Curse

HaplessRunner · Aug 21, 2006, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Recently had to replace much of system due to a lightning strike. Current system stats:

Intel MB DG101Ggc with P4 2.66 Ghz processor
2GB of DDR PC2700 (333Mhz) RAM
160GB Western Digital HD with 8MB cache
EvGA e-GeForce 7800 GT CO SE 256 MB used (256-P2-N516-AX)

I bought the card used on e-Bay. There were some significant freezing problems (the original CD had 63.xx drivers). So I updated the drivers from EVGA's website with version 91.33 - BETA Driver Download. This resulted in the performance improving significantly but I am still expereincing some freezes during game play. This includes both action and no-action sequences.

Any thoughts on how to remedy this? Thanks in advance!!!

kvndoom · Aug 21, 2006, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Get your money back and buy something new with a warranty. That will remedy quite a bit. I wouldn't take chances with a used video card at that price range. You never know the real reason somebody's selling something on ebay.

I suppose you should try the latest WHQL drivers instead of betas. If that doesn't resolve the problem, I'd get my money back.

2ndName · Aug 21, 2006, 06:30 PM // 18:30

The lightning strike, what parts did you replace? Are you positive that the parts you left in the computer are in full working condition?

PSU Tester
Prime
Memtest
HDD Test
Aquamark

HaplessRunner · Aug 21, 2006, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Replacement Parts:

New motherboard, new case, new power supply with 530 watts & 24 amps on a single +12v rail, 2 GB PC2700 memory

Used parts from old computer: CD R/Write drive, DVD R drive.

So essentially a new computer.

gabrial heart · Aug 21, 2006, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Are you sure it's not a net connection issue. Running a Crossfire setup Dual x1800's and i get freezes during lag spikes. Could just be dropped packets from A-nets servers to you?

SuperNomad · Aug 21, 2006, 09:18 PM // 21:18

I have a 7800gt and I also experience game freezes, the game just stops at any random time and I have to restart my PC.

sykoone · Aug 21, 2006, 10:25 PM // 22:25

I think it's something to do with Nvidia cards in general. I'm running a 5500 (yes, old crappy card, I know) which has served me well over the years. But it occasionally freezes GW when zoning, and in mid battle during this weekend event. This is the only problem I've had out of the card.

coolsti · Aug 22, 2006, 06:16 AM // 06:16

Do a search in this section for a thread started by me, and you might find something that helps. I have an Asus 7900GT and we experienced two freeze-ups playing GW, which sparked me to do an internet search on what could be wrong with this card.

Basically I found out that the 7900GT can have lots of problems (I know, the O.P. has the 7800GT but perhaps the problems are related). A lot of these seem to come from the fact that most manufacturers sell the 7900GT overclocked. Heat and power may then become an issue, but not only that, I read somewhere that the different internal timings may not scale up correctly when overclocking, leaving possibilities for poor rendering (artifacts) and perhaps other problems.

In my case, the Asus card was not factory overclocked. After the freeze-up incidents, I finally installed an Asus utility called SmartDoctor that adjusted the cooling fan speed after temperature, and judging by the sound differences, it seems that we had no fan running at all when we got the freezes. So we might have had overheating problems.

Since then, we have had no fatal freeze-ups. However, there was a period in UW the other day where the screen seemed to freeze up momentarilly on two short occasions soon after each other. This could have been due to something starting to run in the background (anti-virus?) which grabbed all the power and communications, but in order to make sure I could complete the UW trip, I quickly went into the options folder and set back the graphic options to what the "auto detect" recommended. I had set the quality up to max on most items, which is a bit more than the auto detect recommends. Here I am thinking that perhaps some areas of GW have some textures or rendering technologies that my card has problems digesting, and by setting the quality to max perhaps I am asking my card to do more than it can. Here, I consider freeze-ups to be bugs in the soft or hardware, but to avoid the issues, I set the quality back a bit.

Hope this helps. Try a search on the internet for problems specdific to your card.

Alias_X · Aug 22, 2006, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvndoom

Get your money back and buy something new with a warranty. That will remedy quite a bit. I wouldn't take chances with a used video card at that price range. You never know the real reason somebody's selling something on ebay.

I suppose you should try the latest WHQL drivers instead of betas. If that doesn't resolve the problem, I'd get my money back.

Funny thing is, EVGA has a lifetime warranty on their graphics cards, and on their website you can register the card for that warranty. The warranty also passes down from one person to another when sold. Read up on the warranty and RMA it if worst comes to worst.

I have an evga 7800GT also, and I must say every minute I have at least one quick freeze or lag skip. I have always thought it was the either my internet connection or GW. Maybe the cards are the problem?

Silver_Fang · Aug 22, 2006, 04:14 PM // 16:14

I got a 7800GTX and GW do freeze for about 30 sec at random time, it might be because i always alt-tab, When the game freeze, it looks like the computer is not running, but after about 30sec to 1 min, it runs fine again, im not sure what is the problem.

I haven't seen any freezing after installing 91.36 beta driver, and yes, it freeze when i use 91.33 driver. So, i guess the problem is related to 91.33. I just install this driver for 2 days and i havn't play GW much lately, so the problem might still occur with the 91.36 driver

gabrial heart · Aug 22, 2006, 08:25 PM // 20:25

I have dual x1800 cards running and get freeze from alt+tabing which last for a few seconds. It's the nature of the beast. I'm not sure thats what the OP is talking about. warping and freeze without alt-tabbing is more then likely net issues, or slow hard drive performance as is the case of random freezing. Watch your drive light and see that when it takes a read or write, it can often stutter the game briefly.

The work arounds (from cheapest to most expensive) to lower this are:

-a clean defrag (turning off VM-restart-defrag), hopefully using a utility other then windows defrag,

-assign performance to disk cache mode instead of application mode to get a decent speed boost from drive access.

-installing a fast (7200 or better) second drive and assigning that drive for VM,

-running 2 fast (7200 or better) drives in RAID 0 config.

-and the last option is pretty costly but it will also increase speeds dramatically, get yourself a 8, 16, 32, 76, or 150 GB USB-2 shuttle and assign that as your VM drive

felinette · Aug 22, 2006, 08:29 PM // 20:29

I have two 7800GTXs running in SLI and haven't experienced freezing problems. The one and only time I saw anything like this since I bought the cards (about 5 months ago) was on the "double rare-drops from chests" weekend. I was out in Naphui, and every minute or so, the game would completely freeze for me. It was different from lagging. When lagging, the client is still alive. But not in this case. After I left Naphui, I logged off and restarted my machine. When Windows was shutting down, I got one of those "Not responding" msgs, so I assumed something to do with the client had crashed. After rebooting, no problems, and no problems since. So it's not always the video card.

Alias_X · Aug 23, 2006, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Well you happen to have SLI 7800GTXs, so if you are having any issues with performanc, DAMN.

MaglorD · Aug 23, 2006, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by gabrial heart

I have dual x1800 cards running and get freeze from alt+tabing which last for a few seconds.

Weird, I can alt-tab on my x800 xtpe without any freezes. Guess I'm lucky.

Numa Pompilius · Aug 23, 2006, 10:59 AM // 10:59

I get these same freezes.

I've determined that my Creative Labs Audigy 2ZS soundcard is somehow involved with this, or, more accurately, the driver. Do you other guys who get freezes also have Audigy soundcards?

Skorpio · Aug 23, 2006, 01:09 PM // 13:09

I have some freezes that "block" image of Guild Wars, but the game still go on (i.e. if I play with others players, they see my character moving), usually I have a moment (5-6 seconds) that all is blocked (video and audio) after, audio continue to play (also mp3 played by WinAmp) but video remain static.

I must terminate Guild Wars with Task Manager or sometimes hard reboot PC... If I'm able to terminate GW, I can't relaunch it, it show me a message like "Video Problem With Directx 8" (or similiar) but I have Direct X 9.0c (June Update). In this case I must reboot PC.

I have a GeForce 7900 GT with Driver 84.21 and an old Creative Live Suond Blaster Live! as first output pheriperal and a simply Creative SB (i don't remember model) integrated in Main Board as secondary.

(Sorry for my english).

Meols Green · Aug 23, 2006, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skorpio

I have some freezes that "block" image of Guild Wars, but the game still go on (i.e. if I play with others players, they see my character moving), usually I have a moment (5-6 seconds) that all is blocked (video and audio) after, audio continue to play (also mp3 played by WinAmp) but video remain static.

I must terminate Guild Wars with Task Manager or sometimes hard reboot PC... If I'm able to terminate GW, I can't relaunch it, it show me a message like "Video Problem With Directx 8" (or similiar) but I have Direct X 9.0c (June Update). In this case I must reboot PC.

I have a GeForce 7900 GT with Driver 84.21 and an old Creative Live Suond Blaster Live! as first output pheriperal and a simply Creative SB (i don't remember model) integrated in Main Board as secondary.

(Sorry for my english).

Its most likely your drivers. I dont use Nvidia yet (i plan to buy a 7800GS very soon) but i think the 84 drivers are old. Try going to the card manufactuers site and updating your drivers, that may

A) Increase performance as a whole
B) Reduce problems such as the one you described from occuring

Skorpio · Aug 23, 2006, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meols Green

Its most likely your drivers. I dont use Nvidia yet (i plan to buy a 7800GS very soon) but i think the 84 drivers are old. Try going to the card manufactuers site and updating your drivers, that may

A) Increase performance as a whole
B) Reduce problems such as the one you described from occuring

Yes you say right, and thanks, but I missed to say that I just tried some versions of 91.xx drivers (surely the 91.31 and perhaps 91.33 beta) and I returned to 84 because the problem remains.

I'll wait if there are others with new 91.36 Beta without this problem (I don't like to use Beta Drivers). Thanks anyway.

MaglorD · Aug 24, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

I get these same freezes.

I've determined that my Creative Labs Audigy 2ZS soundcard is somehow involved with this, or, more accurately, the driver. Do you other guys who get freezes also have Audigy soundcards?

Sorry to butt in. I have the exact same soundcard and do not get any freezes.

Numa Pompilius · Aug 24, 2006, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaglorD

Sorry to butt in. I have the exact same soundcard and do not get any freezes.

Would you mind opening the Device Manager, and checking what version drivers you have for your Audigy? I'm using 5.12.8.1164 Creative Audigy 2 ZS (WDM).

I get popping and short freezes at seeming random intervals in town, and when Winamp (which I use to play background music) changes song GW freezes for a second. I opened the framerate analyser in GW, and could determine that framerate varied with sound - sudden sounds cause a drop in framerate.
It is possible the longer freezes, which might be 30 seconds or so, are different from this, but there's obviously some sort of conflict between the Audigy and my nVidia graphics card.

The exact same hardware worked perfectly for me up until about two weeks ago, when I updated the nVidia driver because the old one didn't support anti-aliasing in GW.