Restart Problems (exclusive to GW)

I've had the same problem and just wasted an hour tweaking drivers, switching to onboard sound, etc, with no help. At this point I just want to return this game. Anyone know if that is possible?

Ok. I had consistent crashes, just like everyone here. Not sure if this will apply to all though. I have an Nforce2 chipset, running a Barton 2500, Audigy LS, 9800 Pro. I had the fsb set to 200, instead of the default 166. This is running pc3200 mem also. Once I clocked the fsb back down to default/166, I ran the game for 2 hours without a crash. It was crashing at least every 5 minutes before this. If anyone is overclocking, try running it at factory. If not, I am not sure, but this did cure my problems. Doesn't matter if this is the only game that crashes on your systems. As a matter of fact, this is the only game that was crashing for me also. It may be real finicky with the memory or system timings and this just sets it over the edge.

This topic has a ridiculous number of replies.
Everyone should send this problem to the tech support team, lol.

i sent it to tech suport with a link to this thread :P.

I just did a total whipe and formated my hard drive but i am still crashing

Same problem here:

AMD64 3000+
ATI 9600 XT-4
SB Audigy LS
Windows XP SR1

The game often crashes, sometimes looping the sound, sometimes still running windows in background so that I can blindly shut down the pc, but everytime the monitor turns black.
HL2, CS:S, NfSU2 and many other games are running fine for hours, so it won't be overheating (even tried to "underclock" my graphics card).
Sometimes I can only play for minutes, sometimes I can even play for hours...

Well i fixed mine.

I downloaded some beta drivers for the GF card (76.50's) and the beta drivers for the Audigy 2. PLayed about 5 hours with no crashes, whereas before i was frezzing up every 10-15 minutes.

GF Beta Driver i used here

SB Audigy Beta Driver i used here

I also played with an underclocked card (i turned down the speeds on my x850xtpe to a regular x800xtpe)...still no help.

Basically, i just defrag before i play, gives me an extra like 5 minutes....but still pissing me off horribly.

Seems as if all my computer problems have been happening since I installed this game.

Hey guys, I'm new to the board here, but being quite experienced with troubleshooting game problems, I thought I'd give yall a few suggestions on how to at least try fixing your crashing problems.

- Turn your graphics details down ALL the way. This includes turning off the "post-processing effects" and the visual quality slider to the left (fastest). Doing this is a good way of telling if any particular setting is at fault for the crashes. If that stops them dead in their tracks, start cranking the settings back up little by little.

- Turn off all the crap you have running in the background. Not all programs play nice with each other, and games in particular tend to try shoving other things to the side. The other things many times start shoving back, which can lead to crashes.

- Update ALL of your drivers. Check your computer manufacturer's website for the latest and greatest drivers. Uninstall the old ones before you update, especially with the video drivers. Update the BIOS.

- If you overclock, crashes and reboots are simply going to be a way of life with games. Either get used to it or restore back to the original clock speed. Your 6800GT will still run the game just fine at 1600x1200 with high details. Trust me on this.

- Check your amount of free disk space. Between the game constantly streaming data and your swap file, 1 GB of free space can quickly turn into .001 MB of free space, which will of course lead to problems. You'll need AT LEAST several GB of free hard drive space for the game and your swap file to work comfortabley together.

- Disconnect everything but the bare necessities from your computer. Make sure you aren't overworking your power supply. If you're using a 250 watt power supply to power an Athlon 64 with a 6800GT, it's amazing that you're able to get your computer to boot up at all.

- Cool your case. Graphics intensive games such as Guild Wars can really cause things to heat up, turning the inside of your case into the Bowels of Hell. Clean out the fans, insert one or two more, reseat the heatsink on your processor and video card, etc. I'm willing to bet that overheating is a big chunk of the problems posted here.

- If you have more than one RAM stick installed, try removing all but one. Try that with each stick. Make sure your RAM CAS latency matches what is supported by your motherboard. If you are in doubt about this, call your system/motherboard manufacturer and find out.

- When all else fails, turn off the lights, light up a few aroma candles, and pray to the Gods of Gaming that your problem gets magically fixed.

This is a lot of stuff, I know. While I know all of this isn't going to solve everyone's problems out there, I imagine it should help many of you out.

Well, the problem with all those suggestions is, they would make sense if my computer was rebooting all the time in every game, but it's only Guild Wars that does it, and I play a lot more graphically intensive games like WoW, and Half Life 2.

i tried some, some didn't apply to me, or some didn't work.

Nice try though...

Anyone else try the audigy beta drivers? Im curious to see if that helps or not.

I'll have to do more testing, but I played without crash for some hours after turning off the post-processing effects, had that in mind for days now, but forgot it all the time...


Edit: It weren't the post-processing effects, the game is still crashing!

My problem is similar to the ones described, but instead of simply restarting the system just hangs after 5-10 minutes of play. I've tried it on highest and lowest settings, different drivers for sound and video, the nosound command-- nothing works.

