Issues with Machine Lockups and Overheating. Add you details here.

MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R
AMD 64 3200+
1 Gb Corsair PC3200
Thermaltake Silent Boost W/ Arctic Silver 5
Dual 120 mm Case fans
MSI Radeon RX9800pro W/ Cat 5.7
Antec Truepower 430W

FRESH install of XP Home W/ SP2 (2 hours old) on New 80 GB Partition . All drivers current! Freshly cleaned case (Antec P160), fans & heatsinks.

Immediately upon loading Guildwars I received the "pixelated" screen. Had to restart the computer! BTW, it was pixelating and locking up prior to the reload too.

Curiously, the reason for the fresh OS install was the system refused to load any Catalyst video drivers on boot (claimed incompatibility with windows version). I now wonder if there is a connection with this problem and my initial driver corruption and system refusal to reload drivers!!

Next move is to either open the case and blow a fan in there or go back to 4.x cat drivers.

The secret to overheating is to open a window to let it cool down works for me

My set ran absolutely fine until that last patch....near as i can tell......the problem i am having (lockup) OLNY happens when i have multiple windows open...e.g when trading...its the only time and it is not consistent,,,some times it does some times it doesnt...any ideas?

I've posted this before, i while back, but might as well do it here too.

I get alot of different 'crashes'. All random:

My computer will restart itself.
The screen with go pixilated with coloured vertical lines.
The screen will go black.
The screen goes black and i get the message 'Mode Not Supported'.
The computer freezes completely.

For all of these, the only thing to do is turn it off at the mains (i have no reset button >.<). This ONLY happens in GW. I can run HL2, Doom 3 etc fine. It will happen anywhere from 1 minute into the game, to 5 hours...

My system Specs:

512MB DDR PC2700 RAM
nVidia GeForce FX5200 128MB
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (2GHz)
220W PSU ( -.- )
Latest DirectX

I'm about to go buy a new 450W PSU, a new gaming case with lotsa case fans, and an exhaust fan - I have been assuming that my problem lies in the crap PSU, and that i have no cooling in my thin case other than the basic cpu fan/heatsink. I'm about to install those new nVidia drivers now too (77.77)..
...Guess i'll post back here if this doesn't solve my problems. The only other thing i can think of doing is buying a new hard-drive and installing only GW, with the latest drivers and my wireless 'net connection. See if it might be all the shite on my harddrive some how affecting it.

I haven't done a whole lot of messing around with Guild Wars. I'm still having fun playing it. I will however undoubtedly become bored with playing it and move on to writing hacks for the game(as I have with every other game I have picked up)....but the fact that guild wars isn't deleted the .tmp file when you exit GW makes me wonder. The very first thing you learn about programming .tmp files is that you delete them when the user terminates the game and force a hard delete when the video game crashes. .tmp files should never be left on the system. Bad programmers(or lazy take your pick) will store information in .tmp files instead of doing it the right way. I'll spend some time looking into what ArenaNet is storing in the .tmp files.

I just wanted to say that the 9800's do infact run VERY hot and are most likely the reason the owners of those have been having problems. I would recommend owners of those cards that are having issues to run the game for a while with at least the case open or preferably have a fan blowing inside for a short time to see if it might help. It would be interesting to see a poll for owners of various ATI cards (ie.X800, 9800's, 9600's) to see if they have experienced any technical problems while running Guild Wars.

My game consistently locks up and the amount of time that passes before locking up is random like someone else's post earlier.

I read the whole thread and there doesn't seeem to be any solutions out there that I haven't already tried.

System Specs
Asus A7n8X-E Deluxe bios 1013
9800 Pro with Artic Cooling ATI Silencer Rev 1
Mobile Barton 2500+ with Thermalright SP-97 Artic Silver 5
Corsair TwinX 2x512 DDR400
Antec Smart Power 2.0 450W

on W2K SP4

Now I have tried pretty much everything I could think of and what most people would suggest in trying to isolate this problem

I tried Catalyst 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 and neither solves the issues and before I even decided to update the drivers I was running Omega Drivers from 4.xx series (don't remember).

