Random In-Game Freezing

This is a random occurence, when I have my game on and running it will suddenly freeze; the sound will stop, my mouse won't move, I can't ALT+TAB, and I can't CTRL+ALT+DELETE. My system locks up completely so I have to press the manual restart button.

I tried exiting out of all extra applications (AIM, XFIRE, and all the other unnessecary applications I could find on my task manager), but still some random in-game freezes still occur.

No errors pop up and no warnings happen (i.e. no mass amounts of lag).

What's weird about this, is that in the past (a few weeks ago) it had been running great since I got the game about a year ago, and I haven't really changed anything about my computer when it started to freeze in-game.

System:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
Radeon 9600 Vid card
1.00 GB RAM
Cable Internet

The freezing is probably from server issues. It has done this to me also, where I managed to minimize GW and I couldn't open my task manager at all, and then my pc restarted. It also might be from overheating.

Hi

I have the same problem....

Interesting, how could server issues affect that?

Also, would it be worth it to send an e-mail to their technician staff, or will they just tell me "Re-Install GW" or "Get all updated drivers" (Both of which I have already tried."

I have the same problem as OP and for me it's usually a nightly occurence. I get that problem when I'm in a busy town/outpost. It doesn't happen everytime I go to LA, Kamadan, or Kaineng, however I never had it happen to me in an explorable area or mission. Knock on wood.

The only way to get out of it is restarting the pc by holding the powerbutton down. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

There are currently some issues with the GW servers, and it seems to have mostly started at around the time that Nighfall was released. Ever since then, speeds and performance across all 3 games seems to have suffered.

I notice it in all 3 games myself. Random lock-ups, freezes, and lags. i also get some really horrible FPS situations at times, most notable in Kaineng Center.

And you can tell they are working on it, because it seems like every time I start the game, I get a new update. And at least 2-3 times a week I get the message asking me to log-off for a new build. All I can suggest is to be patient while they work out all the bugs.

This just started happening to me after the update yesterday. I can't even play for 2 mins and it locks everything up.

For the record, I haven't had any issues with GW after NF was released, so it's highly unlikely to be server related.

Same problem here. Overheating is not the issue for me. My system is watercooled and temperatures are usually about 10-15 degrees above room temperature. Graphics card is only 1 month old. Radeon X850 at stock speeds. Thought it was my drivers so I've switched around and tried several and my system still locks up when I try to play GW. I reintalled the game as well with the same results. Any suggestions?

so we are few and they dont care... 4 times today all freezing i had to reset the pc again and again....

Yup I basically CANNOT play GW at all. I spent $50 on NF and it's relatively new still. >_>

*Right now I have GW loaded while minimized and PC has yet to freeze but the moment I bring the window back up the game freezes.*

I've had this problem for months now. Some days I can play for several hours, others I can't even select a character. After dealing with support for a month solid, doing various tests and reinstalls, there is still no clear reason why this is occuring. If they run you through the same hoops they did me, expect to torture every part of your pc. In the end, they blamed it on heat, even though I don't have overheating issues, and the problem only occurs with GW.

If enough of us get onto support about this problem, maybe they'll actually fix it, instead of blaming it on our machines.

If I send a report to Anet and their support team tells me the reason my pc freezes ONLY with GW is because I have a heat issue I'm gonna burn my copy of the game and call it a day. I've run numerous benchmarking tools to stress my pc and put it on maximum load for hours earlier today. PC did not freeze once. Did not overheat. Everything was stable. Memtest, Sisoft Sandra, 3dmark among others. GW has never ever put my system at 100% capacity. My system has been the same for the last 2-3 months minus the occasional virus definitions and firewall updates. Already checked those off my list of potential problems. So the only thing left is the GW client itself since this problem ONLY started after their most recent updates.

I forgot to mention 1 key point. When I re-installed GW yesterday (all 3 chapters) everything was ok. I exited and entered game with no problems. Loaded up the new files which I was missing on some maps and still things were fine. Then I sent my Dervish to Cantha and loaded up some maps (Right now at 2nd outpost). Restarted PC and BAM! my freezing problem came right back. Again heat is not an issue. My hardware has all been checked over and everything is fine.

You know, in your case, it really does sound like something is up with your hardware. Did you try running one of those stress tests on your setup and see if you computer holds up?

I alrady stated that in my earlier post. Computer holds up just fine. Right now I will reinstall GW and I leave my characters outside of Cantha and see if GW works without the Canthan maps loaded.

I had the same problems. Played GW on max graphic settings. Then I put them all on low and now I can play 5 hours and nothing happens .

Same problem, no lag but every 20/25 minutes minutes freeze.

System:
AMD Athlon XP 3200+
Geforce 6800le
1.00 GB RAM
Router Atlantis ADLS2+

I'm starting to have the same problem too! :O Never happened to me before.

A lot of players start to blame the servers for random freezes. To tell the truth there are several causes for a computer to freeze and reboot. One of the leading causes is heat. Due to the higher requirements of Guild Wars in the graphics department now, overheating video cards are a main cause of the freezes and reboots. There can be others but on a most connections you shouldn't have too many problems (dial-up is the exception to that one). Try to lower your graphics setttings when you get into the game to take some of the load off of the video card that should help. Another thing that can help is to have as much system ram as you can afford. More system ram can help out performance issues by giving windows the headroom to actualy run without using the paging file. For non-geeks the paging file is a small portion of your hard drive (amount of space used depends entirely on how much ram you have installed and how many programs are running) that windows sets aside to use when your main system ram becomes full. Some people call it the swap file also. By installing more system ram you give windows more space to use without resorting to the slower harddrive. If you look at the system requirements for Windows (all versions have their own requirements) you will see what the minimum ammount is. Windows XP recommends 512 megs if I m not mistaken but it is much happier with 1 gig or more.

Mega Mouse