beware another noobie

fireblade · Post by **fireblade** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:20 am

Hi There,

ok first off i am new to the site and well pc as well.

ok i have recently purchased a pc, specs:

P4 3.2ghz
ga-8ig1000mk motherboard
200g hdd sata
geforce 5200
dvd rw
1gig ram
windows xp home

i want to use it mainly for gaming, so far it seems to run halflife 2 fine, doom 3 doesnt seem smooth as well as riddick seems a bit rough. my pc also seems to freeze every now and again, stopping the game and returning me to windows? usualy after a few hours play.

i have been reading all the threads and have learnt alot and confused my self alot as well

what would you suggest i do to improve my machine? should i get a better graphics card or wait because something great is around the corner that will demand me buying new everything . or are there other areas i can concentrate on? case/cooling?if you wouldnt mind listing it in order of importance. budget, well keep it upper mainstream and if you dont mind suggesting the top of the range as well.

your suggestions are appreciated

thanks

nitro237 · Post by **nitro237** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:01 am

Hi , welcome to PCA

Your system looks fine , but I would definitely consider upgrading the video card . The 6600GT is a nice card and a pretty good buy . Performs good , but cost a lot less than the 6800 series .

Not sure what kind of case you have , but defintely make sure you have decent airflow .

I'm sure others will have other suggestions on the video card , sometimes it's just a matter of preference .

fireblade · Post by **fireblade** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:31 am

thanks for the prompt reply.

there are so many cards these days it gets confusing, i would like it to last me a year or.................2 if i dare

i was just scared of a bottle neck somewhere in the system. i was looking at the nvidea 6600 or radeon 9600xt for midrange cards and a 6800gt(i think thats the right one) for better.

cases i dont know much about, i just learnt that you need better cooling

but i got a quote for a cooler master hyper 6 cpu cooler? which will go in the standard case i have(i will go to the shops over the weekend and see whats available and let you guys know the model no.s)

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:47 am

definetely get a new video card, my old Ti4200 even runs circles around that 5200, it is your weakest link so goodbye?

I would say the 6600GT is a fairly good card to work with, might want to look into those

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:05 am

Don't feel bad about Doom3 - it runs like crap even on high end systems. You might want to crank the resolution down. HL2 is a better standard.

You vid card is the bottleneck right now. Improving the card should improve performance, BUT that's not the reason you're crashing to Windows.

Crashes could be anything, but if it only happens after a few hours of play I'd say it's probably a heat issue.

You could leave the cover off the side of the case and see if that helps. If it does then you know it's a heat problem.

Are you overclocking the video card?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:14 am

hey, welcome aboard!

as the others said, upgrading the vid card will make a real difference - i'd probably go with the 6600Gt (~175) or if you can find one cheap (~ $100) a 9700 or 9800 pro

the crashing back to the desktop is usually heat - trying taking the side off and sticking a floor fan next to it to find out for sure - also for high cpu rigs you must have decent airflow through the case - which usually means a fan at the front and back and a clear air path through the case

keep us posted and remember there are no dumb questions..we've all been there at the beginning

fireblade · Post by **fireblade** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:59 am

thank you for the warm welcome

i havent overclocked the video card yet, dont know how yet, lol or the cpu(dont know if i can)

i will price a few cards here in south africa - 6600gt 6800gt or a 9800 pro i am willing to spend 5000 rands or taking the exchange rate 600 odd dollors. thanks for the suggestions i will leave the sides off tonight with a fan blowing, gives me an excuse with the wife to play for 5 hours

i will be building another system soon but i will open another thread for your welcome suggestions on a dream machine from scratch. the pc bug has seriously bitten and i cant figure out why i didnt do this sooner

fireblade · Post by **fireblade** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:11 am

well i went and bought myself a thermaltake tsunami cooling case and a 6600gt card, after rebuilding her, i rebooted , everything was fine, then i found out files were corrupted, which forced me to reformat the harddrive. i loaded everything up as well as all the software for my soundblaster card, and the drivers for my new graphics card.

now i have no sound?

when i try and play chronicles of riddick i get - i need graphics drivers support for gl 1.3 or higher and a window saying microsoft visual c

runtime error, abnormal program terminator?

i am worried i have seriously screwed this up somewhere?

please can somebody help???????????????

( can i registar for halflife 2 with the same product code etc?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:06 am

Yes you can just re-register HL2 with the same code (actually all you need is your Steam username and logon - it's locked to that account once you register the first time).

Make sure you install the latest video drivers from NVidia's website. Sounds like you may be using the default generic drivers that came with Windows.

You also need to download the latest drivers for your sound card from their website. If it still doesn't work, try using the onboard sound on the motherboard if it has one.

