BleepingComputer.com: Mu Online and Quake Live Freezing

I'm running Windows XP Pro on a T60p Lenovo Thinkpad laptop. I have 1gb of RAM, and a FireGL v5200 video card with 512 mb memory.

My problem is that, when I attempt to play either of these games, I will occasionally freeze. These freezes last indefinitely to my knowledge, but I haven't tried keeping any of them up for more then like 2 minutes or so. I'm a bit afraid of damaging my laptop, so I'm not going to try keeping it up any longer than I need to. Specifically, I cannot do anything at all on my computer as soon the freeze occurs; can't move the mouse, can't type, can't even Ctrl + Alt + Del. The graphics and sound for both games (whichever one is up, not simultaneously) fall into a half second loop of whatever sounds and graphics were playing at the time of the freeze. As far as I know, the only way to get out of these freezes is for me to restart the computer.

Both games, Mu Online (the new one) and Quake Live are 3D and both MMO, of course. In the case of Quake Live, I usually freeze at particular moments, like the moment I am supposed to respawn, or the moment I hit someone with a gun. In Mu Online, I haven't gotten past the intro video. Interestingly enough, and I haven't tested this out enough to be sure, but when I play Quake Live, there's a "Practice Match" mode, where you can play offline against an AI, and for whatever reason, I haven't frozen during those games. So I'm guessing it's something to do with being online, and that's consistent with me freezing at key moments like respawning, or hitting someone. Outside of these games, I have not encountered this freeze as of yet.

I've also encountered this problem on more than one internet connection (both of them easily fast enough), so it's most likely not that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Edit - Okay, after more testing, two things;

1. The graphics do not actually loop during the freeze, just the sound. The graphics just freeze completely.

2. I can actually still change the volume on the computer. The keyboard has 3 buttons for increasing, decreasing, and muting the volume. They all work. Normally though, they make this symbol appear near the bottom of the screen, and it shows the volume. This symbol doesn't appear when the computer is frozen.

Edit 2 - Umm... My mistake, this is not a game problem. I am completely lost now, the freeze just occurred again when I attempted to watch a movie on this laptop. It was on a disc, and the program running it was something like "Intervideo," or something similar. If it matters, I can find out, but I think this is a much broader issue than that.

In conclusion of Edit 2, can this thread be moved?

Thanks,
Pleather

Have you cleaned out the interior of the laptop recently? Try blowing compressed air through the vents to get the dust out.

Have you updated your graphics/sound drivers recently?

Sterling14, on Jun 1 2009, 08:30 PM, said:

I have not cleaned the interior since I received the computer, and that sounds like a good idea; I'll make sure to do that, especially since I had an identical laptop before this one that had fan problems. However, I don't think that overheating is the problem, or at least, the underlying problem, but I could obviously be wrong. I tested the temperature with an application, and the temp stayed steady throughout all of it. I play many resource intensive games, and they do not cause this problem, not to mention the whole quake live offline versus online deal. But it's definitely a possibility, and it couldn't hurt to clean it out.

As far as drivers go, anytime I've attempted to update them, they've already been the latest versions, but I'll go ahead and check those too, cause that's probably a common problem, and like the compressed air; it couldn't hurt.

Sorry for taking awhile to respond to your message, I've actually had a separate problem come up recently, but that's another story, and I'll leave it for now, especially since they don't seem to be related at all.

I'll try to respond soon, but I may not be able to for a little while.

And I'm not sure if you have the forum "powers" to move this thread to a more appropriate sub-forum Sterling, but if you could, or any other mod could, that'd be great, since I'm almost sure now that the problem is not game specific.

Why do you no longer believe it to be a game only issue?

If this new problem you mentioned is significant, you're better off making a new thread in a different section of the forum. I can possibly get this thread moved if you really want it to be though.

Sterling14, on Jun 6 2009, 03:02 PM, said:

I guess I'll just make a new thread altogether, and the reason I don't believe that it's strictly a game issue is that the same exact type of freeze occurred when I attempted to watch a movie on this laptop. This makes me think it's either a temperature problem, or something to do with graphics or sound. I'm going to try cleaning out my laptop with compressed air, and checking all of my drivers first, and if that doesn't work, then I'll post a new thread in the XP forum.

Thanks