Games Freeze on Startup

[Russ Menth]

Hello, I'm having a problem where any 3D game will freeze up the moment I launch the game.  I've had a problem for a long time where certain games, such as Grand Theft Auto III won't start because I get an error message that the game requires at least 16MB of video memory (even though I have 128MB).  And with 3D games that do work, I get lots of little white dots all over the screen.  My graphics card manufacturer says there is no problem with my card, and I also get the problem with the white dots with another 64MB card, but 3D games like GTA III will work fine with that card.  I ignored these problems for about a year but now it's gotten to the point where games won't start up at all.  I have tried replacing the motherboard, RAM, video card, and monitor with no success.  Any help/ideas anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

System specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.2 GHz processor
Albatron GeForce 4 Ti4280 graphics card
1024 MB Kingston PC3200 HyperX RAM
Asus P4P800 Deluxe motherboard
Maxtor 120GB hard drive

[merlin]

what directx are you running? anyway type dxdiag in the run box it will tell you more and you have mention everything but the o/s?

[Russ Menth]

DirectX is 9.0b and the OS is Windows XP Home.

[merlin]

what results does you get from dxdiag?and are the drivers up to date.And what error messages--like stop?

[Russ Menth]

I've tested both the DirectDraw and Direct3D on the dxdiag screen and both tests show nothing is wrong.   My drivers are up to date.  When I try to start up a game, the game starts, goes black, then takes me back to my desktop and is locked up for about 30 seconds before it will let me use ctrl-alt-del to shut down the game.  I never get any error messages.  However, one time when this happened I got a message "Device failure detected".  

[merlin]

have you tried the patch>http://www.gbase.ch/index.asp?zone=pc&target=patches&id=12620   and are there any problems have a look in the device manager just wondering on the cdrom drive?

[Russ Menth]

Yes, this problem is happened with every game, not just GTA III.  Games that have worked fine for the past year just stopped working 3 days ago.  I've tried doing a system restore but that didn't help, which is why I think this is a hardware problem.

[Russ Menth]

The device manager shows no problems with the CD-ROM drive.  

[merlin]

have a look in the events log?you can find it in control/panel admin/tools events viewer as you have said its something to do with hardware<graphics card> try unistalling it from the device manager and re-boot then shut down and remove it from the pc* CAUTION IS NEEDED HERE* and then re-boot then shutdown replace the card and re-boot  i know it a long process but win will clear out irq and reassign a new one when its replaced but try to save your graphics drivers before doing this and dont panic and it may or may not work but its worth a shot..good luck ok