Can’t get GW started on brand new PC??? It reboots!!!

I have been playing GW for some time on my old HW, and have now got a new PC.
Specs: HP Pavilion, Pentium D 820 2.8GHz, 512 RAM, GeForce 7300LE 256 MB Video Card.

No extras, No overclocks, no SW except Windows XP-SP2 with all MS patches, newest NVidia drivers (93.71) and GW (GW & GW Factions).

No problems in connecting to Internet. Memtest86 and memtest86+ run with no errors.

When installing I get all GW updates from the net without a problem. It is the start of the program that fails. I get a black screen; see the GW cursor and then the PC reboots!

I have reinstalled GW and still no dice.

Does the GeForce 7300LE require any specific setting? What are your recommended settings for this card? … or what works for you?

Only other changes from the old to the new setup are that now I’m trying to connect from inside Mainland China. Before it was from Europe.

Err if its from china i believe the government blocks it or something... you need the special guildwars chinese client or something. Im not sure on this so dont quote me. I cant tell anything about that besides
1) hp is evil
2) 512 ram and a 7300 LE in one system! Thats killer!

I’m curious about the Chinese Client part. Why would that cause a reboot?

I know it is not cutting edge tech for hard-core gamers, but we are some who are satisfied with less. I was a satisfied gamer with an older and less capable HW before. I agree more GB RAM is the next step in any case. The question is if I can use the GeForce 7300 LE. Anybody got any experiences with this card?

Your computer crashes as soon as 3D content should be displayed on the screen. This points toward an issue with the graphics card or the directly related software, i.e. drivers. I actually had a similar problem myself on a brand ned DELL Optiplex system. Installing the most recent drivers worked for me (Intel integrated graphics).

But first, let's exclude hardware issues. It may be possible, however unlikely, that your PC restarts because your power supply unit is faulty. A game needs more power than regular desktop applications, if the PSU can't provide it, the system crashes. Also, if the system isn't cooled properly, overheating may be an issue and lead to resets, too. However, as mentioned, those are unlikely.

Go to your system property (right click on "My computer") and look for a box labelled something like "start and restore (recovery?)" (sorry, using a german version here, don't know the exact terms in english). In that dialogue, there is a checkbox that tells the system to automatically reboot, if an error occurs. Remove the checkmark. This will not fix your problem, but you should at least get an error message next time. Note that the computer will most likely completely freeze up and you'll have to reset manually. The error message may be cryptic, but the fact that you get one means that it very likely is only a software problem.

From that point, I would continue with re-installing the most recent version of DirectX and completely removing, re-downloading and re-installing the most recent Nvidia graphics driver.

Also, do you have the most recent chipset driver for your motherboard installed?

1. Remove the Display Adapter from the Device Manager (System Properties, Hardware, Device manager)
2. Reboot.
3. When thy system tells you that it has found a new hardware, ignore this.
4. Run the driver install exe. In my case 93.71_forceware_winxp2k_english_whql.exe.
5. Reboot, Change display settings to better than VGA, and start gaming.

In writing this I do get a dejavu experience. I’m still amazed that with “modern” and “clean” operating systems I still have to do tricks like this. Well I’m gaming again and this is the most important!

If that doesn't work, then you might wanna stop it from rebooting so it'll goto the diagnostic screen (also know as that bluescreen). Start->Settings->Control Panel->System->Advanced->(Startup & Recovery) Settings->(System Failure) Check the box.

Report your findings.

Actually, this is quite common with retail bundled systems. The vendor will modify the reference drive in some fashion and then when you go to use the hardware, it malfunctions.

Some older ATI products require the proprietary drivers for full functionality, but every generation of nVIDIA I have used (back since mx) works better with nVIDIA reference drivers than any hardware vendor.

Happy to hear you solved the problem!