Possible Restart/BSOD FIX

I'd like to detail some problems I've had and how I fixed them. This won't be a universal fix, but might help some people.

Short version for the attention impaired: It was a power issue.

Long version: I was getting BSOD/gw.exe crashes. Pre-fix stats...

P4 3000MHz
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
i875P chipset
1024 MB DDR SDRAM PC3200 (Kingston) (400MB FSB Dual 512MB)
3 HHD (80/40/40) IDE (All Western Digital PATA)
1 LG Electronics HL-DT-ST DVD GSA-4040B optical drive
Geforce FX 5900-XT
Onboard AC 97 sound
Onboard Intel PRO/1000 CT LAN

And here's the interesting stuff:
A Saitek Gamer's USB Keyboard with the pretty blue backlight and the added command pad

A "SUNTEC" "500 watt" powers supply

Now, as I said, I kept getting various BSODs and GW.exe errors. When I checked the details of the GW.EXE error screen it was always a "could not read memory at XXXXXXXX" error.

My first thought was, GW has some seriously bad memory allocation coding. Then when I calmed down, I figured I should do some checking. After running various diagnostics, I saw that the +12 rail on my power supply was running a constant 11.6-11.3 volts. It NEVER got over 11.6. The rest of the rails were optimal.

Then I ran MEMTEST 86. I let it run for a couple of hours and got a bunch of memory errors.

I figured either voltage causing memory probs, or bad memory. Because, let's face it, .4-.7 volts is not a major thing. Most of the time.

So it was off to Best Buy for new memory and a new PSU. I discussed it with a surprisingly intelligent sales person. (My girlfriend and her son were with me, along with a friend of my son. The salesdude was a friend of the friend. My first thought was 'EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT', but no joy.) He said that I could return either the RAM or the PSU (or both) when I found out the problem.

I dropped $510. Best Buy does not have the best buy, it seems.

About the PSU. While it was a 480W and not a 500W or better, it was a brand name. In fact it is an Antec that got a KickAss award from Maximum PC. I trust those guys. The salesguy and I agreed that you just can't trust knockoff PSUs. And I could return it if it didn't pump the juice.

So, new PSU in the system.

System hangs. No keyboard access. Restart twice, same problem. So then it hits me. The GODDAMN SAITEK KEYBOARD! A USB powered NIGHTLIGHT. If I ran the computer outside, planes would try to land in my backyard. So I yanked the keyboard and plugged in a regular non-spotlit one.

Boots fine. No problems.

And yeah, you can turn off the lights on the Saitek. But the sucker must still pull juice from the USB bus. Because...

Voltage check. 12.2 volts on the +12v bus. So far so good. Run MEMTEST 86 for an hour. No memory errors.

Play GW for a while. NO BSOD. NO GW.EXE errors.

Now don't get me wrong. I've not yet figured that I'm golden yet. I will play for a couple more days and see what happens. But I think I got it fixed.

The only problem that I can see is, that if it runs okay from now on...

How do I convince the girlfriend to let me keep $300 of ram and upgrade my system to 2GIGs of RAM? Any suggestions appreciated.

And I'll throw the Saitek onto my Linux firewall box. I hope it doesn't kill it. Or I'll have to buy another $10 keyboard for that.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used landing light?

Even if it were the RAM, I still don't get why it only happens with GW.
Wouldn't that still imply that the memory allocation in the game is poorly coded?

So I thought as well. But this power problem was only happening to me in GW. I'm guessing that GW is much more graphic-intensive than any other game I played. These include World of Warcraft, Doom 3 and Half Life 2. As well as the Farcry Demo.

If my GeforceFX 5900-XT is drawing more power for GW than other games, it might just be the straw that broke the PSU's back.

As well, I did say that I haven't decided that I'm out of the woods yet. I have to play for a much longer time, as a test case, to see if it wasn't just more memory intensive as well.

I cannot rule out bad memory allocation until I spend more time. I was just hoping that my experiences, to date, might help others.

Edit: What I meant to say is that I don't think it was a RAM issue. It seems to be a POWER issue. Perhaps you should re-read my post.

Well, I took a look at the memory usage while I was playing, and it was only about 241 megs, while games like WoW take over 800 sometimes.
So I really doubt that it's somehow more graphically intensive than all those games combined.
There are a good bunch of FPS/RTS games that are much heavier on CPU/Memory usage.
But about the power usage, that still doesn't jive with me.
Why is there so much power being consumed by this one game?
It's system requirements aren't even that high.

Maybe it's the streaming technology that's causing all these strange problems?
Never heard of any other game using it before, not surprised people are having conflicts.

Could be GW programmer lack the experience needed to predict and handle such exception properly. Sometime minor exception even not being a showstopper could lead to program crash if its not handle properly.

