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by **Vangalorr** » 20 Jul 12, 10:59 am

Wondering if anyone can help me diagnose the following issue:

Recently when playing games I am getting a random hard lockup with looping sound that requires a full PC restart (cant ctrl-alt-del). This happens randomly and can be anywhere from 5 minutes to 4 hours of playing before occuring, but usually around the 20 minute mark.

I first noticed it when playing CIV5 and thought it might be an issue with the HDD failing. Running WD tools it looked like the drive was on its way out so I replaced it and did a full windows reinstall with full up to date drivers and the only thing installed being steam + Civ5 but the problem still occurs.

The kind folks over at civfanatics mentioned the vid card (I have a HD4850) wasnt fully DX11 compliant so I tried running the game only in DX9 but the error still occurs and last night I replicated the issue playing Orcs Must Die which seems to indicate the problem may be the vid card, or possibly the mobo or PSU.

I was hoping to hold off on buying a new PC as the current system runs the games I play well enough (at least until Guild Wars 2 is launched), so am looking to diagnose the issue to then make a decision on whether I need a whole new system now, or whether I could upgrade say the vid card and get the new system later in the year.

TLDR - systems locks with looping sound when playing games - is it the vid card, mobo, PSU or something else causing it?

DXDiag

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Many thanks.

by **v4moose** » 20 Jul 12, 12:51 pm

Hi Craig

this happens *sometimes* to me when playing FSX - though rare.

When it does happen take a note of the error in the windows event viewer.. In my case it was a dodgy sound card driver crashing the game. See if you can find any updated drivers for your realtek device and mobo. I know you said u updated drivers, just being thorough. Cause i see your realtek controller is dated 2009

by **Long John** » 20 Jul 12, 1:14 pm

As v4moose stated, event viewer - will tell you more then dxdiag on errors. Post up some logs/screen shots. Was the issue with the drive physical errors or data corruption? Data corruption can be a fault of other parts other then HDD.

by **steve_rogers42** » 20 Jul 12, 1:24 pm

Have yo changed or updated any drivers or hardware of late?

Has this always happened or just recently?

Whats your full system spec? OC'd or not?

by **Vangalorr** » 20 Jul 12, 1:37 pm

Thanks for the responses. I'll have to check the event viewer when I get home but to answer some of the other questions:

1 - nothing is overclocked - cpu, memory and GPU are all running at default speeds

2 - The HDD returned the error code corresponding to "Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) Error returned during SMART Status/Self Test Command. The drive is defective. " when using the WD Data Lifeguard tools, so I bought a new HDD to rule out it being a HDD issue

3 - No other hardware changes

4 - the mobo drivers are all the latest ones from the ASUS website. Ive downloaded new drivers from Realtek but I dont know how to determine if they will work with the realtek chip on the mobo (the 2009 drivers came from the asus website)

by **Vangalorr** » 20 Jul 12, 4:58 pm

the 6008 codes appear to be the events I am talking about, not very descriptive...

by **Vangalorr** » 21 Jul 12, 10:32 am

Ive saved the system log to my desktop but unfortunately it is a 15mb file. If you want specific info could you please tell me how to extract what you want?

Also this may sound a little naive, but I haven't uploaded anything other than an image file in so long I don't know of a service where I can upload the log for you to download, any suggestions?

by **Vangalorr** » 21 Jul 12, 2:04 pm

I installed the latest realtek driver and it still crashed this morning. So Ive done the following:

1 - Memtest - passed, 0 errors
2 - msi kombuster - ran for ~ 30 minutes, ran fine, GPU temps went from ~40 degrees at idle to 70 under full load, no issues there

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3 - Prime95 - ran for an hour, all workers passed, max temp was 55 deg, well within norms

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4 - ran CPU-Z if you want to see settings

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So it appears that temps and load aren't the issue (though longer tests would be needed to definitively rule one way or the other). I guess the next step is to rule out the video card driver being the issue. I remember around the time it first occurred I had updated the GFX driver, but don't remember the exact timing. Anyone have a recommendation for stable ATI drivers to use? If I recall correctly the driver I was using was fairly dated, possibly even 10.x...

by **Long John** » 21 Jul 12, 4:13 pm

First update your BIOS (BIOS Date: 10/02/08 20:43:48 Ver: 08.00.14) - I don't think this will resolve the issue but you never know.

by **Vangalorr** » 23 Jul 12, 11:07 am

Rolled back drivers to 11.9 and the problem has disappeared, or at least hasn’t occurred in the 5 or 6 hours of gaming I’ve played since then. Appears the culprit is something in the 12.x ATI drivers.

Thanks everyone for the help/suggestions.

System lock with looping sound when playing games

System lock with looping sound when playing games

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