Quake 4 Problem

[Raven3x7]

I recently picked up a copy of Quake 4 to keep me busy while i wait for ET:QW but i've run into a rather annoying problem. Whenever i play Quake 4 on linux my pc turns off after only a few minutes of playing. This is unlikely to be a hardware issue as i just run the Orthos stress test utility for 12H without a problem. Additionally Q4 and other games(Rainbow6:Vegas, Guild Wars, CS:S) run just fine on windows. Several hours of memtest have also not shown any problem. Finally other games run fine on linux(Guild Wars, True Combat:Elite, OpenArena). This is really confusing me and i dont realy know how to debug this as there are no logs to check since nothing crashes, the pc just turns off. Can annyone help me out?
My specs:
AMD X2 4600 usin cpufreq_utils for frequency scaling
MSI K9N Platinum NV570 mobo with latest bios
2GB OCZ 800mhz ram
X1800XT 512MB with latest fglrx
Enermax 500W PSU
distro archlinux
kernel 2.6.20

[joshuapurcell]

This does sound like a weird issue. I have to think it is related to either power or cooling issues if the system shuts down without any time to write something to the logs.. otherwise the software would most likely say something about what the problem is. Are you able to tell what your temps are on the video card and the CPU cores? I wonder if noticeably changing the room temperature allows you to play the game for a longer period of time, and also what the readings are for your PSU output under load (using a multimeter). Also, if you've only run the memtest for three hours or so, you may try running it through the complete test multiple times (like overnight) to make sure the memory has enough voltage and there are no other problems with the sticks.

[Raven3x7]

Well i cant get the GPU temps on linux as far as im aware im afraid. The cpu does not overheat. During the Orthos test it never went above 49C. Id like to checkthe PSUbut i dont have a multimeter. Although if the problem is the PSU there is no reason for this to be linux specific. Im currently thinking that the GPU drivers might be to blame, as i didnt here the fans spin up i believe(i wasnt really paying attention). Currently im going to to try installing a different distro (Ubuntu as that is quick to install) and see if the issue occurs there as well.

[Raven3x7]

I can confirm the fans dont spin up! WTF? Is there a tool to manually control the fan speed of ATi cards on linux?

[joshuapurcell]

I can confirm the fans dont spin up! WTF? Is there a tool to manually control the fan speed of ATi cards on linux?

Well now at least you know what the problem is, just not what is causing it. Are you certain the GPU fans are still starting under Windows? I'll be surprised if this is just a driver issue, but then again I'm not familiar with ATI cards under Linux.

[Michael]

There is no available utility right now for controlling the fan speed (other than playing with PowerPlay).

[Raven3x7]

great... Well i was thinking of replacing the stock fan with a Zalman VF900-Cu. That one comes with a fan controller and according to all reports should drop temps at least 10C. If i decide to stick with this gpu i think this makes sense.

[Raven3x7]

Well after installing the new cooler the issue seems to be gone