After a whole week of downloading steam Half-Life + NS i find out that there is something very wrong going on whilst ingame (in NS).

What happens is that i will connect to the server. Then random PC freezes occur - the screen locks, and i cant do anything (alt tab neither). I have to wait about 20 or so seconds for it to stop before i can continue playing (untill the next spike occurs)

At first i thought it was the sound card (onboard) because it allways happens when a sound starts to play - so i disabled the souncard in the bios. This didnt solve anything though, so i tried older detonator drivers for the card (seeing as it is a GF2 MX 440). This didnt help either.

Anyone have a possible solution to this?


Here is a full list of the PC's specs:

Computer
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack -
Internet Explorer 6.0.2600.0000 (IE 6.0 - Windows XP)
DirectX 4.08.01.0810 (DirectX 8.1)


Motherboard
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1533 MHz (11.5 x 133) 1800+
Motherboard Name QDI KuDoZ 7(E)/KuDoZ 7 v2.0
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT8366A Apollo KT266A
System Memory 512 MB (PC2100 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (01/08/03)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (64 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Monitor Philips Brilliance 151AX (TY 044609)

Multimedia
Audio Adapter Modem #2 Line Playback

Storage
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y060L0 (60 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Optical Drive E-IDE CD -952E/AKV
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8161B (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions
C: (NTFS) 58635 MB (53314 MB free)

Input
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse HID-compliant mouse

Network
Network Adapter WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface (217.134.16.242)
Modem Intel® 536EP Modem

Peripherals
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB Device USB Human Interface Device

If you are connecting thru dial-up try setting HL.exe to low priority. Make sure in steam that your internet connection speed is correct. I use cable and set at LAN/T1. I have a similar vid card and use the latest nvidia 53 drivers without a problem. Wouldn't hurt to scan for spyware using Spybot S&D and Adware 6.0 and to defrag.

Are you running OpenGL or D3D. Try the other one to see if that helps. And make sure no other progs are running.

In console type net_graph 3 and see if anything is odd when you hit the spikes.

Does this happen in any other games/mods?, try turning your AGP down to 2X.

Try the most upto date drivers for your GFX card, also try turning its hardware accelration down from the dxdiag.

Thirdly you didnt mention what version of MB drivers you have, maybe worth updating to the latest from Viaarena only update your MB drivers if your completely happy to, since sometimes it can break more then it fixses.

Now putting all that aside are you sure its not a lag spike instead of a lockup since it can seem the same, check the steam/settings/internet connection tab to make sure you have the correct internet type settings.

I would suggest trying the Steam fix first, then updating your motherboard drivers, if you are using a very old version of the MB drivers on your chipset you could be prone to the loop error which is where data gets stuck between the CPU and ram and loops endlessy causing the system to hang, this is fixed in the latest via 4 in 1 release.