PC Problems

[Orv]

Right. I have 2 quite different problems atm, and I doubt they are related.

Problem 1: My internet randomly crashes (usually when playing TF2). However while the game completely freezes I can still hear mumble (and maybe in-game, not 100% sure) for about 5-10 sec (It's not looping sound). Then it all crashes and i have to restart my pc to regain internet.

Problem 2: Whenever I take screenshots (F5 style) or record (Fraps (Not the problem.)) in TF2, i get random black lines over the picture/recording. However I have no lines in-game. It varies from none, to a few, to an almost completely black screen.
Examples:

Barely any lines

Almost fully black

PC Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (Dual core)
Graphics: HD 5770
MB: Acer F690GVM
Network adapter: Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
OS: Windows XP 64-bit

Does anyone know what causes either or both of these problems?

[GTFO. Loser]

How does it perform under other games?

Source games as well as more demanding?

[Orv]

For the first problem I can't say how it works with other games, as I don't play anything but TF2 online. However it is an entire internet crash and not just TF2.

For the 2nd problem I have been able to print screen other games, but that works with TF2 aswell. (However the black lines destroy the automatic screenshots taking by PoV-Rec, which is the main problem.)

[Sepp]

Did you do any driver updates for your NIC (maybe silent by windows update giving you a bad driver?

The black screens remind me of the bug that was once with multicore enabled. I know it´s not exactly the same problem but maybe worth a try.

[Orv]

I think I did yes, I was forced to reinstall my OS awhile before, but now that you mention it I don't think it started until after I upgraded the network drivers.

As for the Multicore rendering, i've tried recording demos with that turned off, but to no success.

[r3loaded]

What are the temperatures on your graphics card like?

[diz]

Make sure that your graphics card is running in optimal temperature and that got enough power.

-diz

[DataStorm]

Did you use any fps config? if so, check the memory requirement ones on the graphic (loading all textures on the graphic card, force load etc). The graphic card makes a "copy" in memory and that gets pushed back over the PCI-E bus.

If your not forcing them, the only thing I can imagine is happening is that the graphic card has issues with the clock sync on the databus toward the CPU. (a raw image gets send over the PCI-E bus to the memory controller, stores it in memory, the cpu picks it up and puts a TGA/JPEG wrapper around it etc)

I'm wondering if you have this also with the TGA export.

[Orv]

Temp was 62C after a quite long session. I think that's pretty good

@Data, I havn't used any FPS config of any sort.

[GTFO. Ragostini]

Could be some poorly written XP64 bit drivers, I used it for a while, but had a lot of trouble finding stable drivers for everything, also had some game crashing issues, which eventually made me go for 64bit Windows 7.
I know your PC has issues with Windows 7, but have you thought about 64bit Vista, or maybe 32 bit XP?

[Orv]

I tried installing 64bit Vista a few weeks ago when my computer first started giving me problems, however I couldn't get internet to work at all.
Might try 32bit Vista or XP later on. (I know vista sucks but it worked well enough for me.)

[GTFO. Ragostini]

You using onboard LAN?
You could always go buy another LAN card for it, maybe a D-Link or Netgear (Though they pretty much all use Realtek Chips) They are around £8 - £12 here for a 10/100
Driver support is likely to be much better for a new add on card, then you can disable your onboard LAN altogether

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

I have that exact same lan card onboard Orv, I use win7 x64 and never had a problem with it, the win7 drivers seem to be stable for that chip.

[Orv]

It's not the internet that's the problem for me with win7. It's everything. After install the computer doesnn't respond to anything. It basically starts the fans but screens, keyboard, mouse, etc are unresponsive. (However that's beside the point, atm my focus is on fixing this screenshot and even more the crash problems.)

[GTFO. TommyBoy]

Have you looked to see if there is an updated bios for your mobo Orv?