[Tordenskjold]

I have this system:

AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ Dual Core

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D S939

1G Kingston DDR PC3200 400MHz

Thermaltake Shark Black

Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JS 200GB 72000rpm

XFX 570MHz 7600GT 256MB Extreme Edition

I built the pc myself and have only had it for a few days and when i run games like cod2, FEAR, tomb raider legend it seems to eithger just exit the games randomly after a short period of time, or it freezes and forces me to restart the pc. I am running XP PRO and have not updated it yet because i dont have internet atm. I have installed all the drives etc. and i am pretty sure i have put everything together alright. does anyone have any idea what it could be?

thanks alot

P.S: i was thinking it could be due to the fact that the CPU is dual core, and i was wondering how to turn one of the cores off temporarily)

[Nitestick]

"ctrl-alt-del", look at the applications list (if you have the game running) right click on the game and click "go to process". once you know which process the game is right click it and click "set affinity", assign it to one of the cores here using the checkboxes. this will not be permanent, only remains for the time you have the application open. normally crashing games are related to video card though.

[Tordenskjold]

so it is a problem with my video card?

[Nitestick]

i didn't say that either, i said it is most likely video card related which doesn't necessarily mean the card is damaged. probably drivers.

[Fwiffo]

Oh, me and a friend had this same problem

[Tordenskjold]

i only have service pack 1 as service pack 2 wont let me install because it is a pirated copy of xp (shhh).

and ill update my BIOS and drivers when i get home from school. But i think it is the service pack thing?

[gaara]

well there's your problem...you need to update to SP2 as much as it sucks and install the multicore drivers from AMDs site + the hotfix from microsoft...otherwise your CPU won't have the proper thermal throttling settings and you'll get processor speed ups and slow downs

[Tordenskjold]

yeh but my prob is that i have an illegal copy of xp pro

[Nitestick]

thats a load of crap. sp2 has nothing to stop it from being installed on a non-genuine copy of windows xp UNLESS you download it through windows update. all you need is the redistributable .exe installer.

[magouster]

Are we giving advice to promote Software Piracy? *shhhhhtttttt* Keep it quiet then, the mods might not like it.