I've tried running my chip at an underclocked speed of 2200+ and still no luck

My case panel is open as well as my aftermarket cooling mods that i've placed into my system, so i doubt there is a heating issue

I doubt its a PSU issue.

I've tried running guildwars
on my brothers 9800Pro also with Thermaltakes VGAcooler 3
and on my other
Asus A7N8x-E Deluxe board
with another 2500+ chip with Thermailrights SI-97 Arctive Silver 5
using OCZ ModSTream 450W PSU

so I don't think it's a fault hardware anymore because how can the game be crashing using
two A7N8X-E Deluxes
two 2500+ chips at stock and underclocked
two 9800pros

the only thinking that's the same is the memory and i ran memtest86 with them for more than 12+ hours with no errors and I've run Prime95 for 19hours @ 190x11 1.625v 2.9DDRv..

Although one thing i did notice was that at CAS 2.5-3-36 Gw crashes a lot faster than @ 3-3-3-6

I've also reinstalled the game.

I'm getting very tired at this and might just accept the fact that I can only play for an hour before I have to restart the computer to continue playing GW

It seems i have finally conquered my crashing problems.
after putting an aftermarket gpu cooler on, which didn't help only made it quieter.
what finally fixed it for me is updating the via chipset drivers
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx...D=1&CatID=1070
i've played for about 6 hours straight with no crashes at all
so i REALLY hope this fixes it, if it doesn't i give up on gw, and will spend the rest of my time playing natural selection waiting for fortress forever to come out

I myself have just purchased a x800 XL from my GeForce 6600 GT and have just experienced this horrible crashing. It never happened with my 6600 GT so I am kindof suprised to see this happen, even with a brand new card. I can run the game for anyuwhere between 5 mins to 4 hours and then, it suddenly goes black(as if in standby) and plays some high pitched noise. I know its not an overheating problem because I can play more graphically intense games for hours on endand this will never happen. I dont know what the deal is, but there seems to be some conflict with the Catalyst Drivers or the ATI chipsets, and Guild Wars. I dont even know if A-Net knows about this yet. I have the latest 5.7 Drivers and the problem still persists, Am I forced to revert to an older driver?

ATI Radeon x800 XL
Antec 400w PS
4x Corsair 512 DDR PC 2700
AMD Athlon 2600+
DFI KT-400 Infinity

Well those new Drivers seems to have only made the problem worse, somehow. I get the feeling my problem derives from several different factors. I turned my computer on this morning, loaded up guildwars and BANG, black screen before i even clicked 'Play' with my selected character.

I've just spent too much on a new 550w psu, A8V deluxe motherboard, 512mb pc3200 ddr ram, and gaming case with lotsa case fans and an exhaust fan. If this doesn't solve my problem, that's it; I'm giving up on Guild Wars. Either that or i'm going to bitch to Anet, as it isn't my hardware that causing these RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO ups.

omg im so glad it just not me experiencing this problem. I haven't played Guild Wars much since BF2 cameout but when I do play the game completely freezes on me! i would have to hold down the button to shut it off. I've tried everything using drive cleaner, re installing drivers, etc. I use a X800 pro

This is some crash info GW gave to me after receiving an error:

*--> Crash <--*
Exception: c0000094
App: Gw.exe
ProgramId: 1
Build: 11806
When: 8/14/2005 16:13:15
Flags: 0

*--> System <--*
Name: DANNY-YL8CM73QA
IpAddr: 192.168.1.101
Processors: 2 [GenuineIntel:15:3:4]
OSVersion: 5.1

*--> Thread 0xfffffffe <--*
eax=00000040 ebx=04a154e0 ecx=00000000 edx=00000000 esi=00000040 edi=0000003a
eip=004c0f99 esp=011bf66c ebp=011bf678
cs=210246 ss=001b ds=0023 es=0023 fs=0023 gs=003b efl=00000000

