Curse

SaladFork · Aug 04, 2006, 05:42 PM // 17:42

I have recently purchased Guild Wars, and have been enjoying playing it, but there there are occurences that keeps happening that prevents me from enjoying the game to its full potential.

One thing that happens VERY often, is that while playing, my game will randomly lock up. The music will stutter, and then stop, the UI goes away completely, and the screen gets desaturated. Alt-Tabbing, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and Alt-F4 don't work, and I am forced to do a hard reboot. I can barely play for a few hours without it locking my system completely.

The other thing that happens is that the music for the game will suddenly stop, and the game will take up 100% of my system resources. My left monitor (I run a dual-monitor setup, with Guild Wars on the left one) will turn off, complaining of no signal, and all my windows get pushed into my right monitor. Trying to do anything is impossible, as my CPU as at 100% from the Guild Wars process. I am, again, forced to do a hard reboot, which is the only way to get out of this.

My computer specs (courtesy of Lavalys Everest):

Code:

--------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc. ]------------------------------------------------------------

    Version                                           EVEREST v2.20.405
    Homepage                                          http://www.lavalys.com/
    Report Type                                       Report Wizard
    Computer                                          ADMIN (ADMIN)
    Generator                                         Admin
    Operating System                                  Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
    Date                                              2006-08-04
    Time                                              13:34


--------[ Summary ]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Computer:
      Operating System                                  Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
      OS Service Pack                                   Service Pack 1
      DirectX                                           4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
      Computer Name                                     ADMIN (ADMIN)
      User Name                                         Admin

    Motherboard:
      CPU Type                                          AMD Athlon 64, 2200 MHz (11 x 200) 3500+
      Motherboard Name                                  Epox EP-9NPA+ SLI / 9NPAJ SLI  (3 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)
      Motherboard Chipset                               nVIDIA nForce4 SLI, AMD Hammer
      System Memory                                     2048 MB  (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
      BIOS Type                                         Award (06/28/05)
      Communication Port                                Communications Port (COM1)
      Communication Port                                Printer Port (LPT1)

    Display:
      Video Adapter                                     NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT  (256 MB)
      Video Adapter                                     NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT  (256 MB)
      3D Accelerator                                    nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
      Monitor                                           Dell E152FP  [15" LCD]  (M161846A198TC)

    Multimedia:
      Audio Adapter                                     nVIDIA MCP04 - Audio Codec Interface

    Storage:
      IDE Controller                                    Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
      IDE Controller                                    Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
      IDE Controller                                    Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
      SCSI/RAID Controller                              D347PRT SCSI Controller
      Disk Drive                                        WDC WD2000JD-22HBC0  (186 GB, IDE)
      Optical Drive                                     ATAPI DVD DD 2X16X4X16
      Optical Drive                                     Generic DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device
      Optical Drive                                     HL-DT-ST CD-ROM GCR-8483B  (48x CD-ROM)
      SMART Hard Disks Status                           OK

    Partitions:
      C: (NTFS)                                         190771 MB (71346 MB free)

    Input:
      Keyboard                                          HID Keyboard Device
      Mouse                                             HID-compliant mouse
      Game Controller                                   Microsoft PC-joystick driver

    Network:
      Network Adapter                                   NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller - Packet Scheduler Miniport  (192.168.0.100)
      Network Adapter                                   VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet1  (192.168.253.1)
      Network Adapter                                   VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet8  (192.168.150.1)

    Peripherals:
      Printer                                           Adobe PDF
      Printer                                           Dell Photo Printer 720
      USB1 Controller                                   nVIDIA MCP04 - OHCI USB Controller
      USB2 Controller                                   nVIDIA MCP04 - EHCI USB 2.0 Controller
      USB Device                                        USB Composite Device
      USB Device                                        USB Human Interface Device
      USB Device                                        USB Human Interface Device
      USB Device                                        USB Human Interface Device
      USB Device                                        USB Human Interface Device

Thanks in advance!

