The Good Ol' COMP REBOOT

PROBLEM SOLVED! (check the bottom post)

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO TRIED!

Here's what ANet has to say on the subject.


And here's some areas to focus on:

First: verify/ensure you have the latest/correct/stable drivers for all your hardware. Sometimes <graphic drivers especially> driver can become corrupt or be improperly installed/partially uninstalled so you may need to use a driver cleaning utility but usually just reverting back to Windows Default Drivers and rebooting before installing new drivers works just fine.

Second: Is your PC overheating and/or overclocked? If so, set everything back to normal in the BIOS or driver settings. Also, consider underclocking for trouble-shooting purposes. Underclocking memory speed, AGP Speed down to 4X, Fast Writes Off, etc...

Also, clean out the entire inside of your system case, special care and attention around cooling fans. Also, confirm that all fans are working. Evil Dust Bunnies could also be the cause of any new heat related issues.


Some Great Resources:

http://www.filehippo.com/

http://www.majorgeeks.com/


Some Notes:

Since you are receiving an error message, I'm guessing you have a driver conflict or possibly hardware based failure of your video card. But, I'm only basing that on likelihood of probable cause not anything definite, of course.

If your PC isn't overheating and you aren't overclocking, then you may want to try some judicious underclocking.

Sometimes knocking the AGP Speed to 4X from 8X in the BIOS can vastly improve stability without having any noticeable impact on video performance. AGP 8X has a bad reputation for being error prone and messy.

im 100% sure my computer is not overheating, and its not overclocked. But how the hell can i knock AGP Speed to 4x to 8x. not a bios expert man. and i THINK ive got the correct drivers, i kept updating them ALL the time, from their original homepages, mut some scanners still say they are outdated...

AND btw, i did the blue screen test, and the error was: the ICQR (or something) less or equal or something like that

OK, that error is usually a hardware driver issue, device conflict or possibly bad RAM, but I can't possibly be sure unless you can give us the whole error information. The <stop> code.

Have you made sure your VIA chipset drivers are updated? You don't sound very confident about the state of your hardware drivers. Using old possibly buggy drivers is a sure way to get these type issues. So, you should be double-checking. In particular the Via Chipset.

Example:

okeyyyhhh... how can i take a SS from the BSOF?

im sure. i used like 3 different programs to find the VIA drivers site, and downloaded the same driver 3 times, and its not outdated.

OK stop posting back to back, use the EDIT button, please.


And, you can write down the STOP Code String. It's the very first line of the error screen...

okey thankyou sorry bout doublepost, i was just being lazy, (and pissed of course)


but i think i found a solution..... i freed up 350mb of ram with tuneup utilities, then launched GW just to test if it works, because i got no time to play. teh game booted, and started. but a while of running around, it crashed without reboot nor BSOF. i think the crash was because of too much ram freed by tuneup. ill still give the stop string here tomorrow

I don't recommend running any "RAM freeing" utilities. They generally cause more problems than they actually solve. Windows XP can handle RAM juggling just fine without out a third party application getting in the mix.

Of course, everyone likes to tweak their system, but when you start having system problems when you had none before, it's time to get things back to normal in order to rule out the "tweaks' as the cause.

And, some utilities and tweaks can definitely do more harm than good.

Ive used tuneup 2007 since it came and no problems so far (xept if u free up too much ram... system gets RLLY slow) but heres the stop code i wrote down:
***STOP:0x000000A(0xC49E4CC8, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x804E6639)

Hope this helps solving the problem the game is SOO good

STOP:0x000000A
This error is typically caused by faulty or incompatible hardware or software attempting to access a memory location without authorization.
Suspect an incompatible driver, system service, virus scanner, or backup program.

If you don't get the errors without "Tune Up 2007" running, well, I'll leave that conclusion up to you.

3D programs will stress your system more than anything else, so even though you may not have seen a problem it would largely depend on how often you have ran any 3D intensive programs <sound, video, RAM usage>.


You might try running Aquamark 3d to test your video hardware.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=673

Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose a Download Europe or Australia.
Scroll to the bottom of the next page and click 'I Agree'.

This will launch the download. Save the file somewhere on your system. After the download is complete, run the installation, then run the program.

Click the 'Select Measurement' option, then click the first option 'Aquamark Score Measurement'. Allow Aquamark to run through the score test. Report to us your final results, and let us know if you encounter any problems.

I ran the test. everything went fine on like 20fps until the high particles section.
Then game the BSOD.

I think it was the same STOP code..

Your video card is quite old, and doesn't support direct x9. its seems it's time to save for another one :3

agree with him on this one. BSODs are usually caused by bad memory, but I'd replace the card first and see what happens. You should be able to get a decent AGP card for around $50-$75.

I have to chime in and agree that this kinda sounds like a bad RAM issue, seeing as how it cleared up when you freed up some memory. I'd say the majority of gaming-related BSOD's are graphics driver issues (volume-wise), but IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL is a RAM issue a lot of the time as well.

I'd recommend downloading Memtest86+ here:
http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70....70.floppy.zip

Make the boot diskette and let it run a full test. If you get more than one or two errors you've probably got a memory module that's dying.

THanks for tryin EVERYBODY! But i got the problem solved. The problem ACTUALLY WAS too low ram. because i now saw how much ram the process took, and it was WAY over 512 in total. but i found myself a 512m stick (for free) and everythings ok now! thank you all

Glad to hear you're not having problems anymore, but just one thing: not having enough RAM DOES NOT make your computer reboot. Ever.

One of your memory modules is/was bad. I'd still recommend running Memtest86+ if you're still using the modules you were using before. Adding more RAM might seem to have solved the problem, but if you're still using a bad module it will pop up again in the future...likely when you're playing a different game or doing something else that requires more RAM than Guild Wars.

The above post is completely correct.
Because you have more RAM it is less likely that you pc will need to address the bad section. The bad section is still there however.

I agree: I don't think the problem has necessarily been solved.

=================================================
To the OP:
Removing your originally reported PC problem from your first post doesn't help others with possibly similar issues very much.
=================================================

AS I noted earlier "RAM freeing" utilities can often create some of these issues as well.

Additionally, bad RAM is not the only reason that will cause a PC to spontaneously reboot, but it surely is a common one.

If the OP had access to another stick of 512 MB RAM, he should swap out the original RAM with the newer stick and run his "BSOD" test a few times.. This way he can see if his problem goes away.

Otherwise, adding the newer RAM will just make the reboot happen less often...but the cause/defect will still be there.

There's still the chance the video card and RAM interaction could have been the source of the issue as well.

Time will tell, or more likely a newer PC will make it a problem no longer.