Still Have Random Game Freezes

[tiger025]

About 2 months ago I started having some random freezing when playing WoW. At that point WoW would just freeze apparently randomly, and I would be forced to restart. How often it froze would vary, but it would really notice it when I was playing for a few hours, because it would often freeze 4 or 5 times over a few hours. Since then I've replaced some things to try and solve this problem and pinpoint the cause, but it seems I'm still having it. A few weeks ago I replaced my GPU And my PSU to see if that fixed it, but it is still occurring. Right now I have:

Motherboard: Evga Nvidia nForce 680i
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 2.66Ghz
GPU: Evga GTX 260 Core 216 896MB ( Very new)
RAM: OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 1066 [PC2 8500]
PSU: SilverStone ST75F 750W [4x +12V@ 18A each] (Very new)
HD: Samsung 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD

After upgrading the GPU and PSU I also reformatted my HD, and reinstalled windows XP pro, and upgraded to SP3. After that the freezing seemed to be occuring in a slightly different way, where WoW would not freeze my entire computer, only the application itself would be frozen if I was able to close it in time. Basically It would freeze, I'd still be ingame, I could ctrl+esc, and then right click on wow on the taskbar and close it. Sometimes tho, I am unable to alt+tab or ctrl+esc, quickly enough, and I get one beep from my computer, and then it is completely frozen and I have to restart manually.

I've been trying to test some other games, Crysis, Fear, CS:S, and so far Fear has also crashed in the same way, I haven't really played enough of the others to determine if its not effecting them.

I'm trying to determine what could be causing this, hardware or software, I'm really not too sure at this point. I did find a error in the event log that pointed to a driver issue right at the time of a few of the crashes:




Also a few times after I have been forced to reboot, the Microsoft error reporting brought me to this message:



Right now I'm using drivers from the EVGA website for my card, I have also tried uninstalling them and using the drivers from directly from Nvidia's site. I'm not sure of the difference but I still have the freezing occur with both.

I'm looking for any ideas as to what else I can test or do to try and resolve this problem.

[Aus_Karlos]

Re-install all drivers again. Like your motherboard chipsets, the latest Nvidia drivers seem stable ( 181.22).
Check all power cable connections.
Check your temperatures in-game with a program like Everest from my sig.
Also install the latest DX9.0c from my sig.

There is a known compatibility issue with the 680i motherboard series and the 9 and 200 series cards. I myself get some days where i have loads of crashes or days where i have none. Still waiting on a proper fix.

[tiger025]

for Mobo chipset drivers, do I just download the latest ones from EVGA's site? or does intel actually make them?

[Mcninjaguy]

this are your chipset driver
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winxp_15.23.html

[tiger025]

Thanks, I have updated my chipset drivers to those latest ones, and my GPU drivers to the latest ones from Nvidia's site. No freezes so far, but its too early to really tell

[Mcninjaguy]

well, keep us informed ok

[tiger025]

So over the last 5 days, I have been playing some WoW, but not really enough still to see if it is still freezing, I usually need to play like 3 hours or more straight to see if it is really stable. Still in the WoW I played I had no freezes or any problems. I also played a little Crysis:Warhead, like 30 minutes at a time, with no problems.

However Today after playing Crysis:Warhead for about 2 hours, I ran into a weird issue that appears to be similar to this freezing issue, although not exactly the same.

After a cinematic, the game loads a new area and during the loading, the text on the loading screen becomes a blocky white, the next area loads and everything is multicolored like one huge semi-detailed artifact. That eventually goes away and the game engine basically froze on a semi artificated leaf. After this artifacting I could still access in game menus, and reload the my saved game, and then the game seemed to plas fine. Nothing showed up in the event log.

