von Lucke Posted November 20, 2002 Share Posted November 20, 2002 Can't play either game for more than 5 minutes before my entire system locks up and I have to cold-reboot the entire thing. This just started about a week ago --- I think I've traced it down to a sound ap called "dBpoweramp" that I installed to make use of it's sound conversion properties. Unfortunately, I think it's somehow hosed my sound card / drivers. I've uninstalled it, down to cleaning out my Registry by hand, but everything still locks up!!! Anybody got a suggestion? AMD Athlon XP1800+ Win98 512meg RAM Leadtek Ti200 GeForce3 64meg SoundBlaster Live! soundcard 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted November 20, 2002 Share Posted November 20, 2002 Have you uninstalled and reinstalled your drivers yet? That might help. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted November 20, 2002 Share Posted November 20, 2002 Try and play with sound disabled, does it still lock up? Madmatt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Lucke Posted November 21, 2002 Author Share Posted November 21, 2002 Yup --- reinstalled drivers. Didn't help. Also tried playing with sound turned off (shift-S), but it still locks. Brings up an interesting question: Does turning sound off in the game just mean I can't hear it, but the program still accessess the files?) Unfortunately, this isn't the only game this happens in --- seems they all want to lock up on me now... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadHunter Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 If you've disabled sound and it's still locking up (and other games are doing so as well), it's certainly not Combat Mission. If you think it's due to dbPowerAmp, and it still persists even after uninstalling the application, chances are that it's hosed your sound card drivers. Reinstalling may not be sufficient - I'd recommend going into device manager, removing the sound card therein (and uninstalling all drivers), shutting down, physically removing the sound card from the machine, and restarting the machine without the sound card. Then shut down, replace the sound card, start it up and install the drivers anew. BTW, what OS are you using? You could always try System Restore to a point when things were working fine. Just a couple ideas. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeWary Posted November 21, 2002 Share Posted November 21, 2002 This is why I'm anal about exporting my registry before I install new hardware or software. If you reinstalled the drivers, then the problem probably lies somewhere else in the registry. If you can't find a way to restore an old copy of the registry, I'm afraid you'll probably have to remove Win98 and reinstall it. I can help with that if you have questions. I even have a detailed e-mail written up when I helped someone else reinstall Windows. BeWary 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Lucke Posted November 23, 2002 Author Share Posted November 23, 2002 I'm not sure what's going on now: Reinstalled drivers for sound, mouse, video, DirectX, VIA 4in1. Put in a different sound card even --- still locking up. A check of the Registry (with RegCleaner) doesn't show anything left over that shouldn't be there. Was going to try ScanDisk and then Defrag, but ScanDisk keeps crapping out --- even when I try and run it in Safe Mode. Nothing that I know of should be writing to the hard-drive, and I checked to make sure nothing but Explorer was running in the background... I'm stumped. BeWary: I'll take you up on that offer --- send it to blane2@flash.net, thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 23, 2002 Share Posted November 23, 2002 How is Scandisk 'crapping out' ? Does it just not finish or hang on a particular sector ? You may want to try the manufacturer's (Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM, etc.) disk diagnostics to see if they are more helpful. Sometimes they can fix an error (which is rare nowadays) or they can give you a diagnostic error code if there is something wrong with your hard drive (allowing you to return it for warranty repair - if it is still under warranty). I don't know if a bad hard drive would be the cause of the problems that you're seeing. It's possible that you may be having heat-related problems with your setup. It's possible for CM to push the CPU (at 100%) and video card harder than anything else you're running, thus making heat-related problems more common when running CM. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Lucke Posted November 24, 2002 Author Share Posted November 24, 2002 Funny you should mention the HD, as I'm beginning to think that might be the problem. It's an IBM 120GXP 40gig --- now I know IBM has a bad rep lately, but the 120GXP is supposed to be pretty stable, and mine is less than a year old. Anyway, ScanDisk (set on Thorough), will make it as far as scanning the cylinders, then restart. After doing this 10 times, it gives the message that some other program is writing to the HD, thus causing it to restart. I've checked, and the only thing I can find running is Explorer. Thinking there might be a virus running, I loaded up PC-cillin (don't keep it on my HD, just install and update when I need it), and when I tell it to do a system scan on all directories and drives it locks up after about 3 minutes. This does not look good. As for CM, among the games I've tried to run, CM seems to be the one that crashes the quickest --- usually within a minute or so. The others will run for 15-20 minutes before locking up. I knew CM put more strain on my video than the others, so I suspected video problems --- but my card has a fan on it, and I have another slot-fan right below it that aids in cooling, and I've been running my system with the case open. Just as a test, I've gone right into CM after booting up (maybe 5 minutes of run time) and had it lock up. Don't think it's heat related. Edit: Ran the IBM Drive Fitness Test diagnostic, and it says that there's nothing wrong with the HD. [ November 23, 2002, 09:21 PM: Message edited by: von Lucke ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted November 24, 2002 Share Posted November 24, 2002 I've experienced almost exactly the same symptoms with an IBM GXP75. The Drive Fitness Test actually found and FIXED the error. I still don't trust the drive as far as I can spit, but it does work at present. At this point I would back up my stuff, format and reinstall the OS with nothing but the video card installed in the slots. If the install doesn't work, or crashing persists after the install; I'd say it's time for a new drive regardless of DFT results. Treeburst155 out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeWary Posted November 25, 2002 Share Posted November 25, 2002 Von Lucke, I'll get you that e-mail when I get home from work. BeWary 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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