*--> Code <--*
004C0F79 c676198b d1c1e204 3bf27205 8d040989 .v......;.r.....
004C0F89 038b0303 c75f5e5b 5dc20c00 8bc633d2 ....._^[].....3.
004C0F99 f7f185d2 74cd8bc1 5f2bc203 c65e5b5d ....t..._+...^[]
004C0FA9 c20c0090 90909055 8bec568b 750c33c0 .......U..V.u.3.
004C0FB9 85f67426 8b4d0885 c9740f50 506a018b ..t&.M...t.PPj..
004C0FC9 d6e8f100 f4ff85c0 75106a58 68404c6f ........[email protected]

*--> Trace <--*
Pc:004c0f99 Fr:011bf678 Rt:00569d51 Arg:00000040 0000003a 04a154e0 00000000
Pc:00569d51 Fr:011bf724 Rt:005694d7 Arg:00000000 0000003a 04a154d4 00000005
Pc:005694d7 Fr:011bf758 Rt:00568e16 Arg:00000003 011bf780 02008004 0007b7ff
Pc:00568e16 Fr:011bf8a8 Rt:005683c6 Arg:04a15490 00000000 00000001 02138b34
Pc:005683c6 Fr:011bf8d0 Rt:0056e3b9 Arg:00000000 00000001 02138bfc 011bfae8
Pc:0056e3b9 Fr:011bfb2c Rt:00564bfc Arg:021478a8 02147740 000001d4 0000027f
Pc:00564bfc Fr:011bfb4c Rt:0052f905 Arg:000001b4 02147740 02147740 00000000
Pc:0052f905 Fr:011bfb6c Rt:0052e9d6 Arg:02147740 ffffffff 005316de 029e30ec
Pc:0052e9d6 Fr:011bfbd0 Rt:006776a1 Arg:06c54c10 00000000 00000000 3d085171
Pc:006776a1 Fr:011bfbf8 Rt:00677b1d Arg:06c54c10 029e30ec 00000000 3d085171
Pc:00677b1d Fr:011bfc20 Rt:00673389 Arg:029e30ec 00000000 3d085171 3f800000
Pc:00673389 Fr:011bfc48 Rt:00673214 Arg:3d085171 3f800000 011bfc68 029e3070
Pc:00673214 Fr:011bfc60 Rt:00673181 Arg:00000000 3d085171 3f800000 00903058
Pc:00673181 Fr:011bfc88 Rt:0067e332 Arg:00000000 3d085171 00903058 00744f08
Pc:0067e332 Fr:011bfcb8 Rt:006687f4 Arg:3d085171 0000000a 011bfda0 0000003c
Pc:006687f4 Fr:011bfcd0 Rt:00428ae4 Arg:3d085171 00744f08 011bfd1c 011bfda0
Pc:00428ae4 Fr:011bfcf8 Rt:00423a83 Arg:06fa7b30 06fb9e60 0051dded 00000000
Pc:00423a83 Fr:011bfd34 Rt:0051d064 Arg:0000003c 011bfda0 00000000 0e4b5695
Pc:0051d064 Fr:011bfd64 Rt:0051e7bb Arg:011bfda0 00000000 011bfddc 00e80190
Pc:0051e7bb Fr:011bfd88 Rt:0051198c Arg:00000000 0213eafc 0000000c 3d085171
Pc:0051198c Fr:011bfda8 Rt:00510ab4 Arg:00000002 00e7ffa0 011bfe74 00000000
Pc:00510ab4 Fr:011bfde8 Rt:0050b01e Arg:00e7ffc4 0213eaf0 00000004 011bfe74
Pc:0050b01e Fr:011bfe54 Rt:0050ad4c Arg:00000004 00e80190 00000000 0008f422
Pc:0050ad4c Fr:011bfe78 Rt:0050a95e Arg:011bff20 011bff1c ffffffff 00000002
Pc:0050a95e Fr:011bff14 Rt:004d4122 Arg:0050a7e0 00000001 00000002 ffffffff
Pc:004d4122 Fr:011bff34 Rt:004d7dcb Arg:00146970 00dc58e8 00dc5930 cb1f34e0
Pc:004d7dcb Fr:011bff68 Rt:004d1d46 Arg:00000002 7c913d00 00dc5930 00dc5930
Pc:004d1d46 Fr:011bff80 Rt:006c276e Arg:00dc58e8 7c913d00 ffffffff 00dc5930
Pc:006c276e Fr:011bffb4 Rt:7c80b50b Arg:00dc5930 7c913d00 ffffffff 00dc5930
Pc:7c80b50b Fr:011bffec Rt:00000000 Arg:006c270f 00dc5930 00000000 012a0000

