Freezing up..

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

When I play guildwars(It's happened a grand total of twice on CoD2, and never playing F.E.A.R., but ALWAYS on gw) I'll lock up, my speakers will frizz out and I have to reboot manually, and this is a brand new computer. I'm running on a geforce 6800(pci-e), and I don't know if that's the problem or not.

I ran prime95 for about a day, 3d mark and aquamark passed with flying colors(though I think that just tells you viability on games and not problems) And yes I put this computer together myself, it runs fine except when playing Guild Wars, and those 2 times on CoD2, I don't know why it does this.

Sometimes I can play for 5 minutes, sometimes 10, I got a 2 hour stretch in then I locked up 5 times in like 10 minutes afterwards. I deleted my gw.gat file and redownloaded from the client, and it didn't fix it. I'm just really frustrated because I can't play much of this game

EternalTempest

EternalTempest

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

United States

Dark Side Ofthe Moon [DSM]

E/

Make sure you have the most current version of Microsoft Direct X located here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx

Make sure you have the most current “official” video card driver. This can resolve a lot of issues.

Nvidia – http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
Ati – http://www.ati.com/

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

I've done both of those when I first loaded my OS onto this system

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

There are a lot of things that can cause lockups like this. Can you give us more information about your system (CPU, motherboard make/model, RAM brand/model, power supply make/wattage, and a general run-down of internal peripherals you're using)?

With a little more information I can give you a short list of the most likely things to check.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1gb Patriot RAM, geforce 6800(EVGA brand), XG Vortec 500 watt psu, Chaintech VNf4 Zenith VE motherboard(yeah it sucks but it had a pci-e slot and it was cheap). And my sound card is a sound blaster audigy 2 or somethin like that.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

BTW My system runs at a constant 33 degrees celcius(my one friend said my OS might be the problem?) It's windows xp pro and UBER stripped down version I acquired from a friend..it doesn't even have paint on it, but it runs like a beast

dimirpaw

dimirpaw

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Canada/Alberta/Edmonton

I would guess thats the problem, having a Windows OS in your computer that could have a possible chance of missing some key files... I wouldn't suggest getting ripped versions of Windows, however you can go out and buy the Home Edition for under $100 US.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

I just got XP Pro sp2 and installed it and it's the same problem, so it's definatly not my OS.

My friend said he had this problem with his computer when it was new but it went away.


It seems that it's not so bad the longer i Play but I mean, crashing in the middle of a long travel or a mission really sucks

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Nah...the type of problem you're describing doesn't sound like software, and therefore not your OS. It sounds like a hardware problem.

Did you confirm that the memory you purchased it compatible with your motherboard? Unfortunately, not all makes/models of memory like to play nice with all motherboards. That's the first thing I would check. The motherboard manufacturer's web site should have a compatibility matrix.

Next I would test you memory to make sure it's not bad. Download this program and create the bootable floppy:

http://www.memtest86.com/memt32.zip

Boot from it and let the test run for at least 5 passes. If you start seeing errors reported you motherboard doesn't like your memory or the memory is bad and you need to get it replaced.

The next thing I would try is replacing the cable to your hard drive. Sounds weird, I know, but bad hard drive cables cause random lockups pretty often as well.

After you've tried that stuff let us know how it went. If you're still having problems you may have a problem with power or your motherboard. Cheap power supplies are another common source of lockups because they oftentimes will allow voltage drops that can make your hardware operate unreliably.

dimirpaw

dimirpaw

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Canada/Alberta/Edmonton

I personally believe it's a motherboard issue. This is a problem when people buy motherboards based on a lower price and not on what they offer. By motherboard issue's I mean, that it doesn't like what you attached to it, such as memory, cards, and whatever else.

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by dimirpaw
I personally believe it's a motherboard issue. This is a problem when people buy motherboards based on a lower price and not on what they offer. By motherboard issue's I mean, that it doesn't like what you attached to it, such as memory, cards, and whatever else.
Well, I suppose it could be, but the only way to find out is to troubleshoot the problem. At this point it could be a lot of things. I wouldn't assume it's the motherboard until other things have been tested.

People use cheap motherboards without problems all the time, but he could be looking at an issue with compatibility, power (from the motherboard to peripherals), or something motherboard related.

Right now it sounds to me like memory or power issues, but again, the only way to find out is to troubleshoot and narrow it down.

dimirpaw

dimirpaw

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Canada/Alberta/Edmonton

There should be some programs out there you can find on google to help him you out.