If it's an SBLive toss it - you're better off with the onboard sound.

Karchiveur · Post by **Karchiveur** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:28 am

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
If it's an SBLive toss it - you're better off with the onboard sound.

And whats wrong with SBlive?

fireblade · Post by **fireblade** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:50 pm

thanks,

well after trying everything last night, i removed the soundblaster program and re installed it. well it worked after that.

now bear with me: i tried playing gtr racing, well my system froze and i had to reboot, same thing again? i put call of duty in, got a bit further but same thing. finally tried hl2 played around 45min, now my call of duty disc was still in the pc, and the picture just went haywire flickering , dropout and the call of duty logo on the screen? which again forced me to reboot. i gave up after that.

is this a software problem where ui have to reformatt my harddrive again and reinstall everything, or is possibly the dvd rw drives software not installed properly?

thank you

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:07 am

And whats wrong with SBlive?

Notorious for PCI IRQ sharing issues. ANYTHING is better than an SBLive.

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 12:23 pm

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
Notorious for PCI IRQ sharing issues. ANYTHING is better than an SBLive.

That's the truth, I had one in a P4 rig I just built (Socket 423 1.8ghz) and as long as I didn't install it, the computer ran fine, try to install the drivers for it CRASH, change slot one down and try again CRASH, one up CRASH.. So I pulled it and put a C-Media chipset card in there and perfect. lol

eGo

123cool · Post by **123cool** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:43 am

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
Notorious for PCI IRQ sharing issues. ANYTHING is better than an SBLive.

That's the truth, I had one in a P4 rig I just built (Socket 423 1.8ghz) and as long as I didn't install it, the computer ran fine, try to install the drivers for it CRASH, change slot one down and try again CRASH, one up CRASH.. So I pulled it and put a C-Media chipset card in there and perfect. lol

eGo

gone a bit off topic...

fireblade when you installed the new drivers for your graphic card did you fully uninstall the default ones or did you just reinstall over the top?

i would download the new gfx drivers and sound drivers and the latest version of directx, put them on a cd, and feformat your hard drive then just use the files on the cd to update all your drivers and that should do the trick.

if not then the only thing i can think of is a RAM problem, and i cant remember what that program that tests ram is called

(anyone?)

Key Keeper · Post by **Key Keeper** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:25 pm

Welcome fireblade. Geeez sounds like a bunch of problems at once. Everyone is right about soundblaster live, it suxx! I had multiple problems with one and finnaly 86'd the damn thing. Seemed to work ok till I installed the software. The Creative driver and running processes seem to use a lot of mem also. Most onboard sound devices are far superior to sb live anyways, unless its and audigy or something of that line of cards. Did you download the 71.84 driver from Nvidia? I use a PNY 6600gt and have no problem playing doom 3 on "Ultra Performance" with the res set at 1280x1024 for hours, its mildly overclocked but F.P. is right, if it dont play well turn the resolution down. Graphics still ok at 1024x768. There is probably something in your taskmanager that says "DEVLDRV.EXE". Or "DEVLDR32.EXE". The only way I found to get rid of the driver for the sound bull....live is to boot in safe mode and locate the exe. file and delete it. Windows wont let you delete it even if you "end task" in the task manager, and shut it off in msconfig. Here is a quote from answers that work:

"Found on Windows 2000/XP. It really does not matter how Creative call this task/service, DEVLDR, DEVLDR16, or DEVLDR32, it is a thorough nightmare whatever its name, and DEVLDR does not disappoint. What does this task do – we do not know, it is such a frustrating task we care little about what it does.
Recommendation :
"Not responding" on shutdown or problems at startup are the most common problems associated with this task. There are some workarounds that sometimes work. For both Windows 2000 and XP a solution that often works is to remove all sound items from "Control Panel \ Administrative Tools \ Device Manager", de-install any Creative SoundBlaster software from "Add/Remove Programs", then search your hard disk for DEVLDR.EXE and rename or delete it, then delete/disable it in "Control Panel \ Administrative Tools \ Services", and finally download and install the latest SoundBlaster Live software. Under Windows XP, instead of installing the latest SoundBlaster Live software you can opt to restart your PC, and when prompted for the drivers for the re-detected soundcard, use the Windows XP CD so that the XP drivers are used rather than the Creative drivers (the same sometimes works with Windows 2000 SP3, although no CD is required in that case). Walking away from Creative Labs has also been suggested to us as an option..."

Here is the link if it is any help:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist ... list_d.htm

There is also more info on devldr16.exe and devldr32.exe that talks about crashing and other problems associated with that crappy sound card. The card would be liked a lot more if it wasnt for the poor software that creative bundles with it.