Computer freezes completely

[Kipparikalle]

Every time I load my save about patrol where I'm just about to lay destruction on convoy, after a while playing my computer totally freezes.

Its totally jammed, no fancy keytricks helps. I need to reboot my computer to get it work.

And this happens on other games (expect on the older ones)

This really pisses me off, can't play.

System information (Or some of it, I have no damn idea what stuff I have in my computer so I have always ask from my friend :p):

CPU 2.52 GHz

Videocard ATI Radeon 9600 / X1050 Series

Memory 232 Gt

[danlisa]

Sounds like an over heating issue. Check the cooling fans on your CPU & GFX Card.

The reason this maybe happening to the newer games is that they are more resource demanding than the older ones.

If you are comfortable doing so, remove the case of your PC and check things over. Either with or without the game running.

[Kipparikalle]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Sounds like an over heating issue. Check the cooling fans on your CPU & GFX Card.

The reason this maybe happening to the newer games is that they are more resource demanding than the older ones.

If you are comfortable doing so, remove the case of your PC and check things over. Either with or without the game running.

Can't be the heat, this problem has occured before.
Installing windows again, or cleaning computer fixed the problem, atleast for half a year.

[danlisa]

in that case, it's file related.

Do you regulary run the following:

Spyware Checker/Remover
Defragging Software
Virus Scans
Cleanup Utilities
System Repair Utilities.

Do you have enough free virtual memory. SH2 can use upto 1.2GB of memory, either RAM or Virtual RAM. It maybe that SH3/Windows is trying to refresh the Virtual RAM while you are playing, that will cause a lockup, especially if you don't have enough to spare.

There must be a file conflict, corruption or deleted file which is causing the lockups.

Also, check your background processes for anything that maybe using your resources.

[Kipparikalle]

Well I ran SmitfraudFix_v2.227 about 1-3 months ago, helped a bit.

I have 2461M for limit in free-virtual memory, don't know is it the case. Usually when theres a lot stuff going on and using a lot virtual-memory.
And incase free virtual-memory goes low, it alarms me (popup icon comes up from right low corner)

Well, right now I'm running virus scan.

At the moment I don't have anykind of spyware checker, any succestions?

[Brag]

There is a free frewall/virus checker from zonealarm.com. You may want to use Crapcleaner to get rid of a lot of unwanted junk (also free)

[Peto]

I have pretty good luck with adaware. You can get it free at www.lavasoft.com.

Beware of having too many anti-virus programs or anti-spyware programs running though as they tend to step on each other, making things as bad (or worse) than they were. Find a program you like a stick with it til you have a reason to change.

Good Luck!

[Capa]

I had a similar problem that came and went and it did indeed turn out to be heat. It's not an exact and predictable problem so from something as simple as the weather being cooler or air being dryer the problem can go away. I'm using a laptop but all I did was open up the case, unscrew the fan housing over the graphics card and CPU and removed the insane cake of dirt blocking the exhaust filter.

To this day I still can't figure out why the dirt is filtered out of the air on its trip out of the case after having already passed over the chips.

[Subtype Zero]

Originally Posted by Kipparikalle

Every time I load my save about patrol where I'm just about to lay destruction on convoy, after a while playing my computer totally freezes.

Its totally jammed, no fancy keytricks helps. I need to reboot my computer to get it work.

And this happens on other games (expect on the older ones)

This really pisses me off, can't play.

System information (Or some of it, I have no damn idea what stuff I have in my computer so I have always ask from my friend :p):

CPU 2.52 GHz

Videocard ATI Radeon 9600 / X1050 Series

Memory 232 Gt

K-
Two suggestions. I had a similar problem with lockups and screen freezes, but only when playing SH3, until eventually my computer refused to boot up at all! I could not figure out the problem.

Turned out it was a bad memory stick. So, my first suggestion is to run some memory checks with memtester or a similar program. If the memory checks out okay, then I would recommend closing as many other programs, virus checkers, etc. as possible before running SH3. I have found FSAutoStart, http://saltydogfly2.avsim.net/fsautostart a freeware program originally developed for the MS Flight Simulator community to be the best program for doing this. Here's some info from their readme:

FSAutoStart allows the user the ability to automatically shutdown services and programs to provide as much resources to running today’s most demanding applications. It also provides the ability to launch selected programs before the application is launched. Lastly, it can automatically restart those programs and services previously shutdown, thus bringing the computer back to its original state. It also adds some performance enhancing options like Defragment Memory.

I have used FSAutoStart with SH3 for over a year now without any problems. You can configure it so that it loads SH3 Commander which will in turn launch your SH3 game!

Hope this helps!
Subtype_Zero (first post, yeah)

[The Butcher]

[Can't be the heat, this problem has occured before.
Installing windows again, or cleaning computer fixed the problem, atleast for half a year.[/quote]

If you fixed it by cleaning it, it may be heat. The ATI cards runs your CPU at 100%. Depending on you CPU cooler that can heat up fast. I also had problems with a memory stick, I had to lower the clock speed in my BIOS to get it stable. Nothing will make you like working fo hours on a convoy just to have your computer take a dump.

[Kipparikalle]

Looks like my computer jams everytime I watch how ship gets torpedoe'd and sunk.
It really, really can't be heat. Cuz I just started computer (and computer has been shutoff for 20 hrs) and still.

It makes me kill babies with chainsaw.

[M00nStalker]

Well here´s a hint for you, it CAN be heat even if it has been turned off, modern day graphics card produce an incredible amount of heat, and if something is wrong it WILL overheat.

I had a 9600 card and it got those symptoms, guess what it was?
Yeah, it was heat, switched out the card for a nvidia and everything worked great.
And the reason it happens when explosions occur is that it is more graphic intense than sailing around or looking at the map in 1024 TC (which strains the CPU and memory more than the graphics card).

I´m not saying it is heat, only that it could be so if you can try switching out the card for another, if you still gets the error the problem is somewhere else (or you have 2 faulty cards).

[Subtype Zero]

IF it is heat, putting a room fan in front of your open computer case, towards your video card, might cure your problem. If so, buy an extra case fan (they're much cheaper than a new video card). Also, are you overclocking your CPU? Did you check the memory?

[slow_n_ez]

Don't forget that those memory sticks plus the hard drive gets really hot too ... especially the hard drive is spinning like crazy at start up to get everything loaded .......

[flag4]

Spare the children