HL2 Ep.1Keeps Crashing after in nVidia Surround!

[skipclarke]

Help please:

1. I downloaded digital river installer of Win 7 x 64 Pro.
2. Tried to run it but it said unable to upgrade from Vista Home Premium 64.
3. I clicked on the other option (that said you will loose your files)
4. Win 7 Installed but the old files were still there in Windows.old folder.
5. Didn't d/l mobo drivers, just nVidia latest Graphics Beta. Enabled nVidia Surround Mode
6. Installed Steam and HL2: Ep. 1
7. Plaid for a while, looks amazing
8. Crash to desktop. Restart the game. Install Creative Alchemy as promted
9. PC freeze! >: -( . Pushed reset. Restart the game.
10. 2 more PC freezes, chose repair on logon.
11. Prompt appeared: do you want to restore -----> chose no.
12. Then it was repairing taking forever-----> pushed reset.
14. Few More Windows freezes without even running any programs, during logon and after.
15. Plaid some more Ep.1 Crash after 10 minutes again ...

Is this a game settings or a Windows 7 or Surround Issue?

CPU
Q6600 @ 3.48GHz Motherboard
MSI 750i Memory
2 x 2GB G. Skill DDR2 @ 775MHz Graphics Card
SLI EVGA 480 + Zotac 480
Hard Drive
2x 250GB Sound Card
Audigy SE Pro Power Supply
1220 KingWin Mach 1 Case
HAF - X
CPU cooling
Xigmatek Dark Knight OS
Windows 7 x64 Professional Monitor
3 x Acer GD235HZ 120Hz 2ms

[matrices]

Sounds like neither. Were you running this setup without issue on a single monitor prior to installing W 7? What happens if you use 197 drivers?

Seems like your system itself is unstable.

[Gilly]

back off the CPU overclock and see how it runs then.

[Delphium]

1. I downloaded digital river installer of Win 7 x 64 Pro.

Downloaded what exactly? You installed a downloaded version of win 7, possibly a non legit one at that?

5. Didn't d/l mobo drivers, just nVidia latest Graphics Beta. Enabled nVidia Surround Mode

:doh always start with mobo drivers :doh

12. Then it was repairing taking forever-----> pushed reset.

:doh Just 1 easy step at trashing your OS :doh

Is this a game settings or a Windows 7 or Surround Issue?

The way you describe, id say its the OS thats at fault.. go back , backup your data, format the drive, and start again from fresh, this time, try actualy installing your drivers and doing updates as the game will rely on them updates and drivers you failed to install to make your pc stable :doh

CPU
Q6600 @ 3.48GHz Motherboard

Here you are overclocking the CPU, I used to have a Q6600 and a Nvidia chipset motherboard so I know exactly what it is like to overclock them, they are picky and take ages to get a stable clock, specially at that speed. Remove your overclock before installing windows PLEASE!! If you have a unstable overclock, and you install windows and then half the system files will end up corrupt.
Dont ever overclock untill you have windows installed, all drivers installed and all updates applied.

SLI EVGA 480 + Zotac 480

Is there enough cooling and power on the PSU to drive these?

There is a number of issues I see here with your rig, so its no surprise that games and its self are crashing.
Try again without the overclock first.

[skipclarke]

Oh hey guys sorry for not posting cos I wasn't getting replies forever,
I have replaced 2 x 2 GB of G.Skill ram with back up 2 x 1 GB Kingston and everything works perfectly,
not a single crash.

I think there's something wrong with the old RAM, so I am RMA'ing it.

[thales100]

I think there's something wrong with the old RAM, so I am RMA'ing it.

Cool, so you fixed it.

[skipclarke]

It turned out the culprit was the chipset, so I replaced the motherboard, and now all my problems went away!