~Salad

Apocrypha · Aug 05, 2006, 02:29 AM // 02:29

My best guess would be heat, make sure you have sufficient cooler, check your temps in your BIOS or with a program if you use one.

I know I had heating problem only in Guild Wars before, not even CS:S, and I only found out ir was heat after digging in a little instead of assuming it was the game.

Alias_X · Aug 05, 2006, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Well lets not pull the happy heat trigger so soon. It does sound like it might be heat because this happens after 2 hours of play, but the sound might be something different. Try turning the sound quality all the way down and exiting all background programs. If the problem persists, download a temperature monitoring program. Post your temps once you do that.

Ate of DK · Aug 05, 2006, 02:46 AM // 02:46

I may be of some help. I really don't understand the things in the post about what you have in your computer but I had the same problem with the freezing and hardreboot.

I only crashed like that when I entered a Luxon or Kurzick area. The reason appeared to be that those area's support direct x9 and all before that runs on direct x8.

My videocard apparently didn't like direct x9 so I have to start GW with a different command:

guildwars.exe -dx8

This makes sure the entire game keeps running on direct x8 and I have no more problems.

I hope it might be of some help, good luck with it.
Ate of DK

SaladFork · Aug 05, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

I am not allowed to give specifics, but my DirectX more than meets the minimum requirements. I am also running several games that are MUCH more system-heavy than Guild Wars is, and the game is NOT running on full high.

It's not always 2 hours of play, and seems random. I can play for days at a time with no trouble one day, and then crash as soon as I start playing another day.

Regarding the overheating, I doubt that's it, but I'm willing to check it. Can any of you recommend a good program to use for doing so, or should I just reboot and check BIOS?

~Salad

Numa Pompilius · Aug 05, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Frankly that doesn't sound like a heat issue at all to me. Nor does it sound like a dx problem. To me it sounds like a signal problem, like, say, a cable or a card is not properly inserted into its socket.

Nemon · Aug 08, 2006, 09:23 PM // 21:23

I've been having a similar problem recently.

I played GW a few months ago without *any* problems atall, the game ran for many hours (20+) without any issues.

My hardware specs are X800XT, 2GB(Corsair) Ram, WD Hard drive, Audigy 2 (ZS i think).

Note worthy software installed Nod32(GW folder excluded from scans) and NetLimiter.

Recently (within 2 weeks) i reinstalled windows and downloaded all the latest drivers for my hardware. Windows runs perfectly as to be exptected, however i've been finding that GW is locking up my machine and looping short sound clips over and over again(while locked up). The problem seems totaly random and I dont think its an overheating problem as the length of time the game runs for seems totaly random, anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours. Yesterday for instance i had the game running 17 hours without any problem but today it locked up after 20 minutes.... (idleing while i was watching telly) I actually lowerd the sound settings 2 notches yesterday morning and thought it was fixed due to the 17h up time but seen as today it goes down again in 20 minutes, i dunno what to think. With the recent other sound problems i can only presume that the problems are linked.

I think perhaps the updates they've done to the games sound code is bugged, that's my current conclusion. However because it's been such a long time since i last played it could be any number of changes in that time or something on my end i've not accounted for.

Any help, much appreciated.

trytrytry · Sep 27, 2006, 02:09 PM // 14:09

I have the same problem. Have to unplug computer when it locks up like that. 3computers ati 9200 , 9800xt each all new drivers from motherboard to video card not unplugging it to just change out.

Nvidia - 5900 256 meg , 6600 geforce 256 meg. Todays graphics drivers - was always up to date. dx is one offered in june 2006.

But listen to this, even last year with old cards and asus p4s800dx motherboards and soyo motherboards - totally different chip sets totally different installs - windows xp home, windows xp proffessional - didnt matter with in 5 minutes to 45 minutes of play, even just watching guild battles with the Observer key (b), it locks up totally.

Ide harddrives - Sata hard drives doesnt matter.

