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Did NFL Blitz 2000 (MAME) fry my system?
arcadecab:
I was using MAMEwah and selected NFL Blitz 2000 for MAME. I had to leave immediately to attend to something and when I got back 30-40 minutes later, I just expected to see the game running in its intro mode, instead, my computer was shut down and can not be restarted again. I am using a P4 3.0 ghz processor and 512 DDR PC-3200 memory, 400 watt power supply. Just wondering if the game is so difficult to run with MAME if it could have stress my P4 3.0 processor to the point of frying it. I just have the one case fan (although I should probable have two. Anyone know. Upon research, it seems the NFL blitz games, although they say the condition is good and very playable, is not run adequately because of CPU requirements. But I thought the 3.0 would at least run the game somewhat and not cause this damage. Perhaps it was something else and not the CPU, but wondering for any comments or thoughts.
Thanks.
flampoo:
You probably overheated your system. If a processor gets too hot it will shut down the CPU. You'll probably need more than just a case fan but I'd install a circulation fan in the cabinet itself.
MonitorGuru:
It probably ran the CPU (and FPU part of the chip) at 100% for too long, and caused a thermal shutdown. Have you tried it after cooling the system? Will it boot now? Or is it totally dead?
If so, there may not have been enough/too much/applied correctly heat sink compound on the chip, or the heat sink not applied correctly. There may have been inadequate cooling via the one fan.
Was your P4 3.0 chip a Presscot or Northwood series chip? Prescotts are known for running hotter at IDLE than Northwoods do at FULL POWER. Also, if this was in a Dell 4600 or 8300 system purchased in the February time frame, Dell improperly switched to Prescott chips for about a week of orders WITHOUT reconfiguring the motherboard, heat sink or active (fan) coolers. They promptly saw numerous problems with overheating and replaced fans and heat sinks, and got to the point of stopping shipping Prescott chips and offering numerous upset people free upgrades to 3.2 Extreme Edition Northwood chips ($900 at the time!!) to satisfy..
Anyway, I've overheated a Northwood chip myself doing zipping of files, but it was due to an improperly attached heat sink direct from Dell on my work machine. But if you have a Prescott series then you likely didn't have enough cooling OR inadequate power supply. (you see, Prescott also uses more watts of energy at idle than Northwood does at full speed, thus the difference in heat)
Check into these things and at least you should be able to figure out what's wrong.
SirPoonga:
BTW, the PC version of nfl blitz is just as good as the arcade and runs better :)
arcadecab:
It does not start up at all-completely down. I do have the Northwood P4 and I got is specifically because of the heat issues with Prescott. Has anyone gotten the NFL Blitz roms to run at all with MAME? I am disappointed that my 3.0 ghz could not really handle the game at all--if indeed that is what did it. It may have been a power supply, but thinking it may be the CPU. Shouldnt the game have run at all with a 3.0 and even running for 30-40 minutes, should that be enough to kill a new P4 3.0 Northwood? Seems hard to believe because I thought my 3.0 would be hard pressed to be that challenged by anything MAME would produce.
:-[