Hi,
Recently almost every game I run would start off with fine sounds and everything, but then after say 5 minutes I start hearing some noise (like static noise or something) from the speakers ... it gets louder and more frequent, and then either the sound just disappears all together and then the computer crashes, or it just crashes right away once I hit anything sound-related (for example: I have a mute button on my keyboard, if I hit that button, it crashes straight away).
I can reduce the volume on the speaker itself just fine, and continue to play my games ... although sometimes it crashes too (most times it doesn't). But when I finish playing the game, and I go back to Windows, 9 outta 10 chance it'll hang then crash.
The details on the bluescreen says its a hardware failure although it doesn't specify which hardware it is.
Some additional notes that may be helpful:
1. I have both Vista and XP (dual-boot) ... I've installed the same games (Bioshock demo, MVP Baseball 2005, and FIFA 07) on both OS's ... both give me the same problem on Bioshock and FIFA ... MVP runs just fine on both of them no matter how long I play.
With the exception of Bioshock, the games I play have been installed for a while (for several months) and they used to work perfectly (well MVP works just fine still, but not FIFA). I don't recall installing any additional software or changed drivers and what not --then again, it's happening on both OS's.
No idea when the problem started happening. I had the demo of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and it used to give me this problem from time to time ... thought it was just that game/demo so I uninstalled it and the rest of the games used to work just fine. Now it's getting rather more frequent/obvious.
2. I tried changing my speakers before playing a game, or during the game once i start hearing the noise ... still, the new speakers (or the headphones that i tried too) give me the same noise.
3. If I'm lucky enough to quit the game (usually just end-task it) and go back to windows without crashing, I can run Windows Media Player to see if the sound is working. And when I do, I can play any songs I have just fine and for a really long time (it doesn't give me any noise at all even if it was going like crazy during the game I was playing).
4. I have tried disabling the onboard sound (it's the one I use, don't have a sound card) and run the game and see if it would crash. But it doesn't. I even hit the mute button over and over (not that I'd imagine it'd do anything if the sound is disabled?) and no crash anyway.
5. My computer was overclocked, so I reset everything to default speeds, and I get the same noise problem.
6. I have the latest drivers installed for my Realtek AC97 onboard sound (for their respective OS). I doubt this is a driver issue since again it's happening on both OS's (each one has its own drivers) and especially for the XP the drivers have been the same ones for over a year now and I've been playing FIFA for a while for much longer lengths of time yet I never used to get this problem.
My Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 3800+ @ 2.4GHz
RAM: 2GB (1gig Kingston Value Ram and 1gig OCZ Value Ram)
Motherboard: A8N-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI (Onboard chip: Realtek AC97)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB
I'm wondering if this is 100% a sound problem (ie getting a PCI sound card for example would solve this problem) or if I should look for more "patterns" and what not --maybe there's some sort of testing tool to see if my sound card (or onboard sound) is working perfectly? ... I just don't want to buy a soundcard then turns out the problem wasn't from the onboard sound.
To me, I thought it sounds like the onboard sound is heating up or something ... but for Bioshock, sometimes it happens early, sometimes late ... and I have this ASUS Probe tool that measures the motherboard and CPU temprature (I'm assuming the "MB Temp" is the Mobo chip temp right?) and when I get this noise I quickly minimize and try to read the tempratures and they're just fine --I even remember times when it gets hotter than what they are at yet no noise.... I don't know
Is there anything else I can do to figure out where the problem is coming from?
Thank you for reading this.
Linear Mode
