Curse

powerslave · Oct 19, 2008, 10:45 PM // 22:45

This has been happening to me for a while. I would be playing the game and all of a sudden my computer shuts off and reboots automatically. Once I restart GW the screen selection screen didn't go to the last character I played with but the one before it. Also sometimes if I'm in a certain outpost when the computer shuts off and when I re-log it will take me to an outpost I was at beforehand. (Instead of taking me back to RA, where I was when the computer shut off, I reappeared in the Guild Hall, where I was before RA).

I've tried a number of thing such as doing /image, monitoring the temperatures of the computer and updating drivers/software and am still at a loss why my computer just shuts off randomly while playing GW (only happens when I play GW, not other games).

Any other suggestions to look into to see why my computer is shutting off?

Thank you.

Brianna · Oct 19, 2008, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Well, what *are* the temperatures while playing?

It also could be a number of hardware things such as a weak Power Supply, what is the specs on your computer?

And about your game being on the last character you played, and in the last town you were in - that has been happening forever really, I guess the server just doesn't register those things sometimes. I'd often get disconnected and end up in the town I was in hours ago a lot. It's hard to explain kind of, but at any rate there's nothing you can do about it, it's A-Net.

powerslave · Oct 19, 2008, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Well according to the Nvidia monitor they're around 70 (Also seem to be in synch with SpeedFan which monitors the GPU temp). Searching around on the web I found that to be acceptable, other people seem to run on higher.

Computer specs:
Windows XP Service Pack 3
AMD Athlon 64 processor 3700+ 2.2GHz
1024MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT 256 MB Memory
DirectX 9.0c

Hope that helps.

Brianna · Oct 20, 2008, 12:03 AM // 00:03

Hmm ok so the GPU is at 70, it shouldn't be unstable at that temp in my opinion, of course having lower temps never hurts.

What about your Processor's temps?

Also now that we've established what your graphics card is, do you know how many Watts/Amps your Power Supply is?

caballo_oscuro · Oct 20, 2008, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Ok, well there's a few simple explanations for all of this. You probably do have a hardware problem, as was suggested by Brianna.

Try to isolate the offending piece of kit, keep all hardware well ventilated and shut down the computer properly when you're not using your pc. It's a good idea also to buy a can of compressed air from your local computer shop and open your machine to blow dust away from components such as fans etc. Using a hoover or cloth generates static which can damage your equipment.

With regard to the character and town selection problems, basically, as you progress through the game, info about your character's location is updated on the database on the guildwars servers.

If you crash out while playing a game, some of the changes you have made might not be updated in the database before the crash. If you are playing a character and don't log out of the game in the correct way, the character you played the last time you logged in will be listed as the active one I'd presume.

Also, similar thing with the town, if you enter a new town but don't log out properly or change to a new area before the crash, it's possible this info will not be updated in the database.

This is the nature of databases, a very common problem wherever they are used, with similar consequences. Basically if you don't tell the database to update the info, it won't do it. I'd assume GW does this when you change location or logout properly but not when you crash out.

Sorry for the lecture but I'm a database analyst occasionally in work so know about these things...

powerslave · Oct 20, 2008, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Well I was RAing some more and was alt tabbing between the Nvidia and SpeedFan, it seems my graphics card while playing GW does go up to 80 deg C.

As for the CPU temp seems to be howevering between 47 to 50 deg C (Nvidia monitor view). I will keep playing and keeping an eye on it.

The power supply says 500 Watt output. It's an Antec Neo HE High Efficiency unit.

Brianna · Oct 21, 2008, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Hmm, well.. I'm sure the PSU has enough enough amps for a 7800. 80C is hot, I don't know if it would become unstable at that temp though.

I'd say try this, when you have GW open, hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE and go to the ''Processes'' tab, find Gw.exe, right click it, and go down to the Set Affinity'' option, then uncheck one of the cores. Play Guild Wars like this and see if you keep crashing, sometimes Guild Wars becomes unstable on multi-core processors and it can cause things like this.

powerslave · Oct 23, 2008, 02:28 AM // 02:28

When I right click on the Gw.exe under Processes, it does not display an option of Set Affinity, only End Process, End Process Tree and Set Priority.

karen the healer · Oct 24, 2008, 06:29 PM // 18:29

I have had the same problem as you with my guild wars game just shutting off or computer rebooting. I have a quad core processor with a nvidia 280 gx graphics card and a 850 watt power supply. It is starting to happen more frequently. But I don't think its hardware related in my opinion, though I am no expert. I play warhammer online also and it never has shut down on me. I use to play some age of conan with no problems, only guild wars does it. I will look at the gw.exe when I get home and see it that helps.

moriz · Oct 24, 2008, 06:43 PM // 18:43

GW is very finicky with regards to hardware stability. it's been known to crash long before more demanding games will. iirc, GW actively checks your hardware by making it do simple math calculations in the background. as soon as an error happens, it will crash.

btw, the OP has a single core CPU, so it's definitely not due to multicore issues.

powerslave · Oct 29, 2008, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

GW is very finicky with regards to hardware stability. it's been known to crash long before more demanding games will. iirc, GW actively checks your hardware by making it do simple math calculations in the background. as soon as an error happens, it will crash.

Yes, this! Months ago it used to be that only the game would crash (no rebooting happened), and an automatic browser window opened up and took me straight to a page on the official Guild Wars website. The page was under Support I believe and it said what you had just said. Something along the lines how normal calculations are being performed and when the tables do not match, a crash happens.

I now can't possibly find that page, it had suggestions on how to try and fix the proplem. Even though I'm sure most of the things on that list I've tried, I would like to see it again and to make sure that everything listed on that page has been tried in order to resolve the problem.

Does anyone know the page I'm talking about? Anyone have a link to it?