Here's a review on this motherboard: http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/...ds/1522_5.html

Not the best one in the world.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

I've already ran memtest, no errors there, and my PSU is not a shitty brand or anything. But the thing that irks me the most as that I can run anything I want, HL2, CoD2, F.E.A.R. and not have these problems. Obviously it is something with my system but I just can't figure it out

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

And my IDE cable connected to my HDD is like....2 weeks old max

Also, what I'm thinking if it was hardware, my problems would have to be universal. It's not like I have a racist motherboard or anything like that "Oh yes, CoD2 woo woo!! Guild wars...DIEE!!" I'm half certain computers don't work like that

One can dream that stuff does work like that and I just need to 'break in' persay, my hdd, but alas I will slit my wrists and blacken my eyes should that be the case(poor attempt at humor sorry)

chris_nin00

chris_nin00

Dun dun dun

Join Date: Aug 2005

Reddit Guild

R/

It looks like a hardware problem...
Guild Wars doesn't look down kindly on Nvidia Cards . Really.

I can only suppose that it's a Guild Wars problem.

dimirpaw

dimirpaw

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Canada/Alberta/Edmonton

Thats why I brought up it being the motherboard. It maybe doesn't like the Nivida Chipset, it's not the video card though since I got the same one and it works fine.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

Except my motherboard is a NVIDIA nForce4 chipset..

chris_nin00

chris_nin00

Dun dun dun

Join Date: Aug 2005

Reddit Guild

R/

Oh, hang on,
I use an Nvidia nForce4 chipset too, with an ATI X700 pro. Weird combination isn't it .

dimirpaw

dimirpaw

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Canada/Alberta/Edmonton

*Waits as the ATI and Nivdia Flamers come*

lol It is a bit weird to support both heh, most people are loyal to only one.

Anyhow, I hope your problem gets fixed soon, good luck!

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

Bump.

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by dimirpaw
*Waits as the ATI and Nivdia Flamers come*

lol It is a bit weird to support both heh, most people are loyal to only one.

Anyhow, I hope your problem gets fixed soon, good luck!
Brand loyalty is pointless. Just buy whatever product is best for you. I have about as many ATI products as nVidia products between my 4 computers...they both have their good and bad.

It's definitely not a compatibility issue between the video card and the game -- lots of people use that card with this game. It's also not a problem between the chipset and the game. NF4 is probably the most common chipset in use in AMD systems today. Heck, the system I'm using right now uses the NF4-SLi chipset. No problems. The only real nVidia problems that exist with GW are problems with certain cards/driver versions.

It's time to start troubleshooting. You're just going to have to start a process of elimination until you figure out what's causing the problem. It's not fun, I know, but if you build your own systems you'll have to do it eventually.

By the way, Imrik, I've built 3 different systems (granted, out of many) that had random lockups because of bad drive cables, but all of the bad cables were brand new, so don't rule that out just because your cables are new.

Have you looked in the System log in Windows to see if there's a critical error listed in the log when this happens? That could be a starting point for you. Also, and this might be a dumb question, but do you have all of the power cables connected properly? Make sure the power cables (including the one that goes directly to your video card) are properly seated.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

This is going to sound retarded but I'm not sure how to get to the system log.

An IDE cable 'may' be the problem, I'm using one from an older computer in there because I ONLY got 1 in my box, however that's connected to my cd drive.

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Here's a Microsoft article on using the Event Logs. Something like this would probably show up as an Error event in the System event log.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...308427&sd=tech

Like I said, a bad cable is not necessarily the most likely culprit, but it's one that baffles many people because they don't think to check it. Like I said, at this point you're probably going to have to start a process of elimination to find out what's wrong. You might start by taking everything out of your computer except what's absolutely necessary to run GW, see if it still crashes, and go from there.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

In my event log, DCOM and COM+ are giving me errors on the log roughly the time of my lockups, and this is what is says(I disabled both of them, COM+ just by clicking and DCOM with the DCOMbobulator tool program)



The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 800706BA from line 44 of d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemo bj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.

and

DCOM got error "The service database is locked. " attempting to start the service netman with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}

However, with it shut off I'm still getting COM+ errors

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by imrik32
In my event log, DCOM and COM+ are giving me errors on the log roughly the time of my lockups, and this is what is says(I disabled both of them, COM+ just by clicking and DCOM with the DCOMbobulator tool program)



The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 800706BA from line 44 of d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemo bj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.

and

DCOM got error "The service database is locked. " attempting to start the service netman with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}

However, with it shut off I'm still getting COM+ errors
Hmm...you say you're using a Sound Blaster Audigy 2? Check this out:

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=428&view= by_date_ascending&page=4

Not sure if it's related, but it looks like this was causing lockups similar to what you're experiencing. I would try what the mod says on the 4th page of that thread and try downloading the newest drivers from the Creative Labs website.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

Well, I already thought of that, which is why atm my sound blaster isn't even in my pc anymore, I took it out to test it and I still lock up

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

It looks like that problem isn't just caused by the driver. You might want to try removing all Creative software from your system. It also mentions updating some other Windows components like the MDAC.

