This is every system I've ever owned - I've replaced just about everything except the motherboard and CPU on all of my computers at one point or another.

Zydor,



I'm obsessive about blasting dust out of my computer. I found some matted dust about the size of a thumbnail on my CPU after the crash.

I tried reseating everything when the rebooting started - the RAM, the video card, the sound card, the ATA cables, the power supply cables, and the end result was really no change. So I tried pulling RAM and the system stabilized.



It takes forever to load a map now, and it takes a few seconds longer than I like to save ship templates. I write this off to my constricted RAM.

And I knew it couldn't be GalCiv causing the rebooting just because it would happen when I was in safe mode, in normal mode, in the BIOS screen, watching the boot screen.

Aloriel,



I've been hearing good things about Sins of a Solar Empire.

I did play MoO (which I had fun with until MoO2) and MoO3 (which almost immediately prompted me to pick up GalCiv - that and Brad coming around to talk about his game).

I'll see if TA can load my saved immense game, although I had common stars and abundant planets.

i've been watching this thread, and all i can say is, at least RAM is pretty cheap. i just got a deal on 2GB (2x1GB) from Corsair: $67 - $40 MIR. the price jumped up to $87 again right after i bought it, but i'm pretty sure if you have a watchful eye and you're willing to wait, you can do at least as well.

Wow, good deal.

I can immediately get another gb for $59 from Tiger Direct, but I haven't done much shopping around.

what sort of specs are you looking for? i browse newegg as a past time and wouldn't mind keeping an eye out for you.

PC2700 DDR 333, 184 pin, 1 gigabyte.

Newegg already has cheaper RAM, by about $5-10, which isn't bad.

What I really truly need is a new motherboard and processor (preferably dual), but that probably won't happen for a few months.

You really should try to ensure that the new memory uses the same BIOS timings as you old ones - even if they are not directly paired with them. Download an application called CPU-z and it will tell you what your current timings are. Either to ensure that you are not wasting money on high speed (low latency) RAM that you wont get the benefit of - or, worse but less likely, slower RAM that could slow your system down.

Sorry, if you already know this.

Okay, so my RAM is 333 mhz, but cpu-z says it's running at half that. What's up with that? And how do I make it not do that?

I mean, the RAM I described above is exactly what's slotted in my motherboard, and is in fact the same kind that came stock with the machine (although I purchased that stick separately).

Phaedyme in cpu-z it should show !!

your bus speed should show 167 mhz

your Rated FSB front bus speed should be 333 mhz

Nasty

Ah, okay. All is right with the world again. Thank you.

not that it's any of my business, but may i suggest using PC Wizard (same developer as cpu-z), rather than cpu-z. it's much more accurate and there are so many more things you will find out about your system, as well as apply a few little tweaks if you choose.

another thing i like to use is the site PC PitStop. though there are probably programs out there that do the same, i like this site as it is generally bang on about what i my current rig is.

anyways... good luck

I don't know PC Pitstop (I'll need to check it out) - another useful tool is SiSoft Sandra.

In CPU-z you need to also look at two tabs:

"Memory" - The "Timings" section gives the specific BIOS timings currently being used by your system.

"SPD" - The "Timings Table" section gives the BIOS timings that your RAM reports as supporting. NOTE: There is a separate set of timings given for each bank of RAM - and they can be different and each bank may support more than one set of timings.

A BIOS setting of "Auto/SPD" (or words to that effect) is meant to use the best set of timings supported by all the banks. Mine was actually using far worse timings than the memory could support (probably erring on the side of caution).

The first three numbers in the "Timings Table" after Frequency are the ones often quoted for RAM chips (4-4-3 for me) - buying RAM with lower values than your current RAM will probably be a waste of money (unless you change the lot).

Before you go messing with your BIOS settings, some words of warning:

- if your not sure of what you are doing then "Auto/SPD" should be safe.

- some BIOS's wont allow you to change these values and are stuck on Auto.

- if your not sure of what you are doing then "Auto/SPD" should be safe.

- the names given for all the timing values may not match those shown in your BIOS, a web search to match up the terminology should sort it out.

- if your not sure of what you are doing then "Auto/SPD" should be safe.

looking for ECC or no? (my guess is yes, since the modules you had your eye on were more expensive; i've found non-ECC sticks on ebay for as low as $20).

i'd suggest ebay for 184-pin RAM as at least worth checking out. you might be able to find a better deal. keep in mind you can buy DDR 400 and it won't lower the performance of your current stick (the new one will work lower than maximum speed, but if you find a 400 stick for the same price or less, there's no reason not get it).

honestly, if you can survive in the short term without putting more money into your current machine, my humble opinion is that it might be better to focus your financial resources on a new system. i recently did that myself; i'd owned a Dell for less than 2 years and its PSU died, but because of the proprietary design, i couldn't simply replace the PSU except by going through Dell, and they've lost all business from me forever. except monitors. their monitors are nice.

