ep2/portal hard crash

[esplin]

I apologize for having to ask for assistance but I've tried everything and it just won't work. EP2 and Portal both randomly restart my computer. I've turned down the settings and gotten rid of AVG, which helped both games last quite a bit longer, but the problem still persists.

My specs are:

HP Pavilion
AMD Atholon 64 Dual Core Processor 4200+
2.19 GHx, 960 MB of Ram
ATI Radeon Xpress 200
Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2

I've tried updating my video drivers, but the problem still persists and I have missing textures. I've tried updating directx and shutting down all non-essential programs but nothing helps.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[esplin]

I hate to be the only one to post in my own thread, but I think I figured out what was wrong with ep2. According to Windows Task Manager it is using 100% CPU Power! None of my other steam games do this and it can't be healthy for my computer.

Does anyone know how to stop this? I already deleted AVG from my computer. I honestly don't know how to stop this.

 

[Druckles]

Sorry no-one's got to you so far. I can't really be of much help.

All I can suggest is reinstalling Episode 2, as you've already updated the video drivers. Video drivers tends to be the problem with a Hard Crash.

960MB of RAM sounds a bit... odd, surely you mean 1GiB? And how old is it?

 

[esplin]

I do have 1GB of RAM, my system says 960MB and I just copied it. The computer itself I got in 2005, though it wasn't top of the line.

 

[giant384]

it looks like your onboard video card is using about 32mbs shared from your system for video memory.

32 isnt enough to run the latest source games. i sure you could change it yourself in the bios.

 

[esplin]

Ok, I'm looking up how to change the bios now. I just have two questions.

1. How many mbs of shared memory should I use?
2. Will changing the shared memory put added stress on the video card?

Edit:
I checked my BIOS and it doesn't have an option to change my shared memory. However, it does say that I have 64 MB of onboard video memory

 

[Druckles]

Check out the recommended specs for Episode Two. Because they're slightly higher than HL2 and Episode One.

Increasing the shared memory shouldn't increase stress on the video card. But I'd recommend buying a spanking new graphics card.

Does the same happen with Team Fortress 2?

 

[esplin]

Not being a big fan of multiplayer, I haven't even installed it.