*pouts*

[CHEEZball]

ok so I got WoW, started playing hardcore this weekend and I'm crashing! damnit! I'm pissed, can't figure out what's wrong with it.

First of all the crash happens at random instances, at first I thought it was when I hit the "zone" lines and cities...but it moved from there and is happening in fields now out in the middle of nowhere.

My monitor powers down to power save mode, but I'm still in game, if I jump I can still hear it, etc. Then about 1 min later my comp will lock up.

Changed drivers, no change at all.

My CPU was running super hot (way overclocked) so I turned the speed down, still crashed, turned it ALL the way down, still crashed, got a new heatsink! (will need for summer anyway) got the temp sitting at 50 now (AMD 2500) still crashing!

Did diagnostics on the Vid card, they test fine. ran that thing through hell and back no probs.

Did diagnostics on the MB! It seems fine. Although in the process of that test I noticed a small, and extrememly intermittent error on the time clock. (did the test 5 times with various settings and the error showed up twice)

I dunno! I'm at a loss...I just wanna play! I'm crashing every 30 mins to a hour, then I sit in that FREAKIN que for 30 mins...arg, frustrating.

Any ideas??

 

[Snorkius]

Is this the only game that crashes? Try running memtest and something like Prime95 to really tax/test your system for stability.

 

[CHEEZball]

Only in game yup, mem test was fine

Prime 95...hmm I can't even remember what I was usin this weekend, went through every test I could find and put that system through hell and back and everything went swimmingly!

Turned down the settings and such (read on the WoW forums that triple buffering can cause crash problems) Still messin up.

I'm seriously gettin worried that it's the MB.

Gonna swap out the vid cards today, see if that does anything. But as far as the tests say, the vid card is pristine

 

[dwellman]

Any relevant messages in Event Viewer?

 

[CHEEZball]

I'm not on my home comp atm, but nothing is popping to mind.

 

[dwellman]

Sysadmins almost always check Event Viewer first to see if there's any faulting app or condition-- assuming you're running an NT-ish OS.

If there are no errors or warnings, in situations like yours-- can you run a HW monitor drung WoW to see what your temps and voltages are? Could be voltage drop, too. . .

 

[CHEEZball]

Did that, running MBM in the background during gaming. When I tab out to windows my cpu WAS running at 69 degrees before the new and improved heatsink, now it sits at 50. Voltage is perfect. PS shouldn't be affecting the game like that anyway, if it was a issue it'd just turn off the comp...but who knows stranger things happen. Regardless it's not the PS

I have no errors, no warnings, no nothing.

Baffling!

Oh also, turned off all proggies in the background, antivirus etc. I remember back when I was playing D2 last year it had issues with my FProt and AntiVir...still messin up

My head hurts

 

[dwellman]

What mainboard are you using. . .? Does it and is it set to shutdown when the CPU reaches a certain temp?

Mine is set to alarm at 65C and shutdown at 70C

 

[CHEEZball]

Blah I can't recall my MB right now..silly but ya

No it's not set to shut down

I'm monitoring my temps, temps are fine now

 

[dwellman]

I don't know. . .

I would try to get my CPU cooler: completely clean CPU and HSF of old thermal compound (I use Goo Gone). . . apply spare amount of high quality silver paste. . . see what happens.

Do you have an exhaust fan on the rear of your case?

 

[CHEEZball]

sweety I just did that, got my case cooler by just about 20 degrees lol

ya I have a case fan, shiny new, cleaned out the filter on my cpu intake funnel as well.

 

[dwellman]

You *just* did that. . Check.

Explain "cpu intake funnel".

 

[CHEEZball]

*just* did that by buying a new heatsink

My case

it has a funnel on the side panel that hovers over the cpu fan sucking fresh air in from the outside instead of the ambient heated air inside the case

 

[dwellman]

funnel. Check.

I'm beginning to realise that it might not be thermal. . . are there any other applications you can try (say, other games) whereby you can see if your PC will crash-- exactly how does it crash, anyway?

 

[CHEEZball]

yup, loaded up EQ2, D2, and Fate, all played fine for 2 hours of testing I did on each

My monitor powers down to power save mode, but I'm still in game, if I jump I can still hear it, etc. Then about 1 min later my comp will lock up.

Did some explaining at the beginning of my post

the crash happens at random instances, at first I thought it was when I hit the "zone" lines and cities...but it moved from there and is happening in fields now out in the middle of nowhere.

not consistent with anything so I can't recreate at any given time, it just happens. Making it incredibly hard to pinpoint

 

[Wolfy]

patch everything then look in the forums run by WOW itself for a solution.

 

[CHEEZball]

ok well thanks guys for lookin into it... the suggestions were nice although I've done all that

will look elsewhere

 

[dwellman]

What happens when you disable power saving schemes in the BIOS and set you PC to "Always On"?

Could it be an ACPI / APM bug? That's why I asked about event viewer. . . ACPI errors casing crashes and random reboots are often listed there-- if there were any.

 

[Forlorn]

Try running a game that's more intense, like Fear or HL2. See if it happens there too.

 

[dwellman]

You're kidding right?

 

[dvdpiddy]

well if the hsf properly seated then did you check to see if the auto shutdown feature is enabled in the bios mines was at 60c and when i played cod2 my comp kept shutting down disabled it runs fine now

 

[CHEEZball]

ok, assuming that I never did anything that I previously posted (changing the heatsink, changing the fans to maintain proper cooling, reducing the cpu heat by 20 degrees (from 69 to 50), underclocking the cpu, trying multiple vid drivers and running horrendous vid and motherboard tests, and trying other games to mimic the crash)

no, my computer is not shutting down. yes i checked the bios shut down feature, it's not turned on. the comp is locking. not powering down, thus taking out the power supply theory as well...

 

[dwellman]

Stumped. . .

ACPI / APM was my last thing. . . WoW was working before on your setup?

 

[Flakes]

Did diagnostics on the MB! It seems fine. Although in the process of that test I noticed a small, and extrememly intermittent error on the time clock. (did the test 5 times with various settings and the error showed up twice)

this can happen when your MB battery is dying on you, go to your local watch store and buy a new battery.

as for your WoW, problem not a clue unless your Vid card is overheating running it is it a nvida GFX?, in WoW press ctrl+r together to get the fps counter if its a nvidia card you should notice a drop in FPS as vid card gets hotter...then if it crashes try all that take the side of your case of and try again.

certantly sounds like a power saving feature, mabye recheck the windows power saving option. did you do what the guys at the WoW forums always tell you to do? aka delete the WTF folder...

 

[lambo333]

if this is the only game or software you are having troubles with and it doesnt happen with anything else then i think you might have a software problem and not a hardware problem....from what you hae said youve tested everything to do with hardware and all is fine cept for the overheating thing which you say you got undercontrol....you might think of suspecting the wow installation. there is a program in your wow installation folder called "repair". it will check the file installation to see if all the files are proper...you might try deleating the installation and reinstalling the program again..but first try the repair utility to see if it finds anything. also check the wow forums at the blizzard website and also check the trouble shooting forums there.