My system is:
AMD 64 3000
nForce 3 Ultra chipset
GeForce 6600 GT AGP
512 DC DDR PC3200

I've sent an email to tech support and they requested a dxdiag from me, so I'm just waiting to see what they have to say to that. Probably nothing helpful I assume...

Still communicating with tech support about the problem. They're content on telling me that, although people have similar complaints, they insist that its caused by different issues and not the client's fault. This doesn't make a lot of sense, considering how I can play any other game regardless of system load, including all stages of the Guild Wars beta events.

If more people contact them about this, maybe they'll get it that the problem is on their side and should be addressed rather than denied.



-Nall

Well, since the patch/repatch my play times have gone back to how they were before... 5-10 minutes a game.

Here's hoping.

Edit: I'm in contact with Tech support also, although all I've done so far is send them DxDiag and Everest notes. We've gone through the "Turn down your settings" phase, so let's see where it goes from here.

I just tried mailing them an exhaustive list of steps I took to prove that the Guild Wars client was responsible for the crashing. Maybe it'll help? This is soooo frustrating.

Now the game doesn't even run after the new patch.

i get a message from PrevX that gw.exe is being changed, and i allow it, now it still wont run after that.

it shows gw.tmp, not exe.

opps nvm

Unless you'd like to find the Audigy sound card buried somewhere in my tiny little Shuttle case, I'm gonna say

No, no it's not. Two of us (at least) are using onboard sound.

Edit: At least you caught yourself.

anyone wanna send me their gw.exe file with the update. Because this gw.tmp has been in background for about 30 minutes now, and since then the only thing that happened is that the icon is gone now. I have a square box that says gw.exe

Ya i keep gettin a screwed up screen or BSoD and im usin onboards sound and i'v tried with no sound so im sure thats not the problem

Same/similar issue.

AMD 64 3000+ [Winchester S939] (have tried at stock speeds, underclocked 200MHz, overclocked 400MHz)
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro [have tried Cat 5.4's, Cat 5.3's, Omega 4.11's] (have tried stock speeds and slight overclocking/underclocking)
1GB DDR400 Kingston ValueRAM (have tried 2.5-3-3-10 and 3-3-3-10, looser than default)
Asus A8V Deluxe [VIA K8T800 Pro chipset] (have tried stock and latest BIOS)
Onboard sound

CPU is watercooled and reaches a maximum of about 32C (~90F), so I don't think it's overheating. Other games (notably UT2004, Doom 3, HL2, ET, NWN, and WC3) do not have any problems.

After about 3-4 hours of GW (yes, I'm comparatively lucky ) sound begins to randomly cut out... then I start getting massive graphical glitches, especially sprites (such as the Wards, the Firestorm impact, etc.) becoming colored squares, and this one time:

Shortly after, my screen goes black, then dark blue (like a BSoD but with no text), and I'm forced to restart the PC.

This problem first started occuring for me around the March BWE. I've been cut off from the end of two missions today by these crashes already...

Lets all just massivly spam Arenanet...

After the patch I lasted longer, but in the end it crashed again.

i lasted about the same, the defrag before the game, and taking out post processing helped to increase time.

Same, taking that off helped me play a bit longer, but it still restarts eventually.

did u defrag, thats the big one for me

I figured out my problem. For some reason (even though I have 3 fans in my computer and it usually keeps really cool) my temp kept exceeding 120 while only running Guild Wars. I opened my case and put my large room fan beside it to blow on max in to it and I have been on for 3 hours now.

I suggest someone else trying the fan thing and let me know if that helps you. If that's the case then why does GW make the computers heat up so much?

I hope this helps somebody.

- Kizer

Whoa, so it could be something in the Guild Wars code that's causing system temperatures to rise?
That would explain the rebooting, and that's also kind of scary o_O

Hey, that appears to be working for me; made it 1 hour so far, and I usually only get 10 minutes. Thanks.

...Although I don't know if I should consider using the room fan to be a "proper fix." Like Kyokuji said, it's kinda scary.

A room fan should never be used as a permanent fix. I'd suggest looking into aftermarket cooling systems, plenty of which exist for both ATI and NVIDIA cards. Make sure that the fans on the video card and processor are dust-free. Dust clogging seems to be a big deal, especially with video card fans.

Seems to be doing the trick, but yea, I may need to look in to a better cooling system. Damn GW...

I hope I helped some of you out for the mean time. Was a heat problem all along!

athlon 64 3200+
1GB OCZ PC3200
nothing overclocked
9800XT
biostar nforce 3 sff

I'm getting random reboots, or I get an error message prompt to send in a report of the problem. Once I got a graphics card restart error. Considering I play every game that comes out almost since I have big lans, and I've not had an issue since Act of War, which was an ATI driver problem, I'm confused at this one. Heat is not an issue. The patch has not haped. I review computer hardware, and I know the guys that do the drivers at Nvidia and ATI, and I'm using onboard sound, no lousy Soundblaster with lousy drivers. Heck, NCSoft gave us a few hundred preorder copies for our last big lan. I'm going to call them today, and see what they think the deal is, and I'll contact Nvidia and ATI. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of it. I'll probably post details here, and at www.TXGF.com and www.AMDZone.com.

