Weirdest problem, ever.

When I start my PC, everything runs smoothly. I can pass hours on my browser (Google Chrome) or play any other game like TF2 (Team Fortress 2). Weirdly, My PC freezes at random times when I play Guild Wars.

Could anyone help me to find solutions &/or information o: ?

I've been having the same problem with my old PC. It was ultimately an overheating issue. Try to vacuum clean the inside of the computer if it's dusty and otherwise you could try giving the PC more space so it can get rid of its heat. If it's not that, I don't have a clue what it might be. (I'm not an expert)

Or use a can of compressed air like you get at a computer store to blow off dirt accumulated. You can try defragging gw.dat with Auslogics or Contig. Worst of all it could be a marginal power supply. Happened to me and that was it. Power supplies can age over time and get marginal.

I already passed the vacuum several times, I may simply Defragment my PC for the night, o:

It's also possible that it's a problem with the graphics card - Guild Wars is fairly good about limiting hardware demand, but it is more of a burden than many other games and if your graphics card is overheating or starting to wear out it can cause this. I'd definitely try cleaning out your computer first (that's the most common cause of the problem) and if that doesn't fix it, try turning the graphics settings all the way down if you haven't already and see if the problem goes away.

Also, does the computer Blue Screen or crash or anything or just completely stop responding? Are there any error messages or specific programs that stop responding? Does the computer unfreeze if you leave it alone? Anything else you can tell us to help with diagnosis?

My mouse dosen't move anymore, I can't** receive whispers, the orange dot below the green one (Power on) stops lighting up. O:



Info : My PC is about 11 years old, it has been upgraded a couple of time with new items (like a wireless thingie and some other stuff).

I had the same problem before but it froze on everything, and not simply because GW was openned. Also, I can sometimes play for more than 10 minutes : Until I freeze.

I had the same problem a few years back on a custom pc that was built for me. Kept freezing up and I'd have to turn the power strip off, then turn it back on. Turned out what it was, the power supply was not enough for constant use (yes I cheaped out on it back then) and the power supply was being over stressed. Replaced the power supply with a new one from the local computer store for around $50 and that computer is still running fine to this day.

Another problem if it works fine on everything BUT Gw, would lead me to believe it would be your graphics card. If you can swap the GPU out with a different one and it works ok, then you need a new graphics card. Otherwise, I'd put money on the power supply if a different GPU does the same thing.

Just read your latest post too. 11 year old computer. Wow - has the power supply every been replaced??

Unless you've already upgraded with all new video card, ram, etc. maybe you should consider building a new one for about 600 bucks ... that would last you quite a few years and would be able to run any of the newer games that are coming out with ease. Some useful sites would be tigerdirect or newegg for ordering parts. 11 years is very old for a computer. I built mine for around 400 a few years ago but just in those few years far better parts at cheaper prices are available.

It's probably a dying graphic card. Had the very same issue as you presented - i could browse the web with Chrome (oddly enough, the machine froze under Firefox), play some less-demanding games, but 3d apps, mainly GW, froze the hell of it.
There are three possible details that cause it - (a) the graphic card itself is somehow broken (they have their lifetime, and 11 years is A LOT for a component like this, it's a miracle it was working), (b) something's wrong with the power going to the graphic card - it might be an issue with the mobo socket, psu or the card itself (losing power), or (c) there's a power conflict between the graphic card and the cpu, which causes an infinite loop, thus locking the machine up.
Despite the precise reason, it's probably the graphic card's fault.
The only way to really test it is to take another, working, card from a friend and plug it into your machine, then see how GW works. Be cautious, however, with such an old PC, especially if the psu is eleven years old, as well. TBH i wouldn't even test it though - such freezes under 3d games are mostly caused by troubles with graphics, this way or another.

not the weirdest....probably more like a very common....since you computer is quite old --it probably is a graphics card issue (had one with my last computer as well---certain areas in gw were worse than others---try going to kaineng center...if it dies there its a good chance--rata sum is another heavy graphics area--my laptop cant handle it at all--good thing I use it only for my mule accounts).

hubby resolved his by keeping directX8 I think (he has a computer almost as old--8 this year)...he cant upgrade to 9 (or even THINK about 10)...it just doesnt work on his.

