Vista - Can Someone Tell Me Why My Games Freeze on My PC?

Hi all,

I’ve been playing on my computer for a while and have noticed that whenever I play my games, my computer will freeze and hang up after about a couple minutes of playing into the game. The screen will freeze and whatever sound was playing will loop in the background. I cannot ctrl alt del out of the game and my computer requires a hard restart whenever this happens. I have been looking on some forums about this problem with games freezing and supposedly the fix was swapping the different RAM modules. I tried doing that but it still keeps freezing after playing for a bit. I then used Riva Tuner to turn up the fan on my graphics card to 100% but that did not help either. I have the latest drivers for Vista x64 too. I also tried playing the games in Windows XP (I am running both Vista and XP on my system) but the same thing happens. I then started to think if the 500W power supply was too low so we got a new 650W PSU, but haven’t put it in yet. Any suggestions?

Here are my specs:

Vista Ultimate 64-bit and Windows XP w/ SP3
Motherboard: ECS GF7050VT-M
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM Corsair Dominator
Video Card: XFX NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+
Hard Drive: 500 GB Western Digital With Green Technology

Games I play that freeze: COD4, CODWaW, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, Far Cry 2, Mass Effect, Brothers in Arms: HH

Please Help!! Thanks!!

How are all the fans and heatsinks looking? Clean and free of dust and any blockage? Are they all running? That 9800GTX+ gets HOT HOT HOT and would likely cause a freeze like that if overheated. A simple blasting with canned air may solve your problems. If not, possibly the PSU, but start simple and work your way up.

Let us know what ya find.

Yeah, the computer is very new; been running on it for about a month now. No dust clogging up the fans or anything. Right now the side panel is open after having switching the memory modules, but the freezing still persists!

Is it a hard freeze or a long delay and then resume? Games video override windows screen prompts. There could be something running in the background which is interfering. If a task wants internet access and the firewall blocks it with a prompt for user action, game screen may prevent firewall request screen from showing, but firewall still waiting for input. In mean time, task wanting internet access tries repeatedly to gain access. This can appear as a freeze. Most tasks will eventually quit releasing the freeze though some poorly written programs continue indefinitely. Alternative: Games often complex and sloppy code. Try deactivating Data Execution prevention for program. If this is truly a program freeze, this sometimes helps(encountered this on Dungeon Siege)

CAn you go to your bios and pump the fans at 100% to see if that helps with the heat issues? it may not be as quiet as before but when you are playing those games, you need all the cooling you can handle.

Also, since you have Riva Tuner, have you tried setting a temp gauge for your GPU & CPU on your taskbar to check your temps?

Update: I was told by a friend to check if my CPU Fan was correctly installed and certainly enough one of the plugs wasn't correctly fastened to the motherboard leaving room for a gap between the heatsink and the cpu. I fixed it and started to play. Things seemed to be running a lot smoother and I was able to play for almost half an hour and then my computer froze again resulting in the same screen lock and sound loop problem which requires a hard restart. I also tried another thing reccomended to me to try and isolate the problem since I have onboard graphics. I took out my video card and used the onboard VGA 7-series graphics. Surely enough the games still freeze indicating that there is no problem with the graphics card.

@zver1
It is a hard freeze. When I play the games the computer freezes and there is a sound loop for whatever sound effect was played last in the game. I have granted CODWaW and all the other games that connect to the internet access to the internet when prompted.

@AstaLaVista
I am sure the fan of the CPU is running at 100% and also the side panel of my computer case is left open. The graphics card fan is set to 100% as well. Games still freeze

If the heatsink was off of the CPU, is it likely that the thermal paste has dried up and lost it's effectiveness. Take the cooler off and clean the heatsink and CPU with rubbing alcohol (JUST enough to take it off and leave no residue! you don't want it all over the motherboard). Get some good quality thermal compound and put a small rice-grain sized glob in the center of the CPU and put the heatsink back on. The pressure of the heatsink will spread the paste out.

This should solve your overheating issue and stop the freezing.

Hmmm, ok, were you playing with both cards enabled or was one disable on your Bios and you turned it off to check the other one? What I am trying to say is that if both card have been enable, your problem might be a conflict within the different drivers for both cards. One must be disable in the Bios to avoid the conflict.

No, I physically took out my 9800gtx+ and used the 7-series on board graphics by plugging in the monitor plug to the vga connector on my mobo. you dont need to do anything with the bios. this was the first time i tried my onboard graphics btw

The fact that you were able to prolong to play time after making the adjustment to the CPU fans suggests to me the problem lies somewhere within that area. Such as some kind of overheating still occuring, or like someone suggested lack of thermal compound. Or the very dreadful bc of the fact it was not mounted right permanent CPU damage >< Probably not the latter tho....hopefully