*--> Stack <--*
011BF66C 0000003a 04a154d4 00000000 011bf724 :....T......$...
011BF67C 00569d51 00000040 0000003a 04a154e0 Q.V.@...:....T..
011BF68C 00000000 04a154d4 011bf780 7c9106eb .....T.........|
011BF69C 00000003 00000002 00000001 00000003 ................
011BF6AC 011bf608 000000e8 011bf6fc 7c90ee18 ...............|
011BF6BC 7c910570 ffffffff 00000000 004b35c2 p..|.........5K.
011BF6CC 00db0000 00000000 02add698 00000002 ................
011BF6DC 00000002 00000002 000000e8 00000000 ................
011BF6EC 0040104c 000000e8 000000e8 00000000 L.@.............
011BF6FC 011bfb1c 004b4efc 006f3298 ffffffff .....NK..2o.....
011BF70C 011bf72c 004010ba 02add698 02138928 ,.....@.....(...
011BF71C 00000000 00070012 011bf758 005694d7 ........X.....V.
011BF72C 00000000 0000003a 04a154d4 00000005 ....:....T......
011BF73C 04a15490 00000003 04a154d4 00000000 .T.......T......
011BF74C 02138928 00000801 00000000 011bf8a8 (...............
011BF75C 00568e16 00000003 011bf780 02008004 ..V.............
011BF76C 0007b7ff 00000000 00000000 04a15490 .............T..
011BF77C 00000596 00000003 0000000f 0000000f ................
011BF78C 00000000 00000000 00000000 ffffffff ................
011BF79C ffffffff ffffffff 00000009 00000000 ................
011BF7AC 0000000c 00000000 00000001 00000000 ................
011BF7BC ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff 7fffffff ................
011BF7CC 00000001 00000017 00000000 ffffffff ................
011BF7DC 7fffffff 7fffffff ffffffff ffffffff ................
011BF7EC 02008004 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
011BF7FC 02138b34 036082dc 02138928 011bf894 4.....`.(.......
011BF80C 02138928 00000000 c6076e52 4530f893 (.......Rn....0E
011BF81C 02138b34 036082dc 02138b34 02138928 4.....`.4...(...
011BF82C 011bf8e0 005701fe 00001116 00000000 ......W.........
011BF83C 00000001 ffffffff 011bfac8 3f7c1adf ..............|?
011BF84C 3f0d4bd8 ba9ceb97 00000000 bf083455 .K.?........U4..
011BF85C 3f732f7b 0000b5b9 011bf72c 011bf8cc {/s?....,.......
011BF86C 6dfcc330 ffffffff 011bf88c 6defe122 0..m........"..m
011BF87C 0016ddc0 00000001 02008004 00000001 ................
011BF88C 00000596 6def7411 0016ddc0 00000004 .....t.m........
011BF89C 000006b9 00000000 02138928 011bf8d0 ........(.......
011BF8AC 005683c6 04a15490 00000000 00000001 ..V..T..........
011BF8BC 02138b34 03608300 02138928 011bf8b0 4.....`.(.......
011BF8CC 02138928 011bfb2c 0056e3b9 00000000 (...,.....V.....
011BF8DC 00000001 02138bfc 011bfae8 011bfaf4 ................
011BF8EC 011bfafc 011bfb04 011bfae0 04feb028 ............(...
011BF8FC 02138928 00000000 02147740 0003ffe4 (.......@w......
011BF90C 031a43bc 00071eea 000000ff 0000007f .C..............
011BF91C 00000066 00000066 021389ac 02138ad8 f...f...........
011BF92C 0c376134 02138928 000000c0 011bf9b8 4a7.(...........
011BF93C 005c6a0a 00562ec4 00000003 0bd89688 .j\...V.........
011BF94C 445b6c5f 45b0658e c50590b8 07479310 _l[D.e.E......G.
011BF95C 0c3f74e8 011bf9ac 004b39cf 00db0000 .t?......9K.....
011BF96C 00000000 07479310 0c3f74e8 07479310 ......G..t?...G.
011BF97C 0000001e 418d4116 41462092 416e9d9f .....A.A. FA..nA
011BF98C 420d4116 41c62092 41ee9d9f 011bf9ac .A.B. .A...A....
011BF99C 000000e0 0c3f7660 0000006f 4088743e ....`v?.o...>t.@
011BF9AC 407a36d3 c487504b 4000f200 c0584000 .[email protected]....@.@X.
011BF9BC c4876584 011bf9f8 00557394 00000006 .e.......sU.....
011BF9CC 0c55eb48 028c0108 0c3f74e8 00000000 H.U......t?.....
011BF9DC 0016ddc0 011bf9f4 011bfa28 6df1b78c ........(......m
011BF9EC 00000100 00000100 00000004 011bfa24 ............$...
011BF9FC 011bfaa4 0016fce0 011bfa14 011bfaa4 ................
011BFA0C 0016fce0 011bfa28 6defd3ad 00000020 ....(......m ...
011BFA1C 00000008 0016ddc0 00000000 011bfad4 ................
011BFA2C 6def984d 011bfaa4 00000000 02138928 M..m........(...
011BFA3C 02138a50 00000016 00000001 08000001 P...............
011BFA4C 00000004 00040000 00000000 ff66667f .............ff.
011BFA5C 02008004 00000000 6dec8e58 00000001 ........X..m....