If you take the hoover option - get someone to give you a hand.
Reason i say this is - the motherboard etc are affected by static and there is a chance that static charge may occur - same reason they say use a static wrist strap thats earthed when handling components.
What you need do is get a small pain brush and get your helper to hold the hoover nozzle about an inch from the area you clean - just brush the dirt and it should get sucked away.

The thing is that last week it was running fine o-o [For Guild Wars]

Did you try to add " -dx8 -noshaders" as command line arguments ? It can resolve some graphical issues....

yeah...my old computer ran gw fine for almost a year (or more)...before I started having the shut downs...it tries to handle it--but just cant keep up.(and yeah it played other games just fine as well).

update your drivers, uninstall/reinstall GW.

I noticed this problem on Nvidia cards,.but not on my current ATI. Lord only knows what the new AMD cards are like.

Alright so, I just opened my PC up and guess what. Something in it is EXTREMELY hot.

How can I fix this (Could I simply add the fan I use on Hot summer days next to it o-o ?)


Graphic Driver : [IMG][/IMG]

Hi Chris!

The overheating is your problem. I would download SIW at http://gtopala.com/

Then install it and see if you can get a reading on your temperatures for the different parts. Keep it running when you run Guild Wars. Then see which temperatures are most worrisome and replace that part.

If you want you could use the floor fan to cool your computer XD but that would look ridiculous. Still it's a temporary fix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrvDu-rD7TM

I know it has already been suggested, and you have already replied but I just want to emphasize the point. Make sure dust isn't clogging the fans. Look very thoroughly and find where the fan is and look inside it to check there is no dust or anything blocking it. Also make sure your computer isn't leaning against a curtain or fabric or anything that might block the filters (which you should also check for dust).

And, don't forget to include the power supply in your hunt for dust. If the inside of the computer is dusty, the inside of the power supply probably is too. A common problem with power supplies is that internal heat over time can cause bad solder joints.

I'm gonna try Ken's suggestion and put a regular fan , I am going to upload a picture for everyone to laugh at >:P



As you can see, old computer

I see your house fan idea worked Good fix for now. Haha.

Computers can last a long long time if maintained. HEAT KILLS COMPUTERS. Mainly the heat from GPUs and CPUs. Hard drives are problematic in that they have motors and produce heat. Besides the fans, the rest of the computer is just electronics and dispersing the heat they produce. CPU, GPU, RAM, and chipsets on Motherboards produce the most heat.

Generally a desktop could have a front intake fan and rear exhaust. Some have more fans and some have just one exhaust (some dells etc.)

If your rig is overheating.

Turn on your computer and check temps. You can check in bios or use one of several programs to see. You want to check temps while doing nothing and while gaming to see how hot it's getting. Make note of what you see.

Then open up side and have a look at the computer while it's running.

Check to see all fans are working especially the ones on the CPU and GRAPHICS CARD. Some motherboards have active cooling/fans.

Check for broken or noisy fans that don't seem to be working as well as they use to. Sometimes you can tell just by the sound they make.

Check the hard drive. It should be pretty warm but if it's really hot and or making funny noises, it could be dying. Heat kills hard drives too so some people have fans aimed at theirs.

THEN TURN OFF COMPUTER

Check to see if all the coolers are seated right and not lose.

Remove, thoroughly clean, add new heat grease, reinstall any lose coolers. Or replace it with a better one. Google for info and vids of how to do this or pay someone. Thermal paste is a must for this.

Coolers don't usually come loose, but can be installed incorrectly. You basically have to drop a desktop for a properly installed cooler to get loose, but things happen when they are being shipped so check. Giant heavy coolers are more prone to this.

If everything is seated correctly, use a vacuum with canned air to blow out all the coolers and fans inside the case. Get all the fuzz and carpets that form on top of coolers.

Check the Graphics card. These have small vents and can get full of dust. Blow it out. If that doesn't work you may have to pull it out and work on it.

Replace malfunctioning/broken fans.

Clean any filters on intake and exhaust. Metal grills can even get filled up too.

Turn on computer and make sure all fans are working. Then close it up and check temps. That should make a small to drastic improvement to temps.

If your house is relatively dust free, you can go a while between cleanings. If you have pets and it's dusty, check more frequently.

