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This is interesting...
the_exile
Kupo!
in Zocalo v2.0
Just got my PC back a few days ago, and I've started reinstalling all my games and stuff, when I started getting an interesting problem. Any game I play, be it Counter-Strike or UT2K3 or Jedi Academy, randomly decides to get an error anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour into the game. I'm not sure what is up, but I think it mighthave something to do with how I f*cked my PC up... well, how I f*cked it up while trying to fix it after f*cking it up. :)
Basically, I screwed up my wiring somehow and couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I brought it over to a friend's house, and we started messing with stuff. Turns out, my wiring was fine, but it wasn't recognizing my hard drive, so we messed arund in the BIOS a bit, and finally tried setting up the FastTrack controller, which it mentions every time I boot up. It said something about partitions and arrays, and after we'd arrayed something or other, we still couldn't get it to work, so I sent it to a guy I know who works for Sprint, who told us we'd screwed up the BIOS to the point where he couldn't get into it (long story :D), so he'd had to reset that, and that my hard drive (which we had not once managed to access) was totally wiped. He reinstalled Windows and patched it up nice and good, and sent it back. My friend who was originally helping me said that he thinks the arraying didn't wipe my hard drive, but stored it somewhere where it can't access it... which makes sense, because the setup was talking about partitions and... arrays, whatever they are.
Now, I've got this totally random theory that having two copies of all my game files might be confusing my PC or something, but that's probably wrong, and I just figured I'd mention it on the off chance that it gave someone an idea... anyone know WTH is wrong?
Basically, I screwed up my wiring somehow and couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I brought it over to a friend's house, and we started messing with stuff. Turns out, my wiring was fine, but it wasn't recognizing my hard drive, so we messed arund in the BIOS a bit, and finally tried setting up the FastTrack controller, which it mentions every time I boot up. It said something about partitions and arrays, and after we'd arrayed something or other, we still couldn't get it to work, so I sent it to a guy I know who works for Sprint, who told us we'd screwed up the BIOS to the point where he couldn't get into it (long story :D), so he'd had to reset that, and that my hard drive (which we had not once managed to access) was totally wiped. He reinstalled Windows and patched it up nice and good, and sent it back. My friend who was originally helping me said that he thinks the arraying didn't wipe my hard drive, but stored it somewhere where it can't access it... which makes sense, because the setup was talking about partitions and... arrays, whatever they are.
Now, I've got this totally random theory that having two copies of all my game files might be confusing my PC or something, but that's probably wrong, and I just figured I'd mention it on the off chance that it gave someone an idea... anyone know WTH is wrong?
Comments
give me a few more details as to what exactly was done, what messages u are getting, etc... SPECS for the computer would help too, including your O/S.
If all else fails, format and reinstall. :)
[B]after doing all of that... any number of things man... first thing i'd do is check and update ALL of your drivers. esp sound and video. and don't mess with BIOS unless u know what yer doing :) anyways, if u made an array it sounds like u set up a RAID... probably unintentionally? that could have screwy effects if u don't know what one is and didn't want one in the first place.
give me a few more details as to what exactly was done, what messages u are getting, etc... SPECS for the computer would help too, including your O/S.
If all else fails, format and reinstall. :) [/B][/QUOTE]
Everything is updated, the BIOS is reset (it's not that we didn't know what we were doing, it's just that we got desperate :p), and yeah, the whole FastTrack fiasco was just because we were totally clueless as to what was wrong at that point. I definetely didn't want a RAID... only one functional HD in my PC right now, anyways.
Specs:
Windows XP Pro
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
P4 2.4Ghz
ATI Radeon 9800 Non-PRO
512Mb PC-3200 DDRRAM
80Gb Maxtor HD
Hmmm... I can't think of anything else that could possibly be relevant... maybe my sound card? :p
Check with the person who you had fix your system if they moved any PCI cards while they were in there. It could be that one of the cards doesn't like the slot it's in (conflicts with either another card or a built in device). My TV Tuner always has that problem...generally I have to try 2 or 3 slots before I can get it working on my system. Nothing will show up as conflicting, but when the game tries to address it, it connects to the wrong card somehow. The most likely culprits are: Vid card and either Sound or Network card are on the same IRQ. IRQs are shared within the PCI bus, but generally there are enough so about half your slots have unique addresses and half your slots have shared addresses. And I know that while IRQs never should be shared between the AGP and PCI buses, mobo manufaturers often set up their mobos that way!
There are two options to fix this if its the problem: (1) Move cards to other PCI slots until the problem dissapears (you will have to reinstall the drivers every time), or (2) Increase the number/change the allocation of IRQs to the PCI bus in BIOS.
Hope this helps.
--RC
[B]Also, what exactly *are* the messages you're getting? [/B][/QUOTE]
yes, as sanny said, this was the most important request i made, the EXACT messages help alot. :)
[B]Could be PCI slot conflict.
Check with the person who you had fix your system if they moved any PCI cards while they were in there. It could be that one of the cards doesn't like the slot it's in (conflicts with either another card or a built in device). My TV Tuner always has that problem...generally I have to try 2 or 3 slots before I can get it working on my system. Nothing will show up as conflicting, but when the game tries to address it, it connects to the wrong card somehow. The most likely culprits are: Vid card and either Sound or Network card are on the same IRQ. IRQs are shared within the PCI bus, but generally there are enough so about half your slots have unique addresses and half your slots have shared addresses. And I know that while IRQs never should be shared between the AGP and PCI buses, mobo manufaturers often set up their mobos that way!
There are two options to fix this if its the problem: (1) Move cards to other PCI slots until the problem dissapears (you will have to reinstall the drivers every time), or (2) Increase the number/change the allocation of IRQs to the PCI bus in BIOS.
Hope this helps.
--RC [/B][/QUOTE]
Only thing in a PCI is my sound card... I've discovered that the Counter-Strike errors are a normal thing thanks to Steam, and though I don't know about UT2K3, I haven't had a single error in JK:JA ever since I initially got some random error about the launcher. I wrote down the UT2K3 error and lost the piece of paper :rolleyes:, so if it happens again, I'll post it here. I wouldn't have written it down if were beyond my ability to fix (and that ability is much greater than I make it out to be :p), so I assume it was pretty bad.
[B]80Gb Maxtor HD[/B][/QUOTE]
80gb HaX0r HD? Jesus Exile, you're more leet than I thought...
Regards,
Morden
[B]80gb HaX0r HD? Jesus Exile, you're more leet than I thought...
Regards,
Morden [/B][/QUOTE]
lol... I almost got a 160Gb, but I figured I've got plenty of small HDs if I want to set up a RAID in the future, and prices can only go down.
Oh, and do you still play CS?