[Galaky]

Game Stopping Event: Game freezes instantly while playing the last second of sound over and over

I've looked all over the place, tried many things, and Halflife 2 seems to constantly crash after about 20 minutes of gameplay. I've disabled sound, deaccelerated the sound, dropped the audio/video quality in the game to near zilch, tried the "2 Speakers" solution, attempted to update my sound card (uh, let me know if that requires me to go to a website vs clicking Update Driver), I've had my video card updated from a Battlefield 2 problem I once had, and nothing has helped/worked.

Specs:
-1gb ram
-3.20 ghz Pent. 4
-Radeon X300/X550 Series (with different drivers this varies to Radeon X300)
-SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
-DirectX 9.0c

Please help me, for all I wish to do is return to the beautiful world of Halflife 2. I'll be checking this daily! (That's how bad I want to fix this!)

[DosFreak]

Download memtest86+ to test your memory.

Monitor your processor's temperature using Motherboard monitor or SpeedFan.

Freezing problems with games are almost always caused by the above two issues.

[Galaky]

Ok, I downloaded Memtest86+. I let it install stuff to a floppy to boot from on restart, restarted, watched it do it's thing, went to work, came back, and it had frozen at 1:03:58 into it... I had to shut down the computer then cause it totally froze. On reboot (popped out the floppy) I ran Motherboard Monitor. My motherboard is not supported (Dell 8400)... it wasn't even on the list. THEN I installed SpeedFan... and I guess that I can't control the speed of my fans cause it doesn't even recognize them as existant (only Temp:"HD0 (160.0gb)"). But (a taste of hope) I decided to try HL2 again for the heck of it, and guess what... it lagged a little... but I got past that part, only for it to fully lag up again 10 minutes later (at the flaming wall you encounter on that fan-boat).

Thanx for the time in letting me know of these possibly great programs, but they did not solve my problem. If there is anyone who knows of a way to solve this annoying crash, please lend me a hand via posting... anything is worth my time if it might help.

PS. Perhaps "crash" is the wrong word. "Freezes" or "Hangs" would probably be more appropriate since the game just sits there repeating itself over and over again (audio-wise, the video freezes)

[kopaka]

Originally posted by Galaky:

Quote:

Ok, I downloaded Memtest86+...and it had frozen at 1:03:58 into it...

I'd say you found your problem--or at the very least, a problem! Your system should never lock up running a memory test, especially not after only an hour.

Did it report any errors before it froze? You could try swapping the two sticks of RAM to see if that helps, or even try running with just 512 MBs to help further isolate the problem.

No matter how you slice it, though: bad memory = dysfunctional system.

-k

[RJ Fighter]

I'm sorry if bumping topics in this forum is not allowed, but I have to in order to address this issue.

Galaky, I am having the exact same problem, and my PC is basically the same as yours. I've tried memtest86 and it didn't give me any errors, my motherboard (Dell 4700) is not supported by Motherboard Monitor, and my fans aren't detected in Speedfan either. I have been using an external fan blowing on the card but it doesn't seem to have any effect. At first it did stop the crashing, but it has seemed to go back to the way it was before I tried using the fan.

I would appreciate a solution. I do not want to have to resort to buying another graphics card.

[Relic]

Open Steam itself, not HL2, but Steam.

Click on "File/Settings/Messages", uncheck my games and news/updates. I found that when I had Steam sending me instant messages, it tends to do it while you're playing, which screwed my game up. Hopefully that fixes the problem for you.

[RJ Fighter]

I'll give that a shot, but I doubt it will fix the repetitive crashing. I'll reply back this evening with my result when my clan server goes back online.