GPU/Graphics cards produce tons of heat. Some require extra cooling. For peace of mind I have a fan pointed straight at mines. Some people put after market coolers on their graphics card. I prefer to buy one with decent cooling and add a fan to insure it runs cooler.

Fans are cheap at neweggg etc. Check fatwallet or slickdeals for deals on fans, coolers, new rigs etc.

Now that it's physically working right, you might want to check what the computer is actually doing. When you are playing guild wars, the computer is just playing gw right? WRONG. It probably has antivirus going on in the background, music player or video going on monitor 2, messenger, firefox, updates, downloads, uploads, and virus or 2 slowing it down.

Since everyone has their own computers and they are all different, it would be unpossible to tell you exactly what to do.

Google:
How to make your windows etc faster. Usually it involves turning off some processes that you dont need and changing a few settings.

Update your antivirus sw and run it.
Some antivirus software uses too much resources. Research and find out if yours is resource hog and replace it if it is.

Download free Malwarebytes. Update and run it.

Less your computer does, the cooler it runs.

Same applies to laptops except most you cant open it up without risking warranty.

So....

Check temps.

Fix software.

Blow it out.

Check temps.

So simple, right.

When I start GW :


Do you guys see any useless processes ?

First of all, i'd play in full-screen mode and avoid minimising the game. Keeping that policy helped me a lot on my old machine.

I'd get rid of Avast. It most likely doesn't cause the computer to hang up, but all those 'free antiviruses' aren't all that useful, especially if you don't click OK I DO! on every site you see, including some weird adult sites. Manual maintenance + careful internet approach > any antivirus, especially free.

SearchSettings is probably an add-on that got installed when you got some other software. I had it too, came with a free YouTube Downloader. It can be safely removed from your machine.

Also, i'm not sure if rundll32 should be running while playing GW, and doing nothing else, so something might be wrong there.

I'm currently on another PC at this very moment. My dad told me to close mine so it would lose heat. And yes, I have Youtube Downloader, that is why the SearchSetting is there.

I'll try to unistall Avast so my PC runs smoother.

If I was you I wouldn't uninstall your anti virus. Yes you can avoid getting stuff but I think it is so unnecessary to uninstall it. It isn't taking up a lot of memory or CPU so removing it really won't make much of a difference. Just disable it when you want to play GW because that will have the same effect.

Also I'm not sure if it will work but if you start in safe mode with networking you could try running GW in that and seeing if it is much better. If it is then it will be other processes causing the problem but if you get the same problems then no amount of uninstalling will help.

It's not that most free antivirs take up a lot of memory or CPU. It's that free antivirs (Avast, AVG and others) can do shit against really nasty viruses and other malware, whilst having permanent access to very fragile parts of the system, unless you manually disable them when you don't need them (98% of the time). My close friend had his AVG turned against his machine by a well hidden malware that made the antivirus - and the free AVG is no way compatible with the full version of Norton - attack the system and block any kind of resistance. Took us a while to realise what was going on and that we had to unlock, and then delete AVG before we could work on the real threat.

Occasional scan with MBAM is a completely different story, though, and should be practiced even if you don't suspect any malware running in the background.


As for running GW in safe mode... sure, a 3d app will work miracoulously without loading most drivers, including graphics. Neat idea.


e: more so, you might try this for a quasi-advanced, semi-automatic way to scan and fix your software, however i'm pretty sure it's the hardware that's malfunctioning there.

Every year whats good and bad changes as far as antivirus. Research current ones at sites like anandtech. Check to see if the version of your antivirus is a resource hog. Some free ones are great, including MS essentials. That might not be true next year. For a long time many of the free ones were better than many of the ones people paid for. They were more efficient and caught as much as any of the big name av. Truth be told, anti-virus mostly sucks. You want good malware protection and one of the best is free/paid for malewarebytes. I run both. I also have licensed ad-aware that seems to work ok most of the time, but can be a resource hog.

VISTA SUCKS. If you are running that, it will slow you down a lot. 1st update all of it and hope it speeds things up. It's not nearly as bad as it use to be, but upgrade to WIN7 if possible. Vista itself is resource hog.

Check task manager and watch as you run different programs to see how much resources are being used by each process. Little things like, wallpaper, clocks, temp monitors, updates, reminders, etc all take up resources. On windows everything on the bottom right of taskbar can be taking up resources. Pop up blockers plug-ins that block bs sites on browsers help. Turn off flash and other programs that you don't need when not using them.

