Another question:

at boot it says "system frequency is 200mhz"

and when i look into BIOS it says "external processor frequency" is 166. Something fishy, or normal?

I wouldn't worry about it. If your computer runs at all, it's fine. One's probably referring to the RAM, the other to the processor frequency.

166mhz DDR is probably the CPU (333mhz effective) while 200mhz DDR is the RAM probably (400mhz effective).

K, tnx.


Just tried something; disabled every sound device, every USB controller, and the onboard mobo network card, and fired up postal 2. Again, however, a BSOD after a while. The good thing is that the BSOD's don't appear that fast anymore, the bad news is that they do still occur.

Did i mention i also sometimes get a BSOD during standard windows stuff? While typing a reply like this one for example; like it happened last time. It doesn't occur even half as much as when gaming tho.


I'm beginning to seriously think it must be the HD that's fucked, or the ram, or the second IDE cable that i didn't replace yet. I mean, what else could it be? Can't see what faulty drivers might cause BSOD's in perfectly normal windows stuff and especially when gaming. I'll let the ram out of the equasion for now since it's brand new, even if that's not an absolute reference, i know.

A question concerning my HD-theory:

I got XP on my old, C: drive, right. So, i got postal 2 installed on my c: drive, but GTA VC on my D: drive. I get considerably less crashes in GTA than in postal. So, could it be that a)postal 2 has more chance of crashing since it is both installed under windows on C:, PLUS completely installed on C: itself and b)GTA has less crashes since it's only related to C: by the OS it's installed under (and the game itself on D:)?

I know that the only way to find that out really is to pull out C: and install winXP on D:, but no harm in asking stuff right.

I don't know. At this point it could have something to do with your drive, but I find it unlikely. What's the error?

To test your hypothesis, you could try installing postal2 on d: and see what happens. Can't hurt.

True, i'll try that. And the error, most of the time (say 80%), is a BSOD without any text, just plain empty blue. That doesn't help me much in finding out the cause ofcourse.

The times when i do get text it's mostly "standard" BSOD's 0x000000A and stuff.

OOOOOOOMMMMMMFFFFFFGGGGG


I just checked my "factuur", i don't know what it's called in English; the "receit" but for bigger things, anyways, and what do i see?!

"Cooler Master /blablabla/Duron, UP TO ATHLON 2400+!!!! "


I have a 2600+ ffs!! Then i checked my "outgoing mail" box to see what i ordered, and tadaa; i most certainly ordered a

"Cooler Master HAC-V81-E1 / Socket 7 + 370 + A Koeler / tot Athlon 3000+"



AAAAAArAFGGH if this is what caused so many trouble then this is SO dumb. makes sense actually. The time i screwed open the case and
replaced the cable thing and checked some other stuff, after that it ran better for a while remember? Prolly cos it cooled down, and cos i left the case open then. I'm gonna get them to change that cooler a.s.a.p ofcourse; but just want to know if you think that might be the problem? Or should a cooler that's up to 2400 be able to decently cool a 2600?

probably so. I hate the way AMD call their CPU's. Its gay.

Go back to the retailer and slap them, or spam them with hate mail until they replace it with what you ordered.

definetely slap their asses.

Hey, what temperature is your CPU running at? In Fahrenheit, please. If you don't have any Windows utilities that tell you, you should have a 'CPU health' or something section in BIOS that has it. Celsius will work, but I'll need to convert it. Heat could definetely cause what you've been experiencing.

Fahrenheit? Bleuh, I don't understand that scale. In fact, nobody in the civilized world does.

Stupid thing is, my physics book at uni is American, but luckily we have the "SI version". Does that mean that American students still learn engineering in lbs and other non-standard, should-be-forbidden formats?
Then it isn't strange everything the NASA builts blows up in their face.

American students learn it both ways. For instance, physics in high school teaches gravity as 9.8m/s/s, not feet. So there, you Euro bastard!

Hehe...it's funny to see how Satis, as a non-typical american, constantly has to fend off "attacks" on americanism lol.


Anyways...i checked and my CPU temperature is, in rest (so, PC on but no programs running) 115 fahrenheit. When i started GTA VC and played for 5 minutes it had already risen to 125 fahrenheit. (and i then turned it off cos i didn't feel like rebooting ) So i think we might have a definite reason for the games crashing.


There'll prolly still be some crashing due to bad drivers; but that's not the main problem. (i had a BSOD a few times now mentioning USBPORT.sys, which obviously has to do with a bad usb driver. The only usb thing i have plugged in is modem; and that was idd "non-XP-compatible" on installing, so i shouldn't be too surprised about that.)

Anyway...i got in this "system spy thing" software also "power fan" and "chassis fan" monitors, which are disabled. When i turn them on it says "power fan below treshold" and "chassis fan below treshold". I'm guessing it's cos i have neither, but still worth asking.


As for getting the cooler replaced; shouldn't be too much of a prob. It's a small company run by two young dudes, who usually are really flexible in stuff like this; a mate of mine had it happen that when he went to pick up a part he ordered, they actually told him that in the meantime it had sunk in price and made him pay the new, lower price. Not too bastardly thus. And besides, i got the email to back me up. Like i would ever order a pc with a cooler below my needs anyways; or that they would knowingly build one even if i ordered it like that.

actually, that is a bit high, but it's not too bad. Not enough to cause your BSODs. Sorry, I don't think it's CPU heat. I ran my 1.2ghz CPU at about 150 fahrenheit (no joke) for a couple weeks before I replaced the cooler and used some artic silver. Then it was running around 110. This one runs about 90-110 depending on load (and if I believe BIOS or the windows monitor).

I definetely recommend replacing the CPU fan anyway, it's a tad warm. Are you using thermal glue?

Thermal glue? If you mean to put the pc together; then i got nu clue. I didn't build it aye, at least not the parts where glue comes in.

That's monkey balls then if it's not the temp. Maybe it's my gfx card overheating then. Sigh. I'll just the whole damn thing in there some time and tell them to fix my shitz.

Heh, it was more something I wanted to know. Ranting on non standard measurements is something I do whenever I get the chance.
I can do that enough in Holland too, people still think in calories, while I hate calories, joules are SI so I can only count with them.