nVidia GeForce 4

[StealthThunder]

I have a problem running my new GeForce 440 mx AGPx8 on my computer. I'm running a P4 2.4GHz, 512MB PC3200. When running a game like SimCity 4 or GTAIII, after 20 min or so, it will lock up the computer and create a loud humming sound from my speakers. any ideas??? ive already uninstalled/reinstalled the drivers for the card and AGP slot.

[cheyenne1212]

have you looked for any patches for the game?

[StealthThunder]

I have looked for updated patches and drivers for both the games and video card, nothing works so far

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

StealthThunder,

Mmm... it sounds to me like overheating. Have you looked at your fan to see if it's working correctly? SimCity 4 and GTA III work perfectly with any GeForces so i don't think the games are the culprits in this case.

Could be memory failure too as well as the GeForce malfunction but if you tell us that is just with that games.

No problem running applications in your OS for a long time?

Good luck,

Dark

[cheyenne1212]

Forgot about that option.

Try switching to a differenet video card, then see if the problem still persists.

[deftones12]

Yeh overheating sounds like a good shot at it. How many processes u got runnin in the background? but ur computer should be fast enough for that to not affect it...why do u think its ur video card??? Could it be something else? Sound card maybe???

[scriptkiddie18]

I had the same problem once....sometimes still have
I just dont pay attention to it, after you restart it will be gone
But that sound thing always happened on sims, so I think It's more up to the games

Oh btw are the games downloaded or did you buy them? If downloaded they might be corupted somewhere and that may cause the sound.

[quizz]

it could be your video card since the one you got has a heatsink and fan. My bro in law have the same problem as you but he fixed it. I'm gonna ask him what he did then i'll pm you tomorrow.

[dcongram]

StealthThunder......what OS are you running ? If it is XP....the drivers for Nvidia don't work with games.

Download the latest driver from Nvidia.com

[Eversor]

One thing that you might want to check out is not using the crappy nVidia WHQL drivers. Go check out www.guru3d.com and download the 44.67 drivers for XP or 2000 (if XP or 2000 happens to be your OS). Also go to Windows Update (open Internet Explorer and select the Tools menu at the top then click on Windows Update) and download the latest version of DirectX (9.0b <- was recently released withing the past 2 weeks) or if you don't want to go to Windows Update here is a link for the redistributable version of the newest DirectX:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/9/c/c9c8a1d4-7690-4c98-baf3-0c67e7f3751f/dx90b_redist.exe

Also, there are quite a few known problems with Creative SoundBlaster Live! and other Creative products. I recommend going to http://www.americas.creative.com/support/ and downloading and installing any driver updates for your sound card. Anyway hope that helps. I'm a fellow gamer and I've encountered many problems and more often than not this will fix your problem. If your still having problems PM me and I'll help as much as I can.

[Dr Toker]

Well, for starters, your machine is going to be more inclined to have problems than say, mine would with such a card. You have a P4. This means You also have an INTEL Mother Board. Right away there is a "Lack of Perfect Compatibility". If your going with a Nvidia Video Card, its always best to get a Nvidia Mother Board. (nForce2). Always start with Nvidia for gamers.

Another thing, it sounds like you dont have enough RAM, or your memory is failing or something perhaps.

[darkes]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=#post) by Dr Toker
Well, for starters, your machine is going to be more inclined to have problems than say, mine would with such a card. You have a P4. This means You also have an INTEL Mother Board. Right away there is a "Lack of Perfect Compatibility". If your going with a Nvidia Video Card, its always best to get a Nvidia Mother Board. (nForce2). Always start with Nvidia for gamers.

Another thing, it sounds like you dont have enough RAM, or your memory is failing or something perhaps.

There are other boards that support P4's. I have a P4 installed on an SiS chipset (not INTEL), and it runs fine. GTA III works perfectly on my Geforce4 Ti 4800 SE under WinXP, using the WHQL drivers, which were fairly recently re-released (check Winowsupdate to find out). DirectX 9.0b works fine as well, and I can overclock my card with no problems, having nobbled the registry. The sound card is a Creative Audigy2.

Just to re-iterate, the MS supplied drivers DO work very well for games on my setup - I changed my drivers from the Nvidia ones I had installed to the MS recommended ones, and got a performance increase. After all if, it didn't work I could easily roll back ... :)

It is almost certain you have a H/W problem with your cooling or RAM, or possibly your sound card, that is the root cause of this.

[Und3ertak3r]

Another thing, it sounds like you dont have enough RAM, or your memory is failing or something perhaps
I agree with Dr Toker among the possablities faulty memory or incompatable memory, or if you are using 2 or more memory sticks ..mismatched memory..
As for the other advice from Dr Toker .. are you saying that less than 5% of all motherboards are compatable with better than 60% of Video cards? Can you back up your comments please.. at this point it sounds like
My TV reception is lousey.. I have a Sony TV.. could it be because I am using a Samsung VCR with this TV
But yes I would expect that nVidia based mobos would have the best compatability with their cards..

Cheers

[StealthThunder]

I appriciate everyones help in this matter. to answer some of your questions, i am running XP and no the video card is not overheating, it remains suprisingly cool. all of the games are bought and paid for, so i dont think its corruption with the games. i went ahead and downloaded drivers and patchs for the soundcard and video card and as of right now, im installing service pack 1. i got all the windows updates already, i'll will let you know when service pack 1 is done installing and will do some testing. thanks again for all your help.