*--> LogQueue <--*

*--> DirectX Device Info <--*
VendorId = 0x10de
DeviceId = 0x0343
Version = 6.14.0010.7189
Description = NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700LE
Compat = 0x00800000
VidMem = 256 MB

I dunno if there's some "Hate Player" file included in the latest file update I got this morning, but now, within 5 to 10 seconds of logging in with a character, my game seems to hitch a moment, start agin, than hard lock, with nothing short of a reset or power off/on can fix.

It must have something to do with the game, because I played a good amount last night with no issues, and now I can't play at all.

My system in short:

Athlon 64 3000+
Nvidia GEForce 5700 Ultra
2 GB crucial RAM

Okay today I've ben able to run GW for about 6 hours and still going. Even at 1600x1200 with 4x AA and at the highest visual quality.

The only thing is that there is no sound coming out of my GW game, BUT I was running my Winamp and listening to music while playing. It is still running in the background as I type this post.

This leads me to think that the reason my GW kept freezing is the sound drivers.

I am currently using ATI drivers 4.11 as I had assumed it was an ATI driver issue. I will update the drivers back to 5.7 and uninstall my sound drivers to see if the game will lock up.

For those people that are still having freezes and lock ups, maybe you can try reinstalling your sound drivers?

Is there another way to disable sound without having to uninstall the sound drivers?

-nosound in the target line in the guild wars shorcut disables ingame sound, but taht didn't fix my problem, and i've tryed newer sound drivers and it didn't help, tryed a new sound card that didn't fix it.
i can play with updating my via chipset drivers, but it still crashes alil. i've played since about 9am today with only 2 crashes which is ALOT better than it used to be. just i everytime i wanna play i have to reinstall the drivers and if i restart the computer, it'll go back to crashing. yay

i've changed everything short of the motherboard and cpu. i don't see how it could be either of those tho, i play EVERY other game fine, even bf2 and the fear demo both run great with no crashing, play gw for 10 minutes without the new via drivers and it hard crashes my machine to a black screen.

ppl were saying gw is just more cpu and memory intensive than other games, i run hl2 at maxed out settings @ 2180x1024 no crashing, but can't play gw at 800x600 lowest settings & with -nosound without crashing in about 10 minutes, i don't buy that it's my machine one bit

