Upgraded computer; Now all my games crash!

[antdude]

I upgraded from a Pentium II 300 Mhz, added another 128 MB of RAM to make 256 MB, and replaced a bad WD Caviar HDD (230+ bad sectors and horrible read speed (0.1MB/sec - 0.5MB/sec)). Everything was looking good until I tested my games!

The lastest versions of Half-Life, Quake 3 Arena, and Unreal Tournament (v420) all crash to desktop after a few seconds (demos and gameplays). Q3A did give a blue screen of death (VMM error). UT showed various glitches in graphic (black planes, light source not showing correctly) before freezing (have to end task the game) OR kicking me to desktop saying it general protection faulted (not Windows'). I tried 16 bit and 32 bit. Same thing. I tried uninstalling (with Matrox's program) and reinstalling the lastest nonbeta drivers. I tried TurboGL drivers, clean booted, etc. NOTHING HELPED OR WORKED!

I haven't tried Diablo 2, but I have a bad feeling it will do the same. I did surf the Internet, read e-mails, etc. No problems there as far as I can see. I saw no conflicts in my system properties (control panel). I am at a stomp! Oh I have 64 MB for AGP in CMOS. I doubt this will affect my problem. Any ideas?

System configuration:
Award Modular BIOS (v4.51PG; Updated: 10/26/1999), Intel Pentium III 600 Mhz (DFI P2XBL motherboard revision A -- 440BX 100 Mhz bus tower, 256 MB of SDRAM (PC100), ATX Full Tower Case, 300W power supply, 2 ISA, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 Shared PCI/ISA Slot, 2 USB ports, 512K L2 cache, IBM P72 17" monitor (6556), Matrox Millenium G400 32 MB DualHead, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum (not using LiveDrive), Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1212 6X/32X ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM drive, Plextor PleXWriter 4/2/20 CD-R/CD-RW PX-W4220T (SCSI), Diamond Fireport 40 PCI (SCSI-3), external USR 33600 Sportster Faxmodem (Model: 0413; Product Code: 000839-03), 6.4 GB Quantum Fireball EIDE (6.4EX-A) hard drive, IBM 15 GB 7200 RPM (75GXP Series), a 2-buttons Logitech mouse, 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100 Mb TX Ethernet NIC (3C905B-TX), Windows 98 (disabled Active Desktop and using Internet Explorer v5.5), two regular computer fans (CPU and normal) and 1 custom fan, and a HP DeskJet 560c printer. Yamaha Sondius XG SoftSynthesizer v1.0 for better MIDI in Windows 98.

I look forward to receiving replies. I hope it is not a hardware problem! I didn't have problems before the upgrade. Something is odd. Should I try the beta driver?

[This message has been edited by antdude (edited 05 August 2000).]

[Joel]

I didn't see it anywhere but have you tried reinstalling the games themselves?

Joel

[antdude]

Joel: That shouldn't be the problem if all the games I tested don't work.

[Brian R.]

Did you install Windows and software fresh on the new HD or did you copy the files from the old WD?

[antdude]

Brian, I ghosted the partitions (image copy). to the new HDD.

However, I am thinking it is bad RAM that I got because I got BSoDs (Fatal Exception 0E in VXD VMM(01)). I got them in Q3A a few times, Registry Editor to do a basic search and corrupts my registry, and sometimes Norton Disk Doctor BSoD.

I did a safe boot and ran Registry Editor search and got:
REGEDIT caused an invalid page fault in
module <unknown> at 0000:1ff772fc.
Registers:
EAX=0065f170 CS=015f EIP=1ff772fc EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00000000 SS=0167 ESP=0065f158 EBP=0065f598
ECX=0065fd00 DS=0167 ESI=0065f5bc FS=271f
EDX=0043003c ES=0167 EDI=0065f570 GS=270e
Bytes at CS:EIP:

Argh! Computers suck :P.

[antdude]

Updates:

Even playing software mode for Unreal Tournament crashes! Argh.