Then 40 minutes after that first artifacting/ game engine messing up, it happened again, this time somewhat shortly after a cinematic, although this time the next area loaded and I was running in it for about 1 minute or so. This time the on screen text became white blocks, and then the game area of the screen just became mostly white:



Until I have WoW freeze on me again, it is sort of inclusive if this problem is actually PC wide and not just effecting Crysis. I was somewhat hopeful that the updated chipset drivers had solved whatever was causing the WoW freezes, and its possible that they have, I will play wow for a longer period of time to test, and I will also play some more crysis and really try to pinpoint when this is happening.

I have enabled event logging in the Nvidia MonitorView program, and I will check my temps around the artifacting times to see if they are high, but unless the sensors are incorrect, I have checked many times before and the temps were always fine.

[Jamsers]

Some suggestions:

Perhaps the motherboard, make sure you have the latest drivers for whatever is on your motherboard, perhaps the PCI or whatever slot is damaged, try using the onboard to play WHAT CAN BE PLAYED, see if it still freezes. (if you have something like half life 2, GTA-SA, these are the only games I know that can be played onboard)

There is a possibility that it could be the RAM. Try taking one of the ram sticks out, then test. If it still happens, try taking the other stick out.

Hope this helps.

[tiger025]

So Crysis played fine for 30 minutes or so until I paused the game. With the menu paused for 2 minutes, I came back and the menu was somewhat artifacted:



Even with the menu like that I was able to resume the game, and then the game itself was artifacted:



While the game was artifacted like this, I minimized it to save some screenshots, and then when I reopened the game a minute later it was fine. Then 10 minutes later when I paused it again, the menu was fine, but after a few minutes paused the game again became artifacted.

This time also I minimized and reopened the game and it went back to normal. However when I later closed the game, my desktop was then frozen, with a image of some Crysis map.

So I guess now it seems Crysis gets artifacted after loading a new area or being paused, but I haven't yet seen it just get artifacted while I am playing.

Yea I am also beginning to think it may be the motherboard, or ram, since those are some of the components that I have not changed since I started having these problems.

There is also another thing, the Nvidia monitor view shows that some voltages are in the "yellow", and a bus speed is in the "red". I was told by some people on the Nvidia forums that this is not a actual problem, but that the program just has presets where it lists certain voltages in the yellow or red.



Does it look like I need to change my voltages? I have some screenshots of my bios somewhere I can probably find if that would be helpful.

[tiger025]

After playing another 1.5 hrs of Crysis (without pausing the game), I had no artifacting at all or any problems. It loaded new areas fine, so I guess maybe its a unrelated issue with pausing the game. I checked my temps and they were:
Idle:
CPU 39C
System(I think the chipset?) 34C
GPU 49C

Highest during Crysis
CPU 47C
System 40C
GPU 78C

I will post back after testing with WoW and other games.

[Mcninjaguy]

i would say its your PSU

its multirailed with 18A on each line where you should probably have at least 26 amps on the line for your Graphics card

I'm gonna recommend that you get a better PSU that has a nice single rail

Multirailed PSU's simply don't add the rails up together because they're separate from each other

PSU
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2
single rail @ 70 A
$140
after rebate $120
coupon for 20% off PSU's : 20PSUFEB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139009

the coupon will make this PSU cost this
$112
after rebate $92

[tiger025]

well I just upgraded to this PSU a few weeks ago, and at that time people here seemed to think that it would be ok to power this system. Right now tho the issue is hard to pin down, its only occurring when I pause crysis, but I can play crysis straight through and it seems to be fine. I will keep testing it with other games and see if it is only pausing crysis that causes the problem.

[Mcninjaguy]

I doon't think your PSU is very Capable with it 4 rails there. one rail is always the way to go anyways

[koala]

The 750W Silverstone is more than enough for your computer, it's an excellent PSU. The four 18A +12V lines combine to give a total of approx 55A (the same as my Toughpower 650W which also has four 18A +12V lines).

I prefer multiple rails (the traditional way) over a single one (the newer way), but it's a matter of personal preference, both are equally suitable for gaming computers.

Unles the PSU is faulty, I would be looking elsewhere for the cause of your problem. Compare the +12V readings in BIOS and during fullscreen gameplay. The 2 values should be about the same for a stable power supply.