Mine was a complete re-install of XP home, complete windows update, all new drivers from manufacturers websites (MSI, Creative, ATI, etc.) and this includes chipset drivers, ethernet drivers, Bios flash...but it STILL gave us problems! In the past two years I have never had any app or game lock up or crash this computer except this game. I KNOW it is not my computer!

i've reinstalled windows many times also, and try to keep drivers up-to-date but my computer being a crappy emachines(i didn't buy it) makes it kind of hard for bios flashs, i went though the loops with arenanet and after awhile they just stoped sending me responses.

this has to be something with the drivers or maybe GW needs to be patched so we can fix the lockups

I know this really isnt the time and place but I'm compelled that cat is the coolest thing I've ever seen

I thought im the only one who is having this very annoying problem...i have sent hundred's of report to gw regerding my crashes...this problem started when the new patch was added..i can play for 8 hours straight before and now im lucky to play 1 hour continuosly..i have installed new graphics card & updates but its still giving me the same problem(..anyone got a clue?

I've had the problem since day 1, about a week after release and only found a way to REALLY play 2 days ago. It REALLY sucks and i think they need to take a bigger look at what might be causing it.

Offtopic : it's true, that kitty avatar is completely awesome! I WANT THAT KITTY!!!!???!1

Okay, so after removing the sound drivers, and updating my ATI drivers back to 5.7 the game locked up again. I will try the command line method to disable sound. Thanks for the tip boot.

I too believe that this is a GW problem and not hardware related. When I first got the game... it only crashed because of my overclocked system. But when I set it back to it's stock speed it ran fine for hours.

I presume it must have been some sort of patch or update to the game that was done since some people seem to have noticed this problem after the update.

I just sent Arena an email in hopes of getting a solution but I doubt I will as many others have alreayd tried with no luck.

Only thing I can thnk of right now for you guys to try is installing the older drivers for your video and chipset.. but try video first.. go back to the 4.XX series of drivers. I am currently in 4.11 and it seems to have made my game more stable.

As well if you guys go into BIOS settings I'd se the AGP Aperture Grille Size to 64 or 128. I had mines at 256 bfore and after lowering it the game seems to last longer as well.

That's all I can think of for now. The lack of attention to solving this problem by ANet/ATI is very fustrating.

What a way to disenchant potential loyal gamers/consumers.

Went back to cat4.7...no help!

Interestingly, I installed Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and had an almost identical graphics problem. Installed the latest RCT3 update (patch) and went back to cat5.7 w. cat control center and now RCT3 is OK.

For the last week I immediately get the pixelated graphics on GW. The game is completely unplayable. I hope someone at Arenanet is watching this thread cuz they had better get to working on a fix ASAP before their name is mud. I suspect they are already losing revenue for every day these threads continue! I may have to eat $50 but I do not ever have to buy another game with their name on it! Wait until the gaming magazines get a hold of this.

ATI has released new drivers but it is currently not up on their site. But www.driverheaven.com has been allowed to host the new drivers.

Maybe these new drivers have assessed the current problems many of us are experiencing with GW

Catalyst 5.8 is out but nowhere on their release notes does it describe of any problems being fixed related to Guild Wars. But I'll give it a shot and see how it goes

Yes the problem has not been fixed. I am still experiencing lockups with the game. This is BS, I even went out and bought a cheapo 9250 in case my 9800Pro was defective. Same problem still...

Tech support is running me around in circles, making me do things i already told them i did. I am not a happy camper right now, wasting enough time with this crap. Only thing I haven't tried is reinstalling windows from a clean format and than installing GW again. But that's BS, why would i need to do that in order to get this game to work.

Argh

ewww... they just censored what I typed... ewww...

I can concur with buddhafest, the 5.8 drivers didn't help much with Guild Wars and lock up problems. But on other news BF2 plays way better without the corrupted textures!

OK, so now I have at least 3 games, all re-installed since a complete windows re-install that are giving me MAJOR graphis problems. I can no longer be certain I do not have a failed graphics card! They are GW, RCT3 & Deus Ex- Invisible War. Weird thing is Sims 2 works fine and no problems otherwise. Has anyone ever had a problem where a graphics card (MSI Radeon RX9800pro) would complete fail to work, but only on certain games? Immediately pixelates to an unviewable condition. I ran all directX and ATI tests on the videocard and everything passed. I guess I'll try my old ti4800.

