Is it the game or the hardware?

GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
edited January 2004 in Gaming
My girlfriend is playing the campaign mode in Age of Mythology. I think she just passed the part where you sack Troy. At any rate, she gets random lockups and/or crashes out of the game after anywhere from 15 min to 30 min of play.

I played the game on her PC for over an hour, without a problem. But I just chose skirmish mode, not the campaign.

It only happens in this game (no other program at all), not in the same exact place, but usually during a battle.

I updated to the latest patch of the game.
She's running an XP2100+ @ 2.17 GHz w/SK7 & 53CFM Mechatronics @ 41C full load temp, A7N8X-DLX v1.04, Radeon 7500, 2x256MB Kinston PC2100 @ 166 11/2/2/2 timings.

What could be causing this?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    The memory. Try backing it down and/or swapping it.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Alright - I'll try to bring it down to 11/3/3/2.5 (where I run it at 200 MHz on my Secondary rig) and see if the problem goes away. Or do you think it could run a little tighter than that at 166 MHz? It's set .1V over stock VMem...
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    heheh....

    Should I say it?
  • a2jfreaka2jfreak Houston, TX Member
    edited December 2003
    If you don't I will ;D
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Ill take the privlage! Memtest86!
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    *sigh*

    You didn't really need to say it - I just burned the memtest86 bootable ISO to a CD to test it next time I go over there. :p
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited December 2003
    AOM had issues with reading from the cd during game play crashing the game... One of the reasons I stopped playing...

    Gobbles
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    GHoosdum wrote:
    the part where you sack Troy.

    I haven't played this game, but I feel for the poor bastige Troy. What does he do in the game to deserve this treatment?? :wtf:;D
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Gobbles wrote:
    AOM had issues with reading from the cd during game play crashing the game... One of the reasons I stopped playing...

    I guess there was no fix for this? Hmm...
  • a2jfreaka2jfreak Houston, TX Member
    edited December 2003
    I have AOM and never encountered any problems. Sorry I can't help, GH.
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    i had it Hated it gave it away
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited December 2003
    iso's and virtual drives were the fix... to big of a pain in the arse for me...
  • qparadoxqparadox Vancouver, BC
    edited December 2003
    yeah the ripped version works fine on a virtual drive, somehow they messed up the read routine. How I don't know .. especially since the studio that made the game is pretty independent of Microsoft, you'd hope they're not influenced ....but .... :D
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    OK - I'll install Alcohol 120 and set up a virtual drive to fix that problem...

    On another note, it failed memtest horribly - 14 errors during test 5. All in the 507-509MB range. Is that the DIMM in slot 3 failing? Maybe somebody who knows more about memtest can tell me more?
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Take out all the RAM but leave one stick in at a time and run memtest that way, much better way of doing it, and you know immediately which one is duff too.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Enverex wrote:
    Take out all the RAM but leave one stick in at a time and run memtest that way, much better way of doing it, and you know immediately which one is duff too.

    Sounds like a good plan - thanks, Enverex.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    score!
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Is test 5 more intensive than the others or something? MY Primary rig gets 35 errors on Test 5 in memtest also - and it seems like it's both sticks of RAM. Funny, because I don't have any kind of flaky problems or lockups with this system though...
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Thrax: "Memory."
    Primesuspect: "Memtest it."
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    GHoosdum wrote:
    Is test 5 more intensive than the others or something? MY Primary rig gets 35 errors on Test 5 in memtest also - and it seems like it's both sticks of RAM. Funny, because I don't have any kind of flaky problems or lockups with this system though...

    Is the system overclocked at all? If so, run at default speeds to run the tests.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Yes, it is OC'd - if it passes the test at default, it means the memory is physically OK, I gather... but what should my plan of attack be if I only get the errors with the OC?

    Please don't tell me 'buy better RAM' - I am very quickly approaching the time when I'll loose my job, so I can't actually afford to buy any new PC parts... :werr:
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    If it fails, it fails. You have two bad sticks of ram. There is no way around it. You have to replace that ram.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I ran memtest on it again (my primary) at stock speed and timings, and both sticks passed memtest with 0 errors.

    Also, it turns out that the RAM slots 1 and 3 on my girlfriend's PC are bad - those sticks pass memtest on my primary, but now on my girfriend's PC I only have 256 MB in slot 2! If I put a stick of RAM in either slot 1 or 3, I get a bunch of errors when trying to go into Windows about write errors to file $I30 or some such, and it runs Chkdsk on the next bootup... I guess I need a new mobo for her...
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