TROUBLESHOOT: Random crashes and system instability
Added on 07/04/2005 @ 00:40:43
Applies to NHL EHM, FM 2005, SI, OOTPBM 2006, NHL EHM 2005, FM 2006, NHL EHM 2005 NA, NHL EHM 2007, FM 2007,
If you experience random crashes either in our games or in other games as well (or even some applications), then it is possible that your system is unstable. This can be the case if the CPU is overheating, memory is faulty, and so on. There are various free tools out there you can use to test the stability of your system ('stress test' your system).
- Prime95. Download, install and run the 'torture test' for a few hours. It will tell you whether it succeeds or fails. It will certainly tell you if it fails (in capital letters). If it fails, it means there is a problem with your system - this can be the CPU overheating (possible if you are overclocking, or simply the CPU does not have proper heating) or memory problems. It is important you run it for a long time (at least a couple of hours) so that the CPU is constantly stressed for a long period of time.
- CPU Burn-in.This tool is similar to Prime95 in that it (mainly) tests the processor of your system. Install it and run the test. Again it is important that it is run for a long period of time - preferably at least a couple of hours. It will let you know whether it passes or fails the tests.
- Memtest86. This is a memory testing utility. After downloading, run the installer. They now offer a bootable CD image (ISO), so download this and burn the image onto a blank CD (it's important you burn the image and not add the image file as a file to a new CD compilation - most burning software have some sort of "burn image" feature somewhere). Once finished, reboot the computer with the CD in the main CD drive. It should now boot into Memtest and automatically start testing your memory. A single run through all the tests will take 20-30 minutes, it's recommended you let it run for a couple of hours. Does your PC not boot from the CD? If your system does not boot from the newly created CD even with the disk in the drive, this is most likely because your BIOS is not set up to boot from the CD-ROM. You will need to go into your BIOS to change this set up so that it scans the CD-ROM drive first for bootable images - otherwise it will conveniently ignore the memtest bootdisk.
- Microsoft Memory Diagnostic. Similar to Memtest, this tool from Microsoft allows you to test your memory. Like Memtest, once downloaded, run the installer and it will ask you to create either a bootdisk or a bootcd. So now you can choose which medium to boot from - use whatever is the more convenient for you. Like memtest above, if it does not boot from the newly created bootdisk or -cd, then you will need to change your BIOS setup so it scans either the floppy drive or the cd-rom first for a bootable image. Once booted into the diagnostic tools cd, run the tests.
- Video Card Stability Tester. Although FM doesn't tax your video card as much as many other games do, if the card isn't stable it may cause general system problems, so it's recommended you run this test - it's a small and free download. Just download, install (you can turn off the screensaver, desktop icon, etc) and then run it up. Click "Start" and let it run between half an hour and an hour - if everything is still running fine and you see no artefacts or have had no video card crashes, most likely your graphics card is fine.
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