Have any of you guys tried testing your memory?

Check here for details.

-Virt

ok, i played GW for about 12 hours straight last night and had absolutely no problems. i wake up today and play for about 5 minutes and the game freezes up on me causeing me to reboot. i reinstalled GW and tried different mobo\video drivers and loaded GW back up again and it locked up on me again. at this point i was freaking out, so i reformatted my harddrive and reinstalled windows xp and got all my mobo\video drivers updated to latest ones and i ran a full systems diagnostic test on System Mechanic and ran Norton and ran Ad-Aware to check for any spyware and then i defragged the harddrive and only game i installed was GW and it locked up on me again within 5 minutes causeing me to reboot the computer. i get no errors or BSOD's or any kind of report. it plays for 3 to 5 minutes and then locks up the computer forceing me to reboot. DooM3, CoD, BF1942, KOTOR, UT2004, FarCry all run without any problems. GW is the only game that does not want to run right. im all out of idea's and my patience with this game is about gone. i spent $50 on this game and now i cant even play it. god only knows how long it will take to fix all the problems in this game. i hope this gets fixed soon.

The cooling thing isn't even a good solution though, this isn't a problem that occurs in any other application.
I refuse to believe that Guild Wars is somehow more taxing on my system than Doom 3, WoW during a 200 man raid, and Half Life 2.

This isn't a problem with my memory, or my video card, or my cooling or whatever.
Something in the game's code is not getting along with my system, and the systems of all the other people in this topic.
I shouldn't have to buy extra cooling just so it can run a game that isn't supposed to be that graphically demanding anyway.
No game should be raising anyone's CPU temperature to 120 degrees.

This is the only game that raises my temperature that high. I was just playing Half-Life 2 and my rig stayed steady at 100 degrees.

Add me to the list of random crashed for me it appears to happen as it loads in new textures, never crashes whilst stationary but can and will crash when i'm moving. Can be just after loading in a new zone or after sometime in the zone

Crashes will be of the form:

Crash to desktop - uncontrolled no error catch
Crash to desktop - error trapped, report sent to Arena net
Hard reset!! Resets PC

Before the two crashes generally I get a brief almost 1 frame stutter and then the crash. If its trapped it can take about 5 seconds of locked screen before I get ejected. Crashing can be anywhere but generally are reasonably soon after zoning into an area. However sometimes this is not the case And it has also occurred in the main starter town Ascalon city.

Arena Net support have been quite helpful and we are progressing through some items but any assistance is appretiated

What I have:

AMD 2.4 (2.0 Ghz) - Not overclocked
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128Mb) (Catalyst 5.4)
Via Chipset (loaded 4.43 Drivers (was 4.56)
1024 MB (PC 133 Memory)
Mother board is set to AGP 4 as it doesn't support 8x
Windows XP SP 2

What I have tried:

1. Driver Clean, ran it on Nvidia (was a previous card) and then ATI installed latest Catalyst drivers

2. Uninstalled game then reinstalled just from CD (previously was a download then cd install)

3. Recreated Swap file (zeroed reset then let windows manage)

4. Ran crap cleaner and error nuker

5. Ran adware

6. De fragmented drive

7. AGP fast writes was off so turned it on

8. Turned off post process effects

9 Current details are set to high with shadows set to low, but has been on medium - may revisit that one

At the moment i'm assuming it is GW at fault - I generally run two other games Trackmania and Soldiers and neither of them cause this issue with the PC. The PC can sometimes be on for days on end and never crashes except in GW - its a pretty rock solid baby Temperature checked after a hard reset and is around 50C

My next options are to stop my AV (Avast) to see if that could be corrupting data in some way and then unistall a product called Total recorder which causes a secondary sound driver to be around - just wondering if GW is clashing with it - even though it shouldn't be touching it.

Only other thing I can think of after that is to try turning off the shadows.

Tals

...what I meant was, me adding more cooling to my system should not be considered a 'fix' if it is already able to run every other game but Guild Wars without it. If I bought this game partly because of no monthly fee, and then I go out and spend money on hardware I only need to play this one game, it is defeating the purpose. Like many others, I think that Guild Wars is doing something wrong to get the system so heated.

I have this problem as well.

But, I also have it in World of Warcraft, and it's the sole reason why I quit playing. Now I am wondering if it's a Directx 9.0c problem, since it only started happening at that release of direct x.

My system hovers around 40 Celcius in all it's zones, so I know it's not an overheating issue.

System Specs:

Intel 925E Motherboard
Intel 3.4E Ghz processor
Nvidia 6800 256MB (PciEx-16)
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS
1024 MB DDR2 Ram
450W power supply

Just don't know what to do at this point.

I think by now it should be obvious that it's a problem on their end.
Most of us have no other problems with any other games or applications except this one.
A response to at least acknowledge a problem this large might be nice though.