Well where do i begin…
Whenever I play OpenGL based games like Medal of Honor, UT2K3, any Q3 engine game, it would randomly reboot my system in game. However whenever I play a direct3d game (bf1942, aom, etc.) i experience no problems. My bro came down today and I swapped out my evga geforece 4 ti 4400 for his gainward " 4200 golden sample and the problems are still there…so i know now that its not the vid card. All mobo and vidcard drivers are current and up to date (my current vidcard drivers are Omega’s detonator 45.23a’s. And now even CS wont run in opengl without freezing and locking up however in direct3d it works fine…I try burning in and testing my system with SiSoft Sandra, and it works and runs fine…3D Mark 2003 also works fine which is puzzling, however the individual tests do not last long enough for the apparent opengl bug i am having to take effect. This is a really odd problem, i dont even get a windows error message of anykind just hard lockup with soundloop or an automatic reboot…
I have checked to make sure my card wasnt overheating, and it wasnt, all temperatures are within normal ranges (even with the sidepanel on my comp off same, problems and I have 5 case fans inside). If anyone could please help me out here, i am at my whits end and a poor college kid who cant afford to replace parts 
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Here are a few thoughts on testing your machine for problems:
I do fear that it might be the motherboard or power supply - although other things can affect it as well. Try swapping your ram with someone. I’ve had ram testing software that claimed ram was good - yet it wasn’t. (Although I don’t think it’s a ram problem.) Another thing to isolate the problem (if it’s hardware) is to remove all cards except the video card and see if the problem persists. Then add them back one at a time until the problem re-occurs. If it isn’t the memory and the problem is there with only the video card, then it’s most likely the motherboard or the power supply. (There’s not much left once you strip a machine down like that.)
Make sure you have a good power supply since that can also be the root of your problems. Most people can get away with a good 250 watt power supply but in some cases you need a 300 watt supply if some of the power supply lines are not generating enough current. If you have power supply monitoring software (either as a separate app or in bios) then the voltages should be within 10% or less. Actually, 10% is on the extreme side. +/- 5% is more normal. I have had many machines exhibit random reboots and app failures when the 5 volt line goes down to just above 4.1 volts (approx). If you don’t have monitoring software then you could buy/borrow a VOM from someone and test it that way (or if someone could lend you a power supply…) You computer might be creating momentary current draws that exceed the margins for your power supply and that could cause the resets or lockups - this is one reason I usually go for a 300 watt P/S when the system is more than just “an office machine” running MS WORD. It’s not been the first time I had a power supply that seemed good on the surface - yet replacing it cured the problems of random crashes/lockups/reboots.
Some boards allow you to try a lower agp setting - thus lowering transfer rates. This is one area that I feel is never tested out properly. I’ve had testing software that passes hardware but actually fails once the system is stressed. The video card (and also the ide channels) are capable of long, high speed transfers of data. I’ve had hardware that passed software testing but would fail on sustained transfers. With those, a motherboard swap cured the problem.
Well, that’s my two cents on machine testing. If I remember anything else, I’ll post again.
Thank you much. I have an Antec TruBlu 480watt power supply so that isnt the problem. All bios settings and pagefiles settings are set for more then ample optimum performance. Like I said anything with Direct3D is normal and nor problems occur. Anything with OpenGL, boom random freezing with sound loop or an automatic cold reboot with no windows error messages or logs beforehand…It could be the mobo, but then why wouldnt it do the same for the Direct3D Apps?
Ok, then it’s most likely not a P/S problem. If it is in hardware, that would leave the ram or mobo.
First, you could try a complete uninstall / reinstall of the drivers. Can you run the drivers supplied by nvidia? Also, there are utilities that supposedly completely remove any “leftovers” after the video driver uninstall. That may be of help. I have never had the need, since I never had this difficulty with any nvidia product. Search on the web - one place I found these are: http://www.3dchipset.com/utilities/nvidia/removal
Regarding DX vs OpenGL drivers, I can see where you would raise that question. Although both attempt to achieve the same end result, they are obviously coded differently. Without knowing the actual driver code, all I could say is that OpenGL may be performing an operation in such a way to expose a hardware problem, whereas the DX code may not be. For example, I once obtained a capture card that caused my system to reboot. Suspecting a mobo problem, I wrote some code that confirmed this (with the capture card removed). In my case it was defective DMA - the problem was only exposed when performing large sustained data transfers. Normal operation of the computer did not push the system hard enough. Naturally, after replacing the mobo, everything was fine.
It’s hard to “black box” test something like this. All you can do is eliminate as many variables as possible. With my own systems, I’ve had 4200’s and GF FX cards with Win98 and XP and don’t have problems with drivers supplied from nvidia. I can’t say for sure if it’s hardware, but hopefully we can narrow down the possibilities and come up with a solution.
btw: Has this happened ever since you had your computer or did this problem just recently surfaced? And what is your computer configuration?
I have had this problem for about a year now, off and on…last time i solved all my problems by pulling out my soundcard (sound blaster live 5.1 digital) completely and using the integrated AC97 codec. I tried that again, same problems, althou it seemed to lengthen my playing time twofold; however, it ended up just rebooting on me…so I am stumped…no problems whatsoever with D3D stuff. I burned in my system with SiSoft Sandra and that didnt turn up any hardware problems with my pc at all, 3D Mark was able to run fine too; no sound though, and tests are too quick for my “bug” to take affect). Automatic freeze or reboot occurs anywhere from 2 mins. to 2 hours, totally random, we need to find a fix for this as I am reading plenty of people on this forum have the same problems. Thank you!
It’s hard to fix this problem without having the problem machine to work on. If it is hardware, I’d suspect the mobo. If software, I am unable to help - since I have not personally come across this problem myself. There are plenty of things to try though - just check for possible solutions in this forum. There are several things that people have tried and some had success. You should try some of them.
Good Luck
I have tried most everything in this forum already, to no avail, it just doesnt want to work…:’(
Originally posted by gAMec0cK:
I have tried most everything in this forum already, to no avail, it just doesnt want to work…
It sounds like your motherboard is bad. I had the exact same problem. Disabling my L2 cache in the bios (and taking a major performance hit) fixed my problem.
I eventually replaced my MOBO and have had no issues since.