I already reinstalled DirectX 7.0a, SB Live! drivers, Matrox G400 v5.52.015 drivers, fiddled with AGP memory, clean boot, turn off audio in games to see if it was a sound driver issue, etc.

Matrox card is on IRQ 11 and I do not see any conflicts. Is there an easy way to view all IRQs in order and what is using it?

I hope I don't have to reinstall from scratch! I didn't move any cards around during the upgrade.

[xortam]

You changed processors to one of a different architecture (SIMD extensions). For one thing, many installed apps probably wouldn't be able to take advantage of these extensions. Reinstall and move on. If you've got data that you want to save, replace the PII, backup the data, reinstall the PIII, reinstall the OS, and restore the data. You could try the backup w/o reverting to the old CPU if you're confident the backup was successful.

[Raptor^]

Try taking that new RAM stick out and see if your probs go away.

Otherwise, it might be best to reinstall Windows. It looks like you kept your old mobo, so it should be ok, but then it is Windows...

[EDIT] Run Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Information and selected hardware, IRQs to get a full IRQ listing btw.
[/EDIT]




[This message has been edited by Raptor^ (edited 06 August 2000).]

[antdude]

xortam: Yes, I have backups. I knew I would run into some problems during an upgrade. I always had in the past. As for SIMD extensions, do all these games I have use them? I thought upgrading the CPU wouldn't affect my systems that much.

[antdude]

Raptor^: Yes, I kept the same motherboard since 440BX mobos can go up to P3 600 Mhz.

[antdude]

I noticed Matrox G400 is using IRQ11 and IRQ Holder for PCI Steering. I don't know if this is good or bad.

Do these look bad?

[Conflicts/Sharing]

IRQ 5 Diamond Multimedia FirePort PCI SCSI Host Adapter
IRQ 5 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
IRQ 10 Creative SB Live!
IRQ 10 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
IRQ 10 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 11 Matrox Millennium G400 DualHead - English
IRQ 11 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
IRQ 12 3Com EtherLink 10/100 PCI TX NIC (3C905B-TX)
IRQ 12 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 14 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 15 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller


[DMA]

1 Creative SB16 Emulation
2 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
4 Direct memory access controller
5 Creative SB16 Emulation
0 (free)
3 (free)
6 (free)
7 (free)

[antdude]

So far no crash from 5:30 PM to 8:15 PM when I am only surfing the Web in Netscape Communicator and Opera, reading newsgroups, listening to MP3s via Winamp, and other simple tasks at once.

Hmm!!!!!!!!! Something is fishy.

[antdude]

I just remember something. I forgot to note that I had my 3Dfx Voodoo2 (Creative Labs) card installed before the upgrade. I removed it since it became useless and Matrox G400 card was kicking butt. I used a Voodoo 2 Tweaker (http://www.leinen.com/software/system.htm) to be able to use either Voodoo2 or Matrox G400 before my upgrade. It works flawlessly!

Did Voodoo2 cards use IRQ and DMA? I wonder if removing it made the others card to take over its spot and started the conflicts. I searched high and low to find any 3Dfx/Voodoo left overs. Any ideas where else they might he hiding?

[mugwump]

1) You upgraded your cpu. Do you have the latest bios version for your motherboard.
2) If your system is OC'd, try resetting to defaults.
3) You mentioned concern about your RAM. A free tester is available at www.simtester.com. The thing works.
4) If you are concerned about conflicts and are in a position to do so (i.e. backed-up) why not do a format and clean install? Good luck.

WJC

[antdude]

mugwump:

1) Yes. 10/29/1999

2) Not overclocked. I don't believe in OC'ing and don't want my system to die early.

3. I will try it! I assume it is for DOS. I ran Norton Utilities 2000's but it runs in Windows. What good is that? It passed though. Weird. I think you meant www.simmtester.com (two m's).

4. I will do this as the last resort. I believe I can fix this. It sounds like a video conflict somewhere or maybe a memory problem. I do have the backup of my data because you never know when something get hosed during the upgrade.