Has it ever switched to a 16 bit looking mode, with color banding and the sort. I’ve been having this problem for a long time and I want to know if it is the same thing. It seems to be a problem with my ATI graphics card. This card seems particularly glitchy, sometimes anti-aliasing will just blur the entire screen and make the whole thing look terrible. Other times it will black out on me for 30 seconds or more during a L4D/2 match, then leave me with this weird color artifact glitch. It’s very annoying.
I am having the same problem with 2 diff ATI cards on 2 diff OSes. It only happens during gaming but my PC will lock up and the sound will garble for a sec or two and then it usually resumes back to normal (it used to crash almost all of my games.) I’ve tried diff sound cards, I don’t have wireless and I have no viruses. I’m thinking this has to do specifically with ATI cards, but as far as fixing it I am stumped.
Bubinator I feel your pain. This was the most frustrating thing in the world when it happened to my computer. I suggest you unplug everything from your computer that isn’t absolutely necessary and then plug them back in one by one. The worst part of this is sometimes you’ll do something that seems like it made it go away, but then a few days later it will be back.
Also, try taking out your wireless card, I had this problem even when I wasn’t using the internet, the only way to fix it was to take my wireless card out.
And try doing this when it’s acting up so you can tell if it worked.
Hmm, I’ve thought about that too. I don’t think it’s my CPU, because I’ve checked it before in BIOS.
Any simple program you can recommend for seeing GPU temps? If not, I’ll look into it tomorrow.
Edit: missed the second page :retard:
I don’t have any colour problems, DragonMask, you seem to have an entirely different problem.
StOnE, I have GeForce 8800GT, so it’s definitely not an ATI problem on my end, but your problem seems very similar to mine.
When I’m playing CoD2 my FPS will drop down from 125+ to anything between 4 and 20 at random times, and my music will sound garbled. This lasts for a few seconds.
garth, the thing is, I don’t have a lot of non-essential stuff plugged in. I only have a mouse, keyboard and monitor, really, other than a couple of audio plugs. I guess I’ll try some troubleshooting with the hard drives.
Thanks for the help 
I don’t think you’re having the same problem, that sounds like a typical GPU crash to me, the GPU driver reboots without crashing the computer, but it takes a couple of seconds to load.
Have you tried testing your RAM? I think there’s something called memtest that does that. You positive it’s not the wireless card? Your computer is behaving exactly like mine. Next time it’s happening, see if you can access the internet.
If all that fails, I suggest you find someone else with a similar computer and switch parts that you think might be the problem. Did you do anything different right before the problem came back? On my comp it went away and came back over several weeks, but when I installed windows 7 it got really bad.
I’m not sure, but I think I tested my RAM a while ago by removing it and putting it back in one by one.
It might be the wireless card, I haven’t tested that yet. I still have internet access though when it happens, because it happens the most when playing CoD2 online.
I used to have this problem on Vista, but I fixed it somehow. It came back a while after I installed W7.
I’m going to try to do some troubleshooting today, if I have time.
My new shiny Windows 7 tends to ‘pause’ once in a while when attempting to access or run something. :s hrug: This is the same thing my neighbor the tech tester for windows 7 said.
One way you might completely determine it as a software or hardware issue is by booting off of one of those fancy “Linux CDs” (you don’t have to install it), then use that for a while to see if you get problems.
Well, if it happens when accessing the internet, I bet it’s the wireless card. What card do you have? Also, if you can, borrow someone else’s wireless card for a while or just use an ethernet cord. Another thing you can do is while it’s freezing close CoD and disable your wireless card and see if it goes away. And, of course, try updating your wireless card’s driver, but I don’t think that’s the problem.
This is extremely similar to what happened to me so your best bet is probably the wireless card.
It’s not my wireless card, I tested CoD2 Singleplayer with the adapter disabled in Device Manager 
Yeah. Haven’t had any luck so far. I’m also a great procrastinator so it takes a long time for me to test stuff out.
I would go with what the guy said on the 1st page (dont remember his name and to tired to look) it could be overheating. Have you cleaned the dust out if there is any? My old comp would do freeze up with a garbled sound like your describing if it overheated (and it caught on fire but thats another story). Try downloading Intel Burn test or Prime95 along with HWMonitor. Run IBT or Prime 95 while HWMonitor is on and watch your CPU temperature.
Hi there! You know there is software out there that can test your hardware, right? There’s tons of PC diagnostics software out there; Google is your friend.
If nothing shows up, you could also use benchmark software. Benchmark software can test each of your hardware components and then show you how it performs compared to other hardware. This way you should be able to figure out which piece of hardware isn’t performing up to standards. Again, Google is your friend. I can personally recommend Fresh Diagnose from past good experiences, by the way.
Also, my money’s on your harddisk having bad sectors. This is something that can happen relatively easily and could easily explain a computer freezing for a second. Your harddisk manufacturer will have a tool on their website to run an extended test on your harddisk.
I used to have a problem like that but it disappeared when I got a new and better RAM. I’m not really sure if getting a new RAM is the solution though.
I DEFINATELY have this prob.
Well, i’m preetty sure.
to make sure: does this happen mostly in singleplayer, although still happening in multi, does the sound first freeze, then stutter slowly, then stutter fast, then unfreeze?
I noticed, also, that if you manage to pause the game just before one of these starts the cursor freezes with the sound.
Also, it happened only after the “warning, overheating, check your fan and heatsink” message comes on.
In other words, overheating.
Maybe, get a computer case with more holes (one friend even went so far as to drill then in the case after removing it! and it helped cool his computer drastically, too!)
I also looked at the “game regularly lags for several seconds” support page (here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7912-PGKC-5085 ). remember i’m not pro with technical computer language so if this is the same as that “network problem” you’ve already rejected as the cause dont get frustrated at me 
.
But it still don’t work, so i’m getting a custom gaming rig in a few weeks.
cause, my comp is one of those crappy expensive work computers, the card being nvidia geforce 7100 gs.
So, if you have come to the end of your rope, buy a new comp.
got mine for $1700, not being a teckie i let the people who customed it help build it.
So, in summary, try to keep the heat low, folllow everyone’s advice, and if all else fails… pray to valve.
'Cause for me this only happens with source games.
maybe, if you can save enough, get a cheap but powerful custom pc. i only hope that the one i have on order fixes the prob.
Best of luck to you. If, of course, luck is the thing you need.
Happens regardless of multiplayer or singleplayer. I’ll do some diagnostics as Hyperbyte suggested later on.
I’m not going to buy a new computer, as mine’s pretty good, albeit a bit outdated. It probably is my hard drives being fucked up. I think my SATA wire may be damaged. That or my IDE drive is corrupt in a few sectors, although I’ve done a few disk checks that turned out okay.
I don’t think it’s overheating, since my case is pretty well-cooled (I’ve got four fans total, including the GPU and CPU ones). I’ll check out the GPU temp some time though.
Try to plug your sata drive in another port on the motherboard, while the IDE is disconnected. Another guy had a similar issue and Sersoft suggested he does that and it fixed his problems. Seemed like a dying Sata port on the mobo.
All my data apart from program files and Windows is on the IDE drive though, so that’d be pretty boring
Guess I can try though.