CSS freezing up / crashing

[Eternaluk]

but I'm still afraid that it's some driver issue/conflict.

Ah, ok. :blink:  

 Stuff I don't understand.  ^^

[suicidal_monkey]

shut down all but what appeared to be essential to windows, still happens. fps readings drop from the normal 30-50 down to <10 according to net_graph, and that's when it's not too horrific. Gah.

[suicidal_monkey]

I installed the latest ATI/AMD driver pack and it seems to have helped, but the official ATI drivers conflict with my iMon (remote/VFD/media application) software and tend to freeze XP within a minute or so of both being active

[kregoron]

Im currently having some related issues with my steam..

Getting some connecting errors, Game stalls on retrieving server info 80% of the time... if im lucky and get past that it stalls at sending client info... And if im so lucky getting in most of the time it stalls with a sound loop...

Tried everything so far, all drivers up to date, no hardware failures whatsoever... gettting a bit frustrated here :S

Eventho i found a post about Creative sounds cards tonight on steam forums.. Basicly it said that apperently creative SB cards have some issues with which PCI slot its in, they can fail if they arent put in the closest to the GFX card AGP/PCI-e port, and this results in a lockup with a soundloop..

Ill try move my Creative card a slot up and see if its true tomorrow..

Else im gonna try a full reinstall of steam... (all those updates to download :S)

[Anonymous]

Eventho i found a post about Creative sounds cards tonight on steam forums.. Basicly it said that apperently creative SB cards have some issues with which PCI slot its in, they can fail if they arent put in the closest to the GFX card AGP/PCI-e port, and this results in a lockup with a soundloop..

Ill try move my Creative card a slot up and see if its true tomorrow..

Else im gonna try a full reinstall of steam... (all those updates to download :S)

My SB card couldn't be further away from the graphisc card if it tried. Additionally, the physical distnce the card is away from GP is irrelevant as it depends on th layou and line routing of the particular board; remember that your SB card is PCI and your GPU is prob AGP or PCIe so the signals from one slot type to anoth have to go through various busses and interfaces.

[kregoron]

I know it sound odd, and shouldnt have the slightest to do with what slot the creative card is inserted in, im just bringing on what they wrote in the post
http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=150&p_created=1093320749&p_sid=nKhdZgui&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NCZwX3Byb2RzPTY0JnBfY2F0cz0wJnBfcHY9MS42NDsyLnUwJnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1zb3VuZGNhcmQ*&p_li=&p_topview=1

Ill investigate a bit why steam claims so..

[suicidal_monkey]

my hardware setup has not changed in the past 6 months to a year, and this problem is relatively new. I think it may have been due to the latest OMEGA drivers for ATI not playing nicely... of course the official ones break my pc in other ways so I can't win :sideways: (...where's that smiley bashing into the brick wall gone?) ...going to try the old Omega drivers next:rolleyes:

[delanvital]

If your setup has not changed, it is either faulty hardware or software problems. Since the machine can run other games fine, I would say stick to the software issues. What problems occur when you use the ATI drivers?

[suicidal_monkey]

What problems occur when you use the ATI drivers?

My computer case is the silverstone LC11M model with a Soundgraph VFD (disply) and iMon remote control software etc. There seems to be some sort of conflict between the official ATI driver software and the iMon software, although it seems less reproducile than when it last occurred (the old iMon drivers that I got last year with the case made XP freeze up totally after about 1 minute of running if the official old ATI drivers were used)

I used to use the OMEGA version of the radeon drivers as this did not conflict with iMon. Then iMon updated from 4.xx to 5.xx of it's software and the official ATI drivers worked fine with it. Since then ATI, OMEGA, and iMON have all updated their drivers/software. The new OMEGAs appear to have been a factor in the jitteryness and crashing in CSSource because with the official ATI drivers Source seems better (not perfect but better). However I noticed the same old XP-freeze thing happen a few times after I'd updated to official ATI drivers. This was avoided by shutting down the iMon software asap after booting. Though having said that the pc has been happily running with iMon this morning ... bloody software conflicts, hard to trace the actual cause. It might have something to do with the official ATI drivers using dot.net for the Control centre software as I seem to recall basic official drivers being fine. argh. def new pc sometime this year!

edit: if I shut down the iMon software and then try to restart it again the .exe appears in the task manager but the program fails to open (doesn't use up cpu cycles either) and is not running according to a related program that requires it. All very annoying really.

[delanvital]

WHIW try cleaning out the old Omegas completely? I remember uninstalling them was rather difficult (that is, to uninstall completely)...

[suicidal_monkey]

grrr ... thought it was all happy but then it happened again. With the old OMEGA drivers. booo. It did however manage to notice it had an error this last time and I didn't have to reset the pc...

unfortunately it didn't manage to dump the error message or whatever it said it was going to do. Best I've got is this from the admin tools event viewer:

Faulting application hl2.exe, version 0.0.0.0, faulting module datacache.dll, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x0000b413.

Code Select Expand

0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74   Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c   ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 68 6c 32   ure  hl2
0018: 2e 65 78 65 20 30 2e 30   .exe 0.0
0020: 2e 30 2e 30 20 69 6e 20   .0.0 in
0028: 64 61 74 61 63 61 63 68   datacach
0030: 65 2e 64 6c 6c 20 30 2e   e.dll 0.
0038: 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 61 74   0.0.0 at
0040: 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20    offset
0048: 30 30 30 30 62 34 31 33   0000b413
0050: 0d 0a                     ..

[delanvital]

grrr ...

Did you ever test the integrity of the games in steam?

[suicidal_monkey]

Did you ever test the integrity of the games in steam?

I tested the integrity of CSS, defragged it, and re-downloaded it. I guess I could totally remove steam (if I can remember what my password was!! ) and reinstall that...could be hl2 I guess? Chkdsk showed up no problems either so if my hdd is dying it's doing so cunningly...

[DuVeL]

Who knows, this might do the trick:
Delete BLOB-file and such (but then you need to put in your password and such again)...

[DrSteam]

2. I'm hesitant to try this as my case is a pain to get into - any idea what sheet material (e.g. baking paper) I could use to make sure the gfx card is isolated from the casing?

I couldnt help but notice this. Is your pc by any chance a dell?  Don't try shoving foreign objects into your pc. I could link you to some proper padding if you want to
 You really should get inside that case. If you dont want to do it then maybe you know someone who can.
 It might be that your fans, and heat sinks are full of dust. Plus when I have any kind of major problem like this I always reseat my ram and graphics card. All the vibration inside your case can sometimes vibrate them loose. If you do get these suckers out of your motherboard, check the contacts to see that they are nice and shiny.
Optional....:49_49: :
 If they are dull or dirty then get a pencil rubber and gently rub at them...... the connections that is  :blink:  .  When you have finished give them a little clean with methylated spirits to remove any dirt.