big problems

[Daz]

looking for some help on the following :

first off heres my system spec:

athlon 1.4 thunderbird
asus A7A266 motherboard
geforce 4 ti4200 64mb
80 gig seagate ata100 HD
256 ddr
no sound card uses onboard sound

software:
win98SE
direct x 9.0
latest nvidia graphics drivers

now heres my problem, whilst playing fs2002 and other games like command and conquer generals the whole system will just lock up randomly at any given time

[Lurch]

I've been having a similar problem but not just in games.I changed my graphics card today (only a week old) and havent so far had any lock-ups (keeping my fingers crossed.lol).

How old is the graphics card?
Also,my monitor is about 18 months old and the technical manager at my hardware supplier said it may be the rest of the system is too fast for the monitor (personally I think he just wants me to buy a monitor.lol)

I'm running:
Athlon 2500+XP
EPoX 8RDA+ Mobo
GeForce4 Ti4800
1024 MB DDR-333
NVidia Nforce2 (onboard sound)
20GB Seagate HD

WinXP
DirectX 8.1 (otherwise Squawkbox doesnt work properly.lol)
Detonator 44.03 drivers

[Rifleman]

One thing you never mentioned was the size of your power supply, I have heard that it may make a difference.......do you have at least a 300 watt PS ....I use a 350 in my new tower and have no troubles.....not that this may mean much as I don't have all the same stuff as you, but I do run two CD drives, two physical hard drives, on a low level board from ECS......XP 1800+, 512ram, GeForce4 MX440 64meg vid driving a 19" monitor at 1600x1200 for FS 2002, O/B sound etc.....

[_526th_Fireman]

I bet Rifleman hit the nail on the head. The Ti s defiinately require more than the old standard power supply. Under power? You can get them to work sometimes, but only for awhile before they give up. :-)

Check the power supply you have.  I think the Ti's required at least a 300 watt, might want to check that though, to run them properly.

[Paul2k12]

Yep the power supply definatley sounds like the problem. i currently run a 360w in the system below and its perfectly fine.

Paul2k12

[Daz]

well my psu is 350 w and i forgot to mention that in the post im sure that is capable of running my system but thanks for the reply's guys and if you think of anything let me know

[Iroquois]

You may try increasing RAM as well,  512mb is today standard. But before you go out and spend a wad of cash, check to see what's running in the background. Lockups can sometimes be caused by the RAM chips being flooded with data. Try closing down all non-syetem programs except for any internet security programs (Only if your internet is on all the time).

[Daz]

i have done i have this utility called enditall and that will shut down all the system tray and background programs. im kinda wondering if my comp has a virus on it maybe lockups are in windows aswell recently and explorer crashes all the time. cheers for your help though

[ATI_7500]

maybe your machines are getting too hot. some computers shut themselves down,when they're getting too hot. you can switch that off in the BIOS.

[Lurch]

I changeed my video card and havent had the lockups again.I think thats where you problem is too.

[Daz]

i have installed a new heatsink and fan for my cpu and an extra cooling fan the cpu is running at 49'c and motherboard 32'c. over the weekend i removed my 256mb ram and stuck a 512 meg ram in there and reinstalled windows and flight simulator again. windows seems to be working well but i cannot get any game to load it says i need direct x 8.0 or higher. i have direct x 8 on my machine though so i dont know whats up with it now lol

[Paul2k12]

i have installed a new heatsink and fan for my cpu and an extra cooling fan the cpu is running at 49'c and motherboard 32'c. over the weekend i removed my 256mb ram and stuck a 512 meg ram in there and reinstalled windows and flight simulator again. windows seems to be working well but i cannot get any game to load it says i need direct x 8.0 or higher. i have direct x 8 on my machine though so i dont know whats up with it now lol

By any chance is the card you have a Gainward Model as there was a problem with them crashing and locking up all the time. I had this problem also.

About Direct X I'd try and download Direct X 9 but maybe others can help on this bit.

Thanks

Paul2k10

[Rivers]

I think GeForce 4 is DirectX8.1 card I don

[Daz]

yeah i installed x9 and it seems to help i have only had 2 lockups since i put more ram in so its half way getting there thank you lot for helpin me appreciate it