[GeckoDragoN]

i know you've heard it all before but im haveing the same problem with my geforce fx256... and it was all just a simple overheating prob... just as a test try taking your side panel off for an hour and see if anything improves....
good luck

[Nhk]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=#post) by dcongram
StealthThunder......what OS are you running ? If it is XP....the drivers for Nvidia don't work with games.

I had WinXP and my Geforce 2 with default drivers worked fine with Counter-Strike.

[nihil]

I have had this problem too.....not with Sims tho'. I found the problem was with the sound card......in one case I just swapped them between two boxes and all was fine.

On another machine, I went into the game and set the sound quality to about 30%, and that fixed it.

You might try borrowing an old PCI soundcard (SIMS isn't philharmonic orchestra :p ) and see what happens with that?

I concur with the overheating suggestions but wonder why you are not having other problems as well if it were something so fundamental?...seems to be games specific to me.

Good Luck

[darkes]

I agree it's worth checking the sound card out.

I had a hardware problem with the Creative Audigy2 card that I originally installed when I upgraded my PC recently (new mobo etc.). Even after I downloaded the latest drivers from Creative, some games would completely lock the PC after about 30 sec, which meant to me it wasn't a cooling problem. I'd be a lot more suspicious if it happened after about 20 mins, as this is more likely to be a cooling problem with your CPU or graphics card.
Anyway in my case the old sound card I had still worked, so I exchanged my Audigy2 for a new one, which worked perfectly.

One final point is that it does make a big difference what you are running on your PC.
If, for example, you are running WinXP with say Word & IE open, your P4 will be idling at about 5% (no significant heat generated), whereas when you run a game it will be at 100%, and generating a hell of a lot of heat, which can screw up other components nearby if your cooling system doesn't work. Also if the P4 itself gets too hot, it will either lock or shut itself down.

[Und3ertak3r]

If he has a new Mobo .. it will have onboard sound.. the Hum as he has described will probably have absolutly nothing to do with the sound card.. the description is verylokley "Looping" sound.. ie a .25 second loop.. the sound card is playing back a loop from its internal memory..because the rest of the system has locked up. and can't tell the sound card to bloody shut up..

Instead of chassing him all over the country with this.. how about working on this one step at a time.. then atleast he will learn some thing and so will some others..
Fault finding is about following basic steps elliminate something move on to the next step..
not.. OH Shit it;s summer.. must be over heating.. or
]oh Crap the computer is runnig slow.. Must be a Virus....

In this situation.. We have two normal suspects.. First is the Video Card, second is Memory..third is PSU (powersupply)

Options: remove all other cards and accessories.. you will only need the GF4, ram, cpu, HDD (the sound is onboard right?), your keyboard and mouse..oh and monitor..and PSU

If the problem continues you then need to eliminate by replacement the remaining components. If you can get a hold of another Video card.. do that first, or if you can get ahold of another PSU do that, If you can get ahold of an other stick of memory do that.. By the by.. You do only have one stick of memory ..don't you.. not 2 or three?

Sry i repeated myself..

[StealthThunder]

Well, its not my processor, it doesnt get over 39C but my video card was running a little warm after the last time it crashed. i went ahead and bought a thermatake cooler for it and will see if that helps. i will also take out my sound card and use the onboard sound and see if that changes anything. i already keep my side panel off 24/7 to keep good air flow.

[darkes]

Hope you have had some success with this.

I agree to some extent with Und3ertak3r, but in my case it was definitely a hardware problem with the sound card (pretty unusual), which proves this can happen .....

Switching back to the on board sound is a good idea to eliminate this possibility - but as I had an old PCI sound card, I thought that would be a slightly better test, as it would eliminate the chance that there was a problem with the PCI slot it was using. I was rather surprised that the company I purchased it from replaced it without any questions, and even offered me a free refund instead. On the other hand I did give them chapter & verse about what I had tried to fix it.

You should be OK on the cooling front - your P4 is obviously OK (mine runs at 45C in really hot conditions - no problems), but what I meant about the cooling is that the heat has to go somewhere.
So if your graphics card is next to the P4 cooling fan then it will get affected, unless you have decent cooling in your case that can keep everything at an acceptable temperature.

Could be a hardware/software video card problem, but I think that is highly unlikely, as normally this would fail fairly quickly. On the other hand a RAM problem can cause this type of thing to happen, but you would also expect random crashes when running something other than games.

[Und3ertak3r]

We now just hold our breath and see..

My gamble that it is Video 55%, or RAM ..35% soundcard, MoBo, and PSU 9%. f#&#Nose 1%

Just a footnote.. Creative SB Live soundcards have an issue with some VIA motherboards.. I forget which chipset but I thing ASUS had a lot of problems.... This is to backup Darkes.. yes I managed to forget that odd one.. this problem caused random system locks..

Get a hold of 3d Mark 2002 and thrash the shit out of the video card for a few hours.. keep an eye (finger ) on the temps of the GPU heatsink and your northbridge chip.. there is another BM prog (can't find it here at the moment) that runs specific tests, some burn in tests are hardware specific.. you will need to check some thing.. run atleast the 3dMark test.

also to back up darkes.. the nVidia drivers you are using are? <v40 or >v40. ? if less than v40 get the latest..

Cheers