Have you tried any earlier graphics drivers? The lastest betas are not always the best. Make sure you fully uninsall the current driver and reboot before replacing.

Any chance you can test the new graphics card on another computer?

[tiger025]

The Drivers I'm using now are not Beta drivers I don't think, I'm using the 181.22 WHQL Drivers from Nvidia for Windows XP 32bit. I was using somewhat older drivers before those, 178.XX somethings and was having more issues then than I am now.

Pretty much after I updated to the GTX 200 series 181.22 WHQL Drivers, and to the latest nForce 680i SLI 15.23 Drivers I've had no freezes or issues with WoW which was my main problem for months. This Crysis issue might be unrelated, but it does seem somewhat similar. However, I can still play fine it if I don't pause the game, which is pretty minor if it stays that way. So currently the stability seems ok, its just that weird issue when pausing Crysis:Warhead. I will try getting the patch for Crysis:warhead as well and see if that does anything.

I don't have any other PC with a PSU powerful enough to test my GTX260 with right now. I'm going to play more WoW and try to see if the issue effecting it is really resolved.

[Mcninjaguy]

ok keep us updated and take every recommendation with a grain of salt and ask questions and be mindful

[tiger025]

Unfortunately I'm having more problems with Crysis again. This is what happened today, when I started playing more crysis:

Crysis starts slowing down and artifacting just during normal play after a 45 minutes or so. I was able to access the artifacted menus and close that saved game, and then reload a new game. I then tried the Crysis:Warhead Patch 1.1 to see if that would do anything.

After 30 more minutes of playing with patch 1.1, its artifacts again, and this times it really artifacts like crazy, with artifacts jumping all over the place like this:



After that I moved my PCI-E connectors to a new port on my PSU just to see if that might make a difference. Again about 45 minutes later, more artifacts again. I can just reload the game if I do it fast enough and then it works on again for a little while, but clearly there is some problem even if it is only crysis related.

The next time it artifacted I just watched it until it froze, and then when I was forced to reboot I got the same microsoft error report that I posted a screenshot of above. So that got me thinking it really may be a software driver issue. So Then:

I uninstalled my current 181.22 WHQL drivers, and rebooted in safe mode.
Then I used Guru3D driver sweeper to to clean all my Nvidia display drivers.
Then I rebooted again normally and installed the latest BETA 182.05 drivers. They just came out today it seems.

Then again after playing crysis for about 45 minutes it starts artifacting during game play. Again I can ussually end the save game, and then reload a older one, but this is getting really annoying, and even tho the microsoft error shows its a video driver issue, installing different drivers seems to make no difference.

Like I said before, this may just be some very random issue with Crysis only that is impossible to solve, and thats ok with me, I'll probalby just stop playing crysis. Tomarow I'm going to get Fear2 and really test it out with that, to see if it is really only effecting Crysis.

Also what program can I use to see what my 12V reading are during full screen game play, I only really know how to check the PSU values in the bios. I really doubt that my brand new PSU is the problem, but I want to check everything sine nothing seems to be working.

Again I'm open to any other ideas about this, and I'll see what happen when I play Fear2.

[Tiber Septim]

SensorsView can monitor voltages.

I'd also recommend letting ATITool perform an artifact test for half an hour or so just to check the GPU.

[tiger025]

Thanks I will check my voltages with that tool, and run a stability test with that ATI tool a little later on.

Right now I just started playing FEAR2, and I'm already getting artifacting after 30 minutes or so of starting to play. The FEAR2 engine just froze and then stuck on this image:



It's the same as the way Crysis was artifacting, I can still access the menu and close that instance of the game, and then reload it and it ussually works. But clearly that is some problem with my hardware or software since its effecting multiple games. I will post back with more info about my PSU voltage

[pharoah]

i think i would post your screenshots at the evga forum.that looks like bad video ram type artifacting.it may need an rma.