Maybe should go in hardware section, not sure...

An old build I have is giving me quite a headache. With graphic intense games, such as Speed Busters or NFS: Porsche Unleashed, after about 3 minutes of playing the system locks up. Doesn't power off, just freezes the screen and OS, sometimes the audio continues, usually it stops though. Sometimes a bit of what looks like the start of artifacting occurs.
It's also done so while messing around in Windows though, seemingly randomly. It also does it with older games after a long while, such as Need For Speed II SE in Glide mode. Any ideas as to the cause?
I have a GA-6BA mobo by Gigabyte with a 450MHz Celeron, 128MB PC100 RAM, 16MB Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, 200w PSU. I am running fresh-install Windows 98 SE, with DirectX 8.1b, and the last Glide drivers, 1.07, also tried with Merlin.

My guesses:
Faulty Voodoo card (it worked fine last time I tried it a couple years back), possibly overheating but it has run these games before fine
PSU (low wattage? doubt it)
DirectX. Seems to work better with DX8.1b, DX7 was even worse, DX9 same thing. Doesn't make sense if it's this.
Bad ram is ruled out, swapped sticks
Unstable CPU?

Cooling seems to be fine all around. V3's only a passive heatsink of course. Opening the case and getting some air around it doesn't seem to help.

Mobo BIOS is flashed to newest version, freezes with both old and new versions though.

However, I've used the Voodoo card before (a while back) with no problems on another Celeron system. Don't have another rig to try the card out now.

I would try underclocking the card..or maybe trying out some other card,just to see if the rest of the system is stable.

bucksavage wrote on 01.02.09 at 07:38:45:



What kind of sound card are you using? Asking because...

I had the idea to just go ahead and set up another system from around the same era and see if the card was at fault. Took the PSU, RAM, Voodoo and hard drive from the Celeron machine I was using and put it into a 750Mhz AMD Athlon machine.

Once it loaded all the new drivers, started up Speed Busters and... it ran flawlessly for a good while. Hmm. So, I tested it more, still no crashing. Cranked up the resolution, still no crashing.

So, I moved the Voodoo over to the Celeron machine which was unplayable, and took out the sound card. See, the Athlon machine had an integrated 32-bit sound chip. The Celeron machine had an ancient ISA ESS Audiodrive sound card from the DOS days. Now the machine runs great, no problems for about half an hour, and at higher resolution and full graphics on Speed Busters.

Maybe it was the ISA port? The drivers? Who knows, I don't care too much as it seems to have solved my problem.

Now there's no sound, but I assume if I get a newer, nicer PCI sound card installed in there it will be okay.

At least I hope

EDIT: Added a Creative PCI 128 card, and it's going great so far!

EDIT2: Only one freeze after a couple hours of use.   Then this, sound still playing...



Now THIS seems like the Voodoo card (or CPU/mobo? nah, thinking more the card still with the sound going okay)... strange that, after restarting, all is well.

Tried a spare CPU cooling fan, stable for a couple hours of 3D gaming... then death.

Got another V3 card, a Gateway 3000G, and also freezes. So, it pretty much leaves me with:

CPU
Motherboard
PSU

EDIT: Apparently, it's the motherboard. It seems that this is an older revision GA-6BA motherboard, and it sucks with Voodoo 3 cards and nVidia TNT 2 cards... both of which I've tried with it, and it locks up... like many 3DFX forums and tech support sites seem to show. Guess I'm outta luck with this build.