Reinstalling Windows...

Been there! Done that! Did not help me.

For anyone thta is having overheating problems with their video card this is what I do.

I have a Dell 4600. I have a ATI 9800 pro 128meg installed. The PCI slot next to the AGP slot I leave open. I even leave the slot cover on the back of the computer open. This has really helped dissapate the heat from inside the Box.

And of course periodicaly using a shop vac to the guts of your computer will help with heat too. (I know that is a no brainer)

Shaker I have no idea why you would have those three games not work anymore after the clean reinstall of windows.

Have you tried running 3DMark 2003 or 2001 or 2005? I doubt there is something wrong with your video card if there are other games that you can run.

I think i might have to try this FX5200 my friend lent me to see if the game will run. If This cheese vcard can run the game stable then I am afraid ATI will have lost a customer.

I got around to moving my old GeForce4 ti4800se from my other machine and it now appears my problems are solved! Apparently my MSI Radeon RX9800pro was slowly deteriorating. First, it would occasionally cause bad graphics on boot. Then the drivers would not load (that is when I reloaded windows). Finally, most of my games went crazy when I started them! I checked my receipt, darn thing is 1 month out of warranty! My apologies to Arenanet. If I am still having Guild Wars problems I have not played enough to detect them. I only suspected the card after I had tried everything else! Good luck to you others with your probs!

Buddhafest, I had not thought of running 3Dmark, but it would be a darn good idea!

I have had many lockups happen to me lately where you can still move... but to other players to appear stationary. Your chat is disabled as well and if you press your skill bottons they will flash (like when your casting). If anyone can tell me whats wrong please do. Here are my system specs:

Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
1.00 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (Dell)

That's all i can find right now.. if you need more information just ask me

This is really pissing me off, It's almost impossible for me to run a Pug group or even complete a long mission.

Symptoms:

- After a period of game play (It ranges between 30min and 3hrs) my screen locks up, and it all I can see is a black screen. Keyboard controls don’t function, and a forced restart (button or power cord) is the only option.

This has happened while I've been in voice chat, and without voice. I've tried disabling Zone Alarm and Norton (and everything else except a single IM program) and it still occurs.

--
System
--

Graphics Card - Radeon 9800 AIOW
Graphics Driver - Catalyst 5.3 (driver version 6.14.10.6517)
OP System - Windows XP Home Edition sp1
Processor - AMD Athalon XP 2000+ 1.67GHz
RAM - 1024Mb

------
I hope they fix this soon, this has been one reason I haven’t been in game more then I have. Good luck on finding the cause.

(on a side note this also happens after about 15min of play in RCT3, this it the ONLY other game this has ever happend with)

- Vin

Could some of these black-screen lockups be caused by your display? This thought sttruck me as i get these problems, but my monitor also says 'Mode Not Supported' occassionaly. Could it be Gw is throwing your display into a mode it cannot support, so it blacks out or the graphics card goes wrong?

Anyone know any programs or utilities that can force my computer to remain at the same Mode all the time?

Vincent,
What arethe specs of your PSU? I believe with a 9800 pro you need a 300w power supply. It seems like you are having PSU issues. Also could be heat as well. My little Dell 4600 has a 250w PSU however, Dell power supplies are rated low. It is actually a 300w. I was taught this on Dell forums before I purchased my 9800. Also as I stated earier in this thread I for example keep the PCI slot next to my AGP slot open. I do not put anything in there so there is enough room for air.

I also just the other day heard my system sound louder. I just cleaned it 6 months ago, so I thought better to check again. I was shocked to see dust and FUZZ built up at every intake for air on my little black box. (I am a smoker) I think I was only days away from frying my system due to no air and then heat.