------------------
Lan - router modem 100 mps NETGEAR.
Marvell yukon 88e8001/8003/8010 pci gigabit controller

had old soyo lan driver and a spare ether card on that old one
didnt matter still locks up no matter how any were set.

I played guildwars like feb 2005 - july 2005 non stop have 4 ascended chars but this error drove me out of guild wars. Now im back, ordered nightfall and a new char slot from online store and ... the error is still here.

bios settings for best agp , memory setup is automatic, i dont over clock my video cards or mother boards.

I have asus probe running with record on, cpu temp doesnt climb above 140 degrees and theres no sense of heat out the back or on the video card.

Any one have anyideas? I heard nvidia uses a secret port to send info from agp drivers to them and back is that the deal or is some device on motherboard communicating with a place that dont exist?

Nortons 2005 Internet security also fully up to date. setting nortons to disableing virus protection, firewall to off ect has no effect it still locks up.

I have been using computers with floppy drives/ harddrives and keyboards (not game consoles) since 1984 so dont try the 'its a dumb one' hints.

really what is this error?

Tarun · Sep 28, 2006, 12:08 AM // 00:08

@ Saladfork: Be sure to get all of your Windows Updates, update your graphics card drivers and your sound card drivers. If you are running the latest drivers, you may also wish to roll your drivers back to an earlier version. You may even wish to go as far back as the original drivers that came with your computer.

To go a bit further, you may wish to try shutting down your anti-virus, anti-malware, and even your firewall programs. If you see any strangely named processes in your Task Manager (Examples: x?rfds.exe or qhui1if.exe) then you will want to do a full virus scan and scan for malware.

@trytrytry: Trash Norton. Get it off your system and never buy it again. I'm not saying this to be insulting, I'm saynig this from experience. It causes more trouble than it's worth. I know because I work in a tech support shop and I regularly have to fix problems causes by Norton Internet Security (NIS, NAV, etc...). I've seen Norton/Symantec products break SSL (secure websites), BITS, Automatic Updates and much more. To remove Norton, go to this page and use the Norton Removal Tool. Afterwards, download Dial-a-fix and click the green checkmark. This will select every option. Don't worry, it's perfectly normal and will fix issues that Norton/Symantec causes. Click Go and let Dial-a-fix do it's thing.

For an alternate anti-virus, I would highly recommend Avast. For a firewall, I highly recommend Agnitum Outpost Pro. Since you're behind a router though you wouldn't really need a firewall. There are also free alternatives that work nicely. One such firewall is Comodo Firewall.

You may also wish to try the same solution I mentioned above to Saladfork, to try rolling back your drivers.

trytrytry · Oct 03, 2006, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Thanks! I did get rid of nortons and used the Rins tools after. Then I did the memtest+ 65 for 2 cycles (long time lol) memory was fine. ran the dial-a-fix and the other bits on command prompt all was done. Alas, Nvidia 91.47 still freezes up computer.
I did what other threads suggested and got the 71.89 old drivers from nvidia (unistalled totally 91.47 before installing and now I can play without errors. Really funky fix. But it hasn't once done the total freeze where I have to Hard reboot (unplug) the computer. (Taken a long time to get to here).

Thanks I can't wait to try to start grouping now. Fear of crashing is gone.

Tarun · Oct 03, 2006, 01:33 PM // 13:33

trytrytry, glad to hear rolling back your graphics drivers resolved the issue.

Spydergst1 · Oct 03, 2006, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Last night while exploring map during a severe thunderstorm. My lights flickers. I had a split second loss of power. This means my cable modem hickuped. It didn't reset it seems to think it never lost connetion to the internet according to the link LEDS. My computer locked up. Guild wars appeared to still be working as I never got an connection error. Therefore I would suggest you look at your ISP. If you are losing connection even for a second it will hang your system. This has happened to me before about six months ago when my service was bad and they discovered a problem after I pointed out my service was available but seemed slow. I was dropping packets.

Its free to have you ISP checked. Just complain about slow connectivity. At the very least you will find out that is a problem or eliminate your connection as a possibility