefit from it. That's what these forums are all about in my opinion and what makes the net great. I owe you a beer if you're ever in Indianapolis!

Cheers

 

[Shinobi]

just tried reformatting and installing nothign but the latest amd(via), raid, and nvidia drivers... I also tried with both the recommended bios settings and the default bios settings,,,,,,


it's slightly better than the reformat, but still completely unplayable

 

[4pac]

sirRealist, when you bumped your RAM Bus down from 400 to 333, you havent had a crash since. Is this due to the power supply not having to work as hard? Maybe if you (and I for that matter) got a higher watt power supply it could run at the normal settings?

 

[scowey]

full system crach in halfelife/cs source

okay, i can finally say that im almost positive i have solved the problem, at least for my machine. It is the RAM bus speed (NOT RAM timings!). I have a 400MHZ frontside bus for the CPU. RAM run on the same FSB as the CPU, making its FSB 400 as well. In the BIOS, at least on my MSI mobo, i can set the RAM FSB from "auto" to "limit", where i can then manually set the FSB to 400, 333, 266, or 200. This is basically limiting the RAM FSB, or downclocking it. I have done extensive testing, and now i can run the game with 4.11, 4.12, 4.12 dna, and 5.1 drivers, all without a crash. I also have my AGP back to 8x, my RAM timings back to normal, bank interleaving on, and basically every other setting back on (except fats writes, i still dont trust it!). My system is back to the way it was before i installed HL2, except my RAM bus is limited from 400 to 333. Yes, this does impact performance, and ive had to lower my in game resolution to compensate for this. But, i have played for hours and hours now without a single crash. For those of you who are not yet fed up and are willing to try this (just a simple BIOS setting, which can easily be changed back if it dosnt work), PLEASE post your results, so we can see if this helps most people with this problem. good luck, ill be checking in to see how things are going.

i had same probs as u all an i set my ram bus to 266 instead of auto and its worked fine since hope it works for u all :E

 

[scowey]

had same problems crashing in hl and cs source,turned ram bus to 266 from auto game running fine and cs running great hope this helps

 

[Shinobi]

just did a memtest overnight on my ram,, thought it might be the problem,, hit 700% check and 0 errors,,,


I'll try to see if I can find those ram timing commands