PC freezing Whenever I try to play games...

[LSD]

Whenever I try to play a game my PC will freeze. This started happening right after I reformated. I installed the drivers for the video card and motherboard, but it still freezes. Anyone know what the problem is?
I have:
AMD Atlhon XP 2100+
Geforce4 Ti4200
256 DDR Ram
Windows XP
MS-6712 ATX Mainboard(VIA KT400 Chipset Based)

[KenKun]

It could be a heat problem or a shortage of the power supply?

When you start a game, the system effort goes to the top because the CPU will be maxed and also most other parts ... if your PSU is not large enough or not a quality one, it will certainly fail to keep up with your system's power demand.
Also because of the 100% CPU usage, the heat might cause restarting or crashing, so check the your CPU's temp.

Are you OCing anything in there?
Please mention your PSU and you heat sink makers.

Welcome to TechIMO

[LSD]

I think the PSU is only 300. I'm not sure of the Heatsink makers.

[LSD]

Could it be the PSU? This only started happening after I reformated, before that it worked fine. No, I'm not OCing.

[reticent]

It could be a conflict with one of the drivers that are used heavily in gaming, like the sound card or video card. I would reinstall the drivers for both and see if things work better. I would also check the temps of the processor while gaming. It could be a heat issue, although I bet it is a driver conflict instead, since it worked fine before the reformat.

[LSD]

I reinstalled the drivers for each a couple of times now, but it still freezes. I tried to run some games without any sound card drivers installed and it still freezes.

[nurdonsite2]

waht kind of HD do u have? maybe it went bad??

[poopeyhed2]

Welcome to TechIMO.

Did you install the latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers? The 4-in-1's control the "talking" with the AGP bus so that could cause your lock ups.

Like Kenkun said, it's probably your powersupply since it's 300 watts, unless it's a name brand?

[Brainchild]

did you move or install any new cards?
And did you use the same drivers that were installed last time?

Could be heat or PSU related, but you always try the cheap route first IMO.

[LSD]

I don't think it is the hard drive because it works fine until I try to run a game. The hard drive is a 80gb ultra ATA-100 7200 RPM hard drive. I installed the latest 4-in-1 drivers but that didn't help.
This ran fine before I reformatted, so I don't know why its the power supply.

[KenKun]

Well, the PSU might`ve went bad after you reformatted ... the reason is that the symptoms you mentioned are mostly PSU related..

All i can suggest now is to tweak your BIOS, you have the same hardware with fresh install of your OS, i wonder what the problem is!
Go into the BIOS and tweak video options like disabling shadowing, fast writes and setting aperture size to 128 or 64 ...etc

[LSD]

What is a good watt power supply to purchase?

[KenKun]

Enermax, Antec and AOpen +350Watts would your best choice for your system .. and you will have room to add extra parts in the future (faster CPU, more RAM ....)

[LSD]

I'm not sure if it makes a difference but before I said my power supply was 300 before, but I found out it is 350.

[KenKun]

Then check your video card`s fan if its working properly .. also check your CPUs`s temp if its within the normal limits ..

[EvilRick]

Try playing a game without the side(s) on your case. If it plays w/o locking up, then you've got bad airflow through the case.

[LSD]

Well I just tried playing without the side , but it still froze. I checked and all of the fans are running. So it is probably a PSU or driver problem then?

[KenKun]

Try the older official drivers for windows XP.
You can find them here: http://www.windowsxp-drivers.com/companies/4/744.htm
Try (Win2K_XP_23.11.exe ) and (WinXP_21.83.exe ) and (28.32_winxp.exe ) and others if possible.

Aslo, if it didn`t work, give it a shot and upgrade your DirectX to ver. 9.

PS. to be able to download from the above site you have to register (for free) .. i will do a search for other sites that have older drivers too ...

[LSD]

Alright, I'll give them a try. I'll post what happens after I try them. Thanks for all the help.

[LSD]

I didn't try them yet, but I noticed whenever I start up the computer the Windows XP logo has lines through it or looks glitchy.