How do I turn off Overclocking??

[Ragnarok]

What type of problems are you having exactly? Perhaps we could help you out.

[rdouglass]

I've had very good luck doing this with CPU's that displayed "overclocking symptoms". Although doesn't directly address the overclock issue but may be of some help. Probably won't though if the problem is game-specific. If it is computer-wide, it may be of help.

DISCLAIMER: Write down / record *all* your BIOS settings before you do this.

Generally, you can test the overclocking theory with almost all MB's manufactured in the Last 4 years or so by going into the BIOS and loading the "Fail-Safe Settings". If the stuff works then, try going back in and putting your BIOS settings back until it fails. Then you should have a better ideas as to the culprit.

[Renegade 13]

Ragnarok said:
What type of problems are you having exactly? Perhaps we could help you out.

The problem only occurs with the game "X2 - The Threat". Its a space simulation game. The problem is, I install the game, load the most recent patch, and launch the game. The initial loading screen shows, stays around for about 5 seconds, then crashes to the desktop with no error message whatsoever. I updated all drivers, checked for viruses, got the latest Version of DX, checked for adware, spyware, etc., and did a whole bunch of other things that I can't remember right now. I posted on the technical forum at the site of the game, and none of their tips and suggestions did any good. If you have any other suggestions on what to do, by all means, give them!

[Spoo]

Sound card? Can you access a settings utillity for the game? (sometimes it's a seperate program or configuration text file) If so, try disabling sound.

[Aiken]

I talked with guys in russian x2 forums and they told me it could be a patch issue. You only should update to 1.4 (latest) from 1.2 Version of the game. Does it crash without latest patch installed?

Another thing they told me is that game, in spite its uncountable merits, is very buggy. They experienced a lot of ctds too.

I remember one issue then game always crushed in particular location at 10:41:51 (local game time). Very odd.

[Thermodyne]

Boot to bios and see what the FSB is set to. If it is the same as the CPU rating, then check the memory. If the memory is at rated buss speed and the timings are not altered look at the vidio card. If it is set to default, nothing is OC'd. If the system is OEM like Dell or Compaq, it is not OC'd.

If you want to see what you have, DL and run Sandra. It will show you what the system has under the hood and let you run some bench marks.

Many games need patches to make them run stable. SE4 was a real PITA until the first patch.

[Renegade 13]

aiken said:
I talked with guys in russian x2 forums and they told me it could be a patch issue. You only should update to 1.4 (latest) from 1.2 Version of the game. Does it crash without latest patch installed?

Another thing they told me is that game, in spite its uncountable merits, is very buggy. They experienced a lot of ctds too.

I remember one issue then game always crushed in particular location at 10:41:51 (local game time). Very odd.

The Version that came on the CD was the UK Version 1.3 (or it might have been 1.2...I can't remember). I installed it, ran it, and that was the first time I got the CTD. I then downloaded the patch, installed it, and got the exact same issue at about the exact same point in loading.

I'm beginning to expect that there may be an incompatibility issue with the game and some of the hard/software on the computer.

Thermodyne, I've already determined that there is a 99% chance that my computer is not OC'd, so I don't think it matters anymore. But thanks a lot for the instructions!

I've downloaded Sandra, run a system report, and found a strange thing...when it was "analysing processes" it hung up and would not continue. Froze, it seems. I disabled the analysis of the processes and it ran just fine and generated a report of my system. Most of which I don't understand! However, the fact that it hung up when analysing the processes tells me that there may be something running in the background that is screwing things up. This seems odd though, as one of the solutions I tried to get the game to work was to disable as many of the background processes as I safely could, and it made no effect. But its still an odd thing...

Thanks once again Aiken and Thermodyne for the assistance.

[Aiken]

If you want to investigate what's running on a background, you can do following:
Download Hijackthis utility. It's small.
Lanch it. Click on Config... button, then Misc Tools. You'll see Generate StartupList log button. Make sure that option List also minor sections (full) is enabled. Now click Generate StartupList log button and you'll get detailed log of starup apps and processes in a notepad window. Save this log to txt file and attach it to your reply on this board. Probably together will be able to find the source of your problem (if it's not a hardware problem of course).

[Baron Munchausen]

Hijackthis is good for getting the details on a worm or virus when you really know something is wrong but it's rather a lot of trouble when you don't know you've got a problem. You could just the the 'Power Toys' and 'Kernel Toys' from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/

And use 'Wintop' from the Kernel Toys to check your running processes. This displays CPU usage, too, so it would tell you where your CPU power is going. It's originally for Win95/98 but as far as I know this works under Win NT/2000/XP as well.

[Fyron]

The Task Manager in Win2k/XP lists all running processes as well as CPU and RAM usage by default. It just tells you process names though, not where the program is located. Does this WinTop tell you more than just the process names?

Hmm... WinTop.exe failed to run on Win2k for me.