Also:

Do you use Norton Antivirus or Security software?

Lagg

Lagg

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

W/

I had that happen to me once after increasing my AGP Aperture size from 64mb to 256mb.

Have a look in your BIOS, and see what value it is at (probably 128mb or 256mb) and try lowering it to 64mb.

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

Will that affect my graphics or anything? And when I go to remove the sound driver's it gives me an error

imrik32

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jan 2006

I went into my BIOS to lower the aperture, and I went through every single thing and I cannot find a damn thing about aperture or like VGA or Video card stuff.

Yamat

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

San Diego, USA

I've been playing GW on the same PC since the January Beta Weekend Events and this freezing only started happening in the last month or so...

I also have a NVidia card, and some friends of mine are having the same problem, and also have NVidia cards I think. A frustrating freeze happened to one of them while we were deep in SF last night, and I resolved to search the forums for info... low and behold!

I'm thinking it's a GW thing, not a NVidia thing. Sure, it may be due to having a NVidia card, but for many it seems the issue has been introduced recently...

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yamat
I've been playing GW on the same PC since the January Beta Weekend Events and this freezing only started happening in the last month or so...

I also have a NVidia card, and some friends of mine are having the same problem, and also have NVidia cards I think. A frustrating freeze happened to one of them while we were deep in SF last night, and I resolved to search the forums for info... low and behold!

I'm thinking it's a GW thing, not a NVidia thing. Sure, it may be due to having a NVidia card, but for many it seems the issue has been introduced recently...
I don't think it's an nVidia issue. I use a GeForce 7800GT and two of my friends use 6800GT and 6800 Ultra and none of us are having problems.

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Any luck yet? I searched for those two error messages you posted, and most of what I come up with points at a software problem with an application that uses COM+. Two of the big ones I've come across are Norton and some of the Creative Labs companion apps, like Disc Detector, Control Center, and one of the processes that's tied to the Creative Mixer.

Did you try Google'ing those error messages?

Lagg

Lagg

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by imrik32
Will that affect my graphics or anything? And when I go to remove the sound driver's it gives me an error
No. AGP Aperture size is one of the big myths of graphic cards. Many people seem to think that a larger AGP aperture size means better performance, whereas it simply allocates (but doesn't reserve) system RAM to be used by the graphic card. If you have a graphic card with 128mb or more of on-board VRAM, you will never need more than a 64mb AGP aperture (if any at all, though entirely disabling the AGP aperture isn't recommended either).

Also, try using DriverCleaner to remove your sound drivers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by imrik32
I went into my BIOS to lower the aperture, and I went through every single thing and I cannot find a damn thing about aperture or like VGA or Video card stuff.
This is most unusual. Have you tried updating your BIOS? Unless this is a new computer, you may be running a rather obsolete mainboard. The AGP Aperture size is controlled by the chipset, so it should be in the chipset options of your BIOS.

Lagg

Lagg

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

W/

Nevermind, you're running PCX (PCI-Express), the successor to AGP (so you obviously don't have AGP aperture size).

Can't help you there.

Try contacting Nvidia tech support and ask them if there is something like PCX aperture size.

Draikin

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

The only lockups I ever experienced with Guild Wars were caused by a conflict with Antivir Personal Edition and by having "Cool & Quiet" enabled. It could still be a software problem, so make sure you shut down as many programs as possible that are running in the background before you start Guild Wars.

Gorebrex

Gorebrex

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2006

Im am also starting to have trouble too. Had 2 HEAVY in-game lags(couldnt move, or see new chat appear), had CTD when 1st attempted to login(lag was during 2nd login). Then, on 3rd, had PC restart spontaneously. Never had this happen in the month Ive been playing, nothing new in PC, its same as its been for before I got game. I also have a Nvidia card(FX5900, latest drivers. I have seen in-game that I am not alone in this lagginess...


And I always D/L updated drivers if I need them(having some kind of problem)