Do you know where i can get a program that i can check the PSU voltage?

While for the first tests I used AsusProb.exe which came with my motherboard and Motherboard Monitor, my final tests were done with a digital volt-ohm meter or DVOM.

MBM is here:

http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

Your motherboard probably has a voltage monitor in the BIOS. They usually do. Try hitting the delete key or the F2 key right at startup to get to the BIOS screen. DON'T change any settings. Just look for a tab that tells you the mobo temp and voltages. My AMI BIOS calls is "health". YMMV.

Whatever happens, when you exit the BIOS hit DO NOT SAVE and EXIT. Just in case.

Good luck.

For anyone that understands, I just threw in the extra 1 GB of memory and was able to run 3DMark 05 for the first time on my computer. Yeah, it ran like a slideshow but I could never run it AT ALL before.

And the main thing was, no BSOD. No reboot. I ran 3dMark 03 as well, a couple of times. Smooth as silk.

The point? No more power issues. New PSU was what saved my ass. The +12v rail was the deal breaker for me.

Also played GW for a while. Joined a guild, did a few quests with my new friends. No reboots.

The memory that I had originally was not faulty. The power supply was just not supplying enough power.

12v power issues affect the mobo. While a separate line supplies power to the CPU, crappy no-name PSUs don't separate the mainpower line from the other buses. So when your drives ask for more juice, the mobo suffers. Thus, it doesn't have to be the video card that drains the system. I learned this the hard way. If your system is close to the max as far as power usage is concerned, something a stupid as another USB device can lower the voltage enough to cause problems.

Heck, even something like a refrigerator kicking on can **** up your system. Or a house heating system.

Or having too many transformers (those black suckers that take up two power strip spaces) can be a big drain as well. Maybe you're charging your cellphone and running your TV and PS2 from the same power strip that you have your computer and CRT plugged into?

This can suck. Just my 2 fur squares.

I have the same kayboard, and look at my rails...i think 2 are messed up

but I have a namebrand 550w PSU...
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16817148008

as i said in the other crash topic last week, my pc problems started during the first GW event on E3.

it just started to have power downs all the time, during games, during windows, during rebooting the pc, just random.

it wasn't GW his fault, but a power supply issue (got 550W now and never got any problem anymore).

it's just weird it happened with GW, but i don't blame them, they can't be blamed for a weak PSU.

(the other option was that my old Motherboard was crap, but now i think it's the PSU)

Well Emperor, I've been up now for about 20 hours. I've been doing nothing but checking the info that I posted earlier. And I can just about say that my problem was a PSU issue.

While some on the thread seem to think that GW isn't that graphic intensive, I have to stick by my original idea. It's more graphic intensive than many may think. While I don't have numbers to back up my feeling, I do have the fact that since I replaced my crap 500W with a quality 480W and removed my USB powered keyboard, I have had no problems.

I agree with an earlier poster that GW may be badly coded RAM wise as far as using the onboard RAM as opposed to VRAM. Thus the crashes when RAM on the mobo wasn't being powered properly. This could be a problem simply because the mobo voltage regulator was sputtering.

If a better power supply fixes this, there is still no reason that the game code couldn't be tweaked to utilize onboard RAM more efficiently. Heck, Win XP is notorious for memory utilization hogging. It may just be that it's Windows and not GW that's the culprit. But they DID have to code for Windows. And MS is notorious, as well, for not giving out memory in the most effficient way. Or more to the point, for not giving up memory when called for by apps. The DirectX API is not a science yet, although it's better than it used to be.

I wish they had and OpenGL port for GW. But then, that doesn't play nice with Windows either. Sorry. I'm just rambling now.

ok well my psu is fine.... And i have no memory problems but it was crashing... so i disabled my TV card and Cd-rom drives, to save power.... now it never reboots... problem solved... now all that is wrong is the "error in GW.exe" problem though this is a stuiped fix and a game shouldent have to cause you to do all this.... they better fix it soon

I had a similar problem with my PSU. I replaced my 'no-name' PSU with a major name one of higher quality and that was tested to work with SLI systems. Low and behold I have not had a single problem since.

My old PSU was in a state of degradation. It started as a few reboots a week, then went to once every other night, then eventually it shut off everyday and everytime I was playing GW's.

I have searched the web and found others that have had the SAME problems (especially with WOW and GW). This was definately a hardware issue for me, I claim mine up to not going all out and getting enough PSU to handle my system in the 1st place.

AMD 3500 64bit
Gigabyte SLI mainboard
4 IDE 80+ Gig HDs
1 DVD Burner
2 Gig Dual-Channel Ram
1 SATA 120 gig HD
2 Nvidia 6800GT Video Cards
5+ USB devices