I run an old duo core 2.5ghz, 4gigs RAM, winxp pro with multiple monitors and game on one and have browser, vlc, skype, msg, facebook, gw2, antivirus, etc that could also be running. It slows down a lot when the 2nd GW is running and I have shut off everything else basically if I want to game on 1 and still run the 2nd copy on the other. This gives you an idea of what you can do if you have a faster set up on xp or win7. If you cant run multiple gw or gw and a few other things on the same or faster computer, it's probably bloatware or heat.

I'm running Windows XP, I hate the design of it though : so I run the Vista design instead.

About Safe Mode, My PC asks me to run Safe mode when I turn off my computer completely off guard (like in a power cut case, where the PC is shut down in (nano) seconds). I can go with the option ; Safe Mode Networking something.


I'll try that and see how it does

--------------------


I'm simply going to get a new PC.

Can I get any head-ups on how this PC is good/bad please ?


http://www.microbytes.com/product_info.php?cPath=77&products_id=32654&langua ge=en&osCsid=9395f8f24661ec73b176cd8f7a50f9cf

That would be a server, so wont really do the job you want for your games...

If you want a cheap, decent computer...Then I'd recommend something like this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/267120-acer-pr...p-pt-sf3e2-071
Hope this helps.

You shouldn't have to run in safe mode. Update you antivirus and run that in safe mode. Do a full scan over night. Also on your hard drive its good to have around 20% of it free. So if yours is full of gw screens, save them someplace else so the hd has room to operate.

That barebones system is JUNK and its a server. Nice if you need to have 10 hard drives and are going to be hosting a server for some game, but not for most of us. $700 for a box with no cpu, graphics card etc? Better for you to just buy a dell when dell goes on sales which is all the time basically. For under $600, you can get a decent dell with a 20" widescreen monitor. Many times the only thing you may need to add to it is a video card and maybe some ram to turn into a decent gaming rig.

Visit this deal site. It's one of the best. They do nothing, but find ways to save money on things. Especially computers and stuff.
http://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Figure out if you want to build it or buy it pre assembled or a bit of both. There is how to and with what parts guide in the forums. Is money an issue? If not just get whatever. If any money concerns, you generally want to get 2nd tier or 3rd tier parts as far as CPU and GPU are concerned. So if the old i7 is the top processor, you want to go with i5 or even i3 to get the most bang for your buck. i5 was the safe choice. Same applies to video cards etc. The good thing is sometimes you can get smoking deals on the latest and greatest. Check those deal sites. They will let you know.

Many ways to build a new rig. What many of us do is pick what kind of parts we want and then buy whatever comparable parts go on sale. They always have sales on computer stuff so you dont' have to wait long usually. Mainly you need to focus on CPU/Motherboard, RAM, and graphics card. Research online before doing it and keep your old computer around as a guide. There's a lot of little things that go on when you build a whole new computer. It's kinda hard to trouble shoot any problems initially cuz all the parts are new and who knows which one is acting up. Don't let that scare you. It's good to know how to build one because they all basically work the same.

My advice to you is to just buy a dell when they have their crazy sales. You can get the computer with a decent monitor, the op system (win7), keyboard, mouse, computer for under $600 shipped. Can't beat it. Can't build it for less. Then add a gaming card that doesnt break the band. Check the hot deals forums at slickdeals or fatwallet.com every morning or evening for a week or 2 and there will be some kind of deal going. They rate the deals to let you know if you are getting a lot for your money or not. So its easy if you can read and use basic comprehension. Doesn't mean things can't go wrong. But you can return a dell at their cost if the unit is defective. There have also been deals on HP, Lenovo etc. Sign up at the deal site and ask questions.

I use to advise my friends/fam what to get and stuff. Then I taught them how to read and now they tell me when something is on sale. Its not hard. I still troubleshoot their computers once in a while, but I learned to do all of that from reading guides on the internet and they could do it too. Try it.

I'm thinking about getting a whole new PC built. I can keep the hardwares of my old PC ( 75 GB (/C + 35 GB ( /D.


Money is not an ''issue''. I plan on building one for a price of about 700$. Would that be enough money in your opinion to run games like Guild Wars & Guild Wars 2 ?