Crashing

ronnieuk

ronnieuk

ronnieuk

Associate
Joined
30 Jul 2011
Posts
26
Hi, didnt know what section to post this so thought I'd try here.

I apologize for the length of this post but it's a crazy problem.

I have a problem with crashing when I am playing battlefield bad company 2 online. The game always worked great before but with my new pc its terrible. I get crashes after a while of playing and managed to record a quick video of it just before it locked up my whole system and had to be turned off with the power switch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agHx4XlvAx8

The video looks like the whole screen is flickering but what I saw was more like black lines accross the screen flickering on and off so I guess the recording software just didnt have the framerate tio show it, but you get the idea from the video.

When it locks up the picture and sound stutters for a few seconds then freezes and the sound just loops with my x-fi, I have tried onboard sound and it locks up with a constant loud buzzing or droning sound like a big wasp.

On a side note I have removed my x-fi soundcard because it has just randomly stopped working properly and switched to onboard sound. The x-fi is 6 years old and I have had it in about 5 motherboards so might just be worn out. It was ok until I got my latest motherboard RMA'd because of a fault but with the replacement I dont get sound from my centre speaker or sub and the mic is dead. So I think the card has died. The onboard sound is awful though and I have lots uf buzzing and popping which I think is interference from the other components. I only mention this because many people have reported this kind of issue with realtek onboard sound but like I said I did run the game with my x fi for a while before and it crashed anyway, but if the card was dying then maybe it could have caused the same crash too?

Just to see if it was overheating I started playing with fan settings on my gpu the game crashed last night with temps of 69 on the gpu and 72 on the cpu, temps provided through gpu z and coretemp. Although my bios does seem to think that the cpu temp is a bit higher than coretemp suggests, maybe up to 10 degrees!!! I can play call of duty for 2 hours straight with no crashing but the temps dont go as high on the cpu or gpu, they stay about 5 degrees cooler.

I know 69 degrees is not too hot for the graphics card but if thats the gpu temp then maybe the gpu memory is hotter? I dont know if it was just coincidence but last night when the system crashed it had been switched on for hours and the room was very warm. Seems to get warm in here at night for some reason and I have noticed that playing through the day when it's a bit cooler gives better results, but this could be coincidence. The last time the black flickering lines appeared I had just enough time to get the side panel off the case and turn on a desk fan I had pointed at it and again this could be coincidence but it did seem like the black lines did get better and the game didnt crash which it normally would have when the lines start appearing.

I have a large Silverston TJ07 case with 2 80mm intake fans at the back and 2 120mm exhaust fans at the top so my cooling should be good enough.

I still cant rule out the fact that when I got the system built I played bad company for a few days without incident and this has only been happening since I stupidly installed nvidia tools. but I have removed that and also done a system restore to a point before it was there so surely it cant be the cause.

Dont know if its related but in event viewer I have at least a hundred errors which say

A corrected hardware error has occurred.

Reported by component: Processor Core
Error Source: Corrected Machine Check
Error Type: Cache Hierarchy Error
Processor ID: 5

The bottom part where it says processor id sometimes has a different number but other than that they are all the same and they are happening maybe 2 to 4 times a minute. Maybe all this error logging has some part in crashing.

Here are my specs

Asus P8 Z68-V Pro
Intel sandybridge 2600k OC @4.7 ghz
8gb Corsair DDR3 1600mhz ram
Asus direct c u II Nvidia 580 gpu
Enermax galaxy 1000w psu
windows 7 ultimate 64


I hope you guys have some ideas because this is ruining the use of my pc.

Thanks
Ronnie
 
read through your post and cant see any mention, have you tried running the processor at its default speed ?, and what drivers do you currently have loaded for your 580.
 
Thanks for the replies guys :)

Got the latest drivers for the 580 and everything else. Tried an older version too with the same results. Have not tried stock speeds on my cpu but I paid good money for an overclocked bundle which is otherwise stable for everything else. But I do worry about seeing so many of those hierarchy errors on the event viewer, there are hundreds by now.

On my last system I did have the same problem. But that was about 4 years ago and I was playing older games like BF2 etc. It was a prebuilt watercooled system with heavy overclocks and when I ran it at stock speeds things were a bit better but still had crashes, but with more than one game. Anyway it took 3 different models of motherboard to get it to stop. Two seperate 680i's and finally a 780 to get stability and I never crashed once for 4 years even when I changed gpu's to keep up with things.

I know that last bit about my old pc might seem irrelevant but it was such a similar issue I thought it worth a mention.

