Curse

kaotic tyberius · Jun 22, 2007, 03:53 AM // 03:53

Hi, ive been having lots of trouble with my computer when it comes to guild wars lately. While im ingame, my computer freezes, but not completely at first. i will stop moving in mid action, everything frezes, EXCEPT the mouse. I can continue to move the mouse for several seconds, then it freezes too. sometimes, it will start letting me move the mouse again, then freeze the mouse again as well. sometimes, it will let me continue playing without anything disasterous happening. other times it restarts my computer. i have just got a new video card, and my case is open all the time. here are the specs of my computer:

Mobo: biostar k8t890-a9
CPU: Amd Athlon 64 3800+
1 gig ram by corsair
GPU: Nvidia 7600 GT
450 watt power supply
wireless logitech mouse and keyboard, not gaming, just wireless
2 250 gig sata harddrives

i have had problems with the video card before, but i just got it back from rma. i have run the guild wars diag and dxdiag programs with no problems. I have also run memtest86 for hours without that being the problem. anything you forum-goers can do to help the situation would be greatly appreciated. thanks

~kaotic

scrinner · Jun 22, 2007, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Driver software up to date? Try defragging and running spyware scans to. But im thinking this is a driver problem.

kaotic tyberius · Jun 22, 2007, 11:18 AM // 11:18

hey, updated video card drivers and audio drivers, already ran nod32, adaware, spybot and malware, all things were handled. i thought it was a driver, so i loaded an older driver that has worked for me in the past and it worked the same, so i updated it again.

elektra_lucia · Jun 22, 2007, 11:36 AM // 11:36

over heating. take off side of case for a bit, see if that helps. if not, then remove dust from everything, keeping side of case off. if that doesn't work, it's probably not over heating.

http://rage3d.com/ go on forums and ask for help there.

Zodiak · Jun 22, 2007, 12:39 PM // 12:39

I just had the same happen to me a month ago with my 7600GTS

I played Guildwars for a long time with it, It did start to have a few pixel artifacts at the end which I thought were dead pixels from the monitor at first. Then I tried playing the Dungeons & Dragons Online trial, which blew my artifact problem wide open and multiplied it.

When I came back to guildwars the artifact problem started getting worse and worse until one day it just started freezing the whole comp. After much trouble I had to remove the card and get a replacement. went from a 7600GTS to 2x EVGA 8800 Ultra cards which gave me some problems and I had to go in the Nvidia Control Panel and set the VSYNC to Force Off.

I dont know if its a problem with the 7600 cards, I had mine for a few years without problem.

Quaker · Jun 22, 2007, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Many people, including myself, have had similar problems lately. Usually, in my case, it would freeze, but I could still talk on Ventrilo. Often times there would be an audio effect of a rapidly repeating sound byte as well. I would have to reset the computer to clear it.

I think it was an obscure glitch in GW itself - and it may have been fixed. I haven't had the problem for a few days.

Btw, it's not a good idea to run with your case open all the time. You can actually have worse airflow and more hot spots. If you are having cooling problems, it would be better to try to properly arrange the airflow with fans etc. Check the latest issues of CPU and MaximumPC (and/or various websites) for some ideas.

kaotic tyberius · Jun 22, 2007, 04:23 PM // 16:23

i doubt its a glitch in the game, because ive played before and nothing happen. it didnt start until i got my new card, but having one card replaced with another bad card? im not so sure. im hoping to be able to get this fixed soon

any nore help would be great,

kaotic tyberius · Jun 23, 2007, 04:03 PM // 16:03

whenever my computer freezes, and restarts, it tells me after i reload that it is a driver problem, but all my drivers are updated, and i cant figure out which driver it could be. im confuzed...

kaotic tyberius · Jun 24, 2007, 07:25 PM // 19:25

ok, the update:

my gw.dat is good, defragged it, is good.
Defragged hard drive--problem still there.
now, my computer told me there is a device driver problem, but i doubt its a video driver. updated thru 4 differint video drivers and problem continues. had my computer kick guild wars after a freeze spike and said that i was missing either directx or video drivers, but both were there, in tact. im very confused now. any more help will be greatly appreciated.

scrinner · Jun 25, 2007, 03:17 PM // 15:17

Take the card out and try it on another computer and play Guildwars and see if it works. Thus we can rule it out.

If the computer says its a driver problem then its probably somethign wrong with the driver or the card itself. I think the agp port has its own drivers as well... Try updating motherboard drivers aswell?

Etta · Jun 25, 2007, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaotic tyberius

missing either directx or video drivers.

Do a complete clear uninstall of the display driver from control panel, dont update it anymore. Reboot then install a fresh new driver from wherever you put it, it will be a .exe file. Reboot again then install a newest ver of DX9, reboot it and see if it fix. Lets us know.

Dahnel · Jun 26, 2007, 09:42 AM // 09:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quaker

Many people, including myself, have had similar problems lately. Usually, in my case, it would freeze, but I could still talk on Ventrilo. Often times there would be an audio effect of a rapidly repeating sound byte as well. I would have to reset the computer to clear it.

I think it was an obscure glitch in GW itself - and it may have been fixed. I haven't had the problem for a few days.

Btw, it's not a good idea to run with your case open all the time. You can actually have worse airflow and more hot spots. If you are having cooling problems, it would be better to try to properly arrange the airflow with fans etc. Check the latest issues of CPU and MaximumPC (and/or various websites) for some ideas.

I too think its a bug with one of the latest updates, It keeps happening to me at random intervals, game freezes (sometimes whole pc) with a rapid repeating sound and happens to my friend too.

Please fix this anet !

TelephoneNP · Jun 28, 2007, 02:28 AM // 02:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dahnel

I too think its a bug with one of the latest updates, It keeps happening to me at random intervals, game freezes (sometimes whole pc) with a rapid repeating sound and happens to my friend too.

Please fix this anet !

Agreed. The same thing pretty much happens to me, I have been getting random lock-ups the past few days this week. The game just freezes. The only way to fix it is to restart my computer.

This has never happend before.

Dahnel · Jun 28, 2007, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Ok i think i have a fix for this, It seems to be happening on Dual Core systems. What you need to do is Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up task manager, then click the processes tab and find Gw.exe in the list. Then right click it and go to "Set affinity" and uncheck CPU 1 (so that only CPU 0 is checked).

I'v been using the above method for a few days now and it has'nt happend again since, lets hope anet finds a permenant fix though, cause doing that everytime i load gw is annoying :P

scrinner · Jun 28, 2007, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Yeah update:

Im experiecing this too now =D Vista was good and restored the drivers a few times but now i get instant BSOD's for some reason. I'll try setting the affinity thing which i've been meaning to do. And yes, i am running a dual core system (Amd Athlon X2 4200)

iridescentfyre · Jun 29, 2007, 09:21 AM // 09:21

I actually just came here to report a similar problem. It only happens very rarely, but sometimes when I first zone into an instance, my video will start acting funny.. flashing the screen sometimes like its refreshing, then after a couple minutes it will freeze. If I alt-tab or ctrl-alt-delete and stay patient it will sometimes start to behave, or at least let me close Guild Wars. Other times it just results in kicking me back to a scrambled, messed up desktop. Sometimes it will even restart my system.

I got nervous when this started happening, it looks like really serious hardware failure. But other games (including ones that make much more use of my GPU than Guild Wars does), run perfectly fine and 100% reliably. Nothing is overclocked. Not a dual-core system, either. I'm watching my video card and CPU heat like a hawk.. both stay under 50*C even after hours of play, or only slightly above in extreme cases. Idle temperatures are 36*C for the CPU and around 44*C for the video card. My video settings in-game are all set very high, but have not been changed in months.

My PC:
AMD 64 Newcastle 3400+
2GB of RAM
Geforce 7800 GS (Forceware v162.15, issue occurred in the previous version too)
Windows XP Pro