No game can damage your hardware, clearly you had poor cooling, where overclocking or just got unlucky and had defective RAM, it happens but is not GC2 or stardocs fault.

Just google program "occt" and some temperature monitoring program like "everest", "Intel Thermal Analysis Tool" or something like that... start occt and if it says "failed" or if the temperature rises too much, something is wrong with your cooling or ram or something...
Sometimes adding +0.1V or +0.2V to your ram (DDR2) really helps in terms of stability, my 800MHz RAM didn't want to work as it should until i raised voltage by +0.2V (and it's not even warm with over voltage, but you check yours - if it's hot, return to normal!). Now it works flawlessly even when I lowered the latencies from 5 to 4!

Ah has....9 years...there is your problem RAM does not last forever any more than you CPU or GPU will, eventually you will need to replace some parts if you don't upgrade.

OK - I've been doing some testing and I am no longer sure that CPU-z is accurate.

One thing is for sure, the figures given in the version I am using under "Timing Table" are accurate as far as the latency values etc are concerned BUT they relate to the timings to use under different frequencies than the ones shown in the same column. For my system anyway.

SiSoft Sandra reports the timings correctly.

wow 9 years? not only is your pc ancient(in pc years, uh kinda like dog years), but if you got nine years out of a system you should be pretty happy, but its time to upgrade. base systems that will probably run circles around your current pc, go for as little as $300, or build your own at newegg for a fraction of the retail price.

Another good monitoring program is Speedfan, and it is compatible with more motherboards than most others.
Things like the Intel Thermal Analysis Tool are only good for a very limited number of mb's.



WWW Link

Ha, people still catching up.

No, I'd had that CD-ROM in three different systems (not in my current), and I know for certain it died of old age, not because it had Freedom Force in the drive when it died (although it took Freedom Force with it). I'd had the RAM that died for two years. Base systems for $300 will not run circles around my machine, but will run about the same. I won't upgrade unless it's to a dual- or quad-core at any rate.

Webreg and Moosetek, thank you for the testing and recommendations.

Econundrum1, I had the CD-ROM for 9 years, and even then I didn't actually have it all of those 9 years. I'd replaced it for a year, but the faster replacement broke down very quickly, so I ended up using the old one until its dying breath. I don't even want to think about 9-year old 1 gb RAM.

i've got a Pentium D 820 (2.8 GHz) that i'm not using at the moment...

I have a problem with the word No here. Just because it is extremely unlikely, it is not impossible. I worked as a software tester for 5 years. Twice in those 5 years we found our software fried motherboards. The tests were repeatable and painful. We would trigger the problem inadvertently. Then move to other piece of similar hardware and trigger it again deliberately. At that point the hardware maintenance guys would not let us retry. We had to document it as is. My point is that it does happen abet rarely.

Galen

Phaedyme: a lot of RAM manufactures (like Kingston and Micron) have a lifetime warranty. If you do in fact have faulty RAM for whatever reason, you may very well be able to get a new stick out of them. I got a couple of new sticks from Kingston when my dying mobo took the RAM with it. Long story, it was bad. ^^

Granted, this assumes that the RAM was handled and installed properly. From your comments, you seem plenty competent, so I'm sure this isn't an issue for you.

So you might want to give it a shot.

Cheers!

Hrmmm... I'm running a 6 year old 2.8ghz P4 processor with 1gig ram and a Radeon video card with 256meg ram.

No problems running this game. Even ran a 9 major race/8 minor race, immense galaxy game to its conclusion...9 hours later.. without any failures.

Like Phaedyme, my next upgrade will be to quad core. Wish ddr3 memory wasn't twice as expensive though. In the mean time, my system is still running better than many newer systems ....

I'll keep you in mind when I have free cash in a couple months, then.

Ishantil,

It is Kingston, but I don't have the packaging for it. I'll look into that, though.

Skelton,

I'm going to give immense another try. Gigantic is running pretty smoothly for me, although I picked too few opponents accidentally, and I hate the Yor tech trees atm. I tried reloading the game that crashed originally, and it just kept crashing - I just sent the savegame and another smartexception to Stardock so they can look at it, but I think that particular game is dead.

I have experience making games run on lower-end systems - I had Morrowind running at a playable level with good graphics on a Celeron 300a (overclocked), a half-gb of RAM, and an outdated video card once. When I did have problems, people on the Morrowind forum would say "I wish I could help, but I can't even figure out how you're running the game in the first place."