Posted February 5, 200520 yr Below is a list of my computers current product specifications: WinXP Professional 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build #2600) Intel P4 (Northwood/Prescott), 3.20 GHz, L1: 8KB L2: 512KB, FSB: 800MHz w/ HyperThreading ASUS P4SD-LA PES (rev 0.01) Motherboard w/ Intel 848P (Breeds Hill) Chipset Kingston 1Gb Non-ECC CL3 PC3200 DDR 400MHz RAM HP F1903 19-inch LCD Thin Transistor Monitor XFX NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT AGP 8x 128Mb, RAMDAC: 400MHz 1280 x 1024 32bit 75Hz (Desktop Resolution) 1024 x 768 32bit 75Hz (In-game Resolution) Two hours ago, I upgraded my computer from an ATI Radeon 9800SE AGP 8x 128Mb to the above listed video card and now, approximately 5 minutes after Half-life 2 or CS:Source is launched using the shortcut on my desktop, whether I have an actual game/server loaded or just sitting at the main menu screen, my computer will reboot. During the time either game is loaded, which both use the same Source Engine, I press no keys on my mouse or keyboard. I am using the latest video card drivers, as well as all the latest Windows updates. Just yesterday I played Half-Life 2 and CS:S for several hours while my ATI Radeon 9800SE AGP 8x 128Mb was still installed, and had no problems, I have had both for months, and even completed HL2 while using my previous card when it first came out. I have searched Google and found nothing pertaining to this problem, as well as the official Steam forums. This problem is reproduced every time, however it does not occur while operatng Windows normally from the desktop, only while in-game with HL2 or CS:S. Below are my command line parameters from my desktop shortcuts for both games: HL2: "C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 220 -console CSS: "C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 240 -console The previous video card I had stated above, was hardware DX8 while the new card is DX9, so I am not 100% sure if the problem lies in the video card itself, or if this is a DirectX issue, as I have heard reports both causing similar problems with Half-Life 2 AND Doom3. I have also disabled every option for hibernation through the Windows control panel, as well as tried forcing a different level of DirectX for shaders by using the command line option -dxlevel 80/81/90, none of which sovled the problem. I have tried my video card with the following games: Call of Duty, GTA:VC, The Sims Online, RTCW, BF1942, BF1942: Vietnam, and Soldier of Fortune: Double Helix. All of which run great and have no problems with the new card.
February 5, 200520 yr Author yeah i did uninstall them, and it works fine with every other game i have, so im pretty sure its the source engine. besdies the gfx card, only other hardware ive added was a 2nd hd and more ram.
February 5, 200520 yr what drivers are you using? last time my cs:s fucked up i downgraded to asus's drivers which were around a month older. so try the manufacturer's drivers as well as the original detonator. just wanted to note, that i heard many scary stories about the 6600gt. one guy i know fried 2 of them without overclocking them, they simply got too warm and died for no reason. unfortunately theres no ati equivalent in that price class, but i highly recommend you to get another card, even though theres only a problem with source games now.
February 5, 200520 yr Author yeah, my shit beats even the reccomended and it gives me problems. i wouldnt care, but the fact is i cant even play HL2, i want one or the other. i was looking forward to hl2 with the new card more though, now i dont have either and i seriously doubt there is a solution besides getting a different card or going back to my old one.
February 5, 200520 yr Author what drivers are you using? last time my cs:s fucked up i downgraded to asus's drivers which were around a month older. so try the manufacturer's drivers as well as the original detonator. just wanted to note, that i heard many scary stories about the 6600gt. one guy i know fried 2 of them without overclocking them, they simply got too warm and died for no reason. unfortunately theres no ati equivalent in that price class, but i highly recommend you to get another card, even though theres only a problem with source games now. downgrading my drivers is what ive heard most people do to sovle lots of similar problems with the source engine, im currently using the latest nvidia drivers, 66.33 i believe. ill try out some different ones, and look into upgrading the drivers for my mobo as well.
February 5, 200520 yr i dont have a geforce, i got a x800 xt. but i did get crashes every time i started cs/hl2 and was not able to play it. so i got some drivers from the ati site and all of a sudden it worked. i think it was version 8.08 of whatever asus calls their own drivers. i was only surprised that the files were actually older than the ones i got from ati. e: i dont know when the patch for cs:s got released but you might wanna try a driver that was out before that. just and idea.
February 5, 200520 yr The Source engine generates configs and "tweaks" various cvars for different GPU architectures, I've actually had STEAM warn me once before that it could not guarantee performance due to non-WHQL approved drivers, that was from a CD version of Half-Life2. My advice follows Rename all your .CFGs to .BAK (well config.cfg anyway) Delete your "counter-strike source" folder (not the caches though) Download a WHQL approved nVIDIA driver Ensure that you are running the latest firmware for your motherboard/graphics card Reset CMOS to defaults Try your graphics card in a friends' PC EDIT-- I just re-read your post and noticed you said your computer automatically reboots itself. This is likely due to Windows XP's default setting for a fatal system error. Follow these steps to disable this "feature". Right click My Computer > Properties Click on the "Advanced" tab Click on the bottom "Settings" button under the heading "Startup and Recovery" Remove the tick from "Automatically restart" Next time, you will recieve the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD). This may give you a filename (eg nv4_disp.dll) or simply spit out a hex error code (0x0000008E). Post in this thread if you want my assitance or simply google the error code.
February 5, 200520 yr hey, same problem, only it went away after a month, cos my new rig at christmas, amd 64 3700, 6800gt 256, 1gb ram and i was getting ALOT of reboots, usually when steam is running, very rarely in anything else, and alot of the time in hl2, not so much in css, i tried lots of things, upgrading, downgrading drivers, changing settings in bios, nothing helped, but it slowly started to go away, try changing your vcore in bios, or get some new drivers and try to launch as DX8, ive heard it helps
February 5, 200520 yr i got the same card but i never had any problems running hl2 after i installed it.
February 5, 200520 yr got anything on ur puter overclocked? mine reboots randomly when playing css if i have overclocked my cpu or gfx
February 7, 200520 yr Author The problem seems to have been resolved now. I took another look at the power configuration and it turns out I didn't have the 12-volts reccomended for use for the NIVIDIA GeForce 6800-based video card, which includes the 6600 apparently. The manual states you should have at least a 350Watt or higher power supply. So, after connecting the appropriate Y cable with enough power, all is well. I think it's interesting though, out of all the games I tried this on, the Half-Life 2 Source engine was the only one which caused the card to require that extra power, resulting in a system crash and reboot.
February 7, 200520 yr Author poor you thats what u get for buying a nvidia gay card I get around 85fps in a 20 player server with everything set to high + reflect world. Medium I get about 90-100 in 20 player server, and on low I get about 115-125 in a 20 player server. Even set to low it looks better than it did, with my previous ATI Radeon 9800SE AGP 8x 128Mb I got around 30 with everything set to low or disabled and 10fps with anythnig set above that. poor you no matter what card you have