I'm running 6600gt agp, with a vf700-cu straped on it, and a fan card blowing air up 2 slots under the agp port(case always open, tryed that house fan blowing air info it about a month after i started having the problem, didn't help at all) A 420w. PSU with a athlon xp 2600+ @ 2.1ghz. It stoped doing it so much in guild wars now for some reason, but now it's black screen crashing in other games (RCT3, HL: Source)
my cpu runs no hotter than 53C, I've been told thats pretty hot for a cpu, but never had any problems in hl2 or cs:s, i may end up buying a new cpu heatsink on tomorrow but i duno.

Ahhh! That could be it, I just checked to see exactly what this little (older) machine had under the hood. It has a very small 250w max output rating on it. As for cooling there is plenty of space between all the vital parts (we're talking about 2inches between the graphics card and heat sink/fan combo for the CPU. I'll look into larger power supplies and see if that will solve the problem.

- Thanks,
-Vin

Well, I'll add my own bit:

Very recently, about a week ago, my Guild Wars has started randomly freezing while playing. This has never happened before, and I have played it on my computer for the last several months without any problems. When it freezes, the computer is not responsive AT ALL, not even through CtrlAltDel; only reset can fix it.

The freezing sequence seems to be completely random, not in any particular area. As well, the freezing happens regardless of what graphics I set (I tried setting it to the absolute lowest at 800x600, then at absolute highest at 1600x1200 (including AA and post-proc), and the game still was randomly freezing. Windowed or Full Screen made no difference either.

My specs are:

AMD Athlon 2.2 3500
1GB 1 stick Kingston RAM
GeForce 6800GT
250GB Maxtor SATA HDD
Windows XP SP2

NOTHING IS OVERCLOCKED. I'm also using the very latest NVIDIA drivers for my card. I tried using an older version of the drivers once the problem started, but it did not fix the problem, so I went back to the newest ones.

The system is just 4 months old, and flawlessly runs games like Half-Life 2 or Battlefield 2 with no freezing problems.

My PSU is a brand-name 480 Watt power supply, and I have an anti-surge socket system. The CPU and Videocard have working heatsinks, and the case has 6 fans. The air coming out of these fans is not excessively hot, and I don't think overheating is likely. On-board temp for the processor does not rise above 65C.

I tried completely reinstalling the game (between the uninstall and install I also defragged my HDD), and it didn't solve the problem.

I also suspected it was my RAM (RAM failure would almost certainly lead to a freeze), so I did several full scans with MemTest86, and my RAM turned out fine (0 errors). Virtual memory is set at 1.5MB (I tried increasing or decreasing it, and it didn't solve the problem either).

Needless to say, I have an operational Antivirus and Firewall (although I tried turning the Firewall off in an attempt to fix the problem, which it didn't); I have made a full system scan with the Antivirus, Ad-Aware, and HJT, and my system came out clean.

Once again, the most bizzare thing is that is completely randomly started happening 1-2 weeks ago, and I have not made ANY changes to my system during that time. (I didn't even install any games or graphics software, that could replace DLL's or something).

Looking forward for helpful advice.

First, my machine (about 6mo old):

MSI Neo4 Platinum
Athlon 64 +3000
Leadtek Geforce 6600 gt-tdh extreme (pcie)
2x 120gb WDs in a RAID 0
5 case fans, including 1 120mm plus a slot cooler and a side duct to the cpu
Temperature anywhere in the case never goes much above 30-31C.
Coolermaster RealPower PSU 450 watt
no sound card (AC'97 crap)
2x 512MB sticks of low-latency patriot memory in dual channel

Since I got the game it has randomly frozen (requiring a hard reboot). Usually not the first time playing after a reboot, and fairly irregularly. Lately it's started to happen more often. I'm no longer a reliable enough player to join gvg or hoh teams because I might crash. GW support has been positively useless. I've replaced my drivers several times, nforce and vid card, reinstalled direct x, all that bs. Tried shutting off all nonessential programs in msconfig, doesn't help.

I've ruled out cooling and drivers as issues, my only idea left is the PSU, but the machine never seems to draw more than 100W or so unless the power meter is busted, plus, other games run fine (including battlefield 2).

Any ideas?????

oh, and I run Win2kpro

edit:
Yeah, I have the same issue as the guy above actually, only it's always happened rarely, and just got really frequent in the last week or so.