There is a huge thread somewhere about this where many people solved it by disabling onboard sound but I tried that while my x fi was still working and it crashed anyway. if it is sound related then maybe the fact that my x fi was not working too great caused the crashes and maybe it's crashing now because the onboard sound does not work well with this game.

Any more thoughts?
 
I've had the same issue with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 where I too would crash. My system would just completely lock up forcing me to do a hard reset.

I've seen the thread where people have been posting fixes... But I refuse to mess around with a lot of settings to get it to work. You can find the thread here:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/4020/380660.page

I managed to fix mine by firstly underclocking my PC to stock speed (from 3.5 Ghz to a meager 2.7 Ghz) and also by setting as much of the in game sounds to low/off as possible. It sounds stupid but since I did that it seems to work fine. I also have Realtek Audio Drivers and I turned the quality down from the maximum available down to 16 bit, 48000 Hz. Doing this seems to have fixed it for me.

It'd be a good idea for you to do the same and post back with your findings.
 
Trying a gaming session tonight at stock cpu speed to see what happens. Already using some of those settings from that link the last person posted.

Will report back after testing at stock cpu speed.

Any more ideas are appreciated. :)
 
Ok guys, thanks again for the replies. Here is my latest update. Along with some more info.

I am using the Noctua NH D14 cooler on the cpu which is meant to be the best air cooler you can get.

The ram is definetly running at 1600mhz. I have it set there manually because the bios puts it to 1333 by default but it is 100% 1600mhz ddr 3 ram.

No serious bios tweaking. Really simple changes. To get 4.7 just have to increase the multiplier to 47 and thats it. Then just increase voltage and there you have it. But that was all done by the store I bought it from and they did do an overnight stress test.

Anyway, today I have set the cpu to stock which is 3.4ghz and have left the ram at 1600mhz as usual. I only had a half hour to test the game tonight but it seemed fine and the cpu was about 20 degrees cooler!!!

Half an hour is nowhere near a long enough test though. So I will wait till either tomorrow or the weekend to give it a serious gaming session. If it survives a few days with no crashes then I will step up the OC to 4ghz and see what happens.

One thing I am still worried about is that i am still getting tons of those cpu core hierarchy errors in event viewer even at stock cpu speed. It really reminds me of my last system where I had 3 diff motherboards due to a similar thing.

Any more ideas are really appreciated guys and thanks again for your help so far. keep it up please :)


Ronnie
 
Well at least that's one good thing to get out of it. 4.7 Ghz is pretty fast so your PC is gonna heat up a lot.

Test it at stock speed for 6-12 hours and if its fine, then put it to 4 Ghz... Rinse and repeat. Do this until you find the sweet spot.
 
Will do but I have to say I dont thinkit's the Oc thats causing it as I am still getting all these errors in event viewer.. But it's worth a try anyway.
 
Hi again.



Been running the pc at stock cpu speed for over a week now. I have only had a little bit of time to try bad company 2 but I got through a few hours online gaming with no crashes. I dont think it's enough to prove that it's stable but I have been busy with other things so I have not had much testing time. I will fit in another few gaming sessions over the next few days and see how it goes.



I am still concerned about all these event viewer errors though. There are several per minute even when not in a game.

Mostly this

A corrected hardware error has occurred.

Reported by component: Processor Core

Error Source: Corrected Machine Check

Error Type: Cache Hierarchy Error

Processor ID: 1


And sometimes



A corrected hardware error has occurred.

Component: Memory

Error Source: Corrected Machine Check

The details view of this entry contains further information.


I think there is still some kind of hardware fault causing these errors. It cant be the motherboard as it has been replaced already, unless I have been unlucky and had 2 bad boards. It's happened before. Maybe bad ram or even a bad gpu?
 
Well both of those errors immediately point to the RAM and CPU but if they seem to be working fine and not malfunctioning or overheating then clearly it's neither.

Wait until you've had sufficient time to properly test the machine and if it all seems fine and you're still getting the errors a reinstall of Windows should fix it.
 
Ok, sorry it took a while but I have finally had the time to do sufficient gaming to test the PC.



I reinstalled windows and set the cpu speed to stock. Played a few sessions with no issues or lockups. Put the OC back on and it was ok for one night of gaming but on the 2nd night it froze in game with a buzzing sound through the speakers. Havent seen those black lines since removing the old soundcard so gonna blame that for the lines. But still locking up and getting all those event viewer errors about cpu cache hierarchy errors.
 
Hi again.

Honestly... I'm not really sure to suggest from this point. Sounds like a real headache if you ask me.

Sorry I can't help more.
 
Ok been about 2 weeks at 4ghz with no hassle, hopefully it stays stable. Will need to do some more gaming sessions to be sure but it's looking good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom