System lockup in BC2

realscot

realscot

realscot

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Just recently my computers been locking up while playing Bad Company 2. It had previously been stable. No components or drivers have been changed since it was stable.
Yesterday was trying to have a session with a few mates but I could never get more than 20 mins without the system locking up and me having to restart.

Spec.
Q6600 @ 3.8 1.425v *watercooled* (does 4ghz at 1.55v)
Asus Maximus II ROG
6GB (4+2) 1192 reaper ram @ almost stock.
4870 X2 @stock *watercooled*

I left the machine on last night running prime on all 4 cores and it was still going strong this morning, temps capped out in the high 50's. NB & SB temps are low 40s at most. GPU is in the 40's when playing BC2. I just can't understand it. I've got to assume it's the game as everything else works perfectly. My mate gets random crashes to desktop playing BC2 but other than that not heard of system lockups. Windows doesn't mention it when I get back in. I've even monitored temps & voltages while in the game and nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Any suggestions (other than disabling my overclock as i'm just about to try that)
 
Perhaps try a mixture of different stability tests. I seem to remember that IBT was very good and finding stability problems when I was running my Q6600. Also try both Prime Blend and Small FFTS. I doubt its the game per se, It's just exposing that your PC is not quite stable.
 
Are you running any graphics card monitoring programs? Things like MSI Afterburner, CCC, Fraps, GPU-z etc.

We found that on some systems nothing happens but on others, mine included, after about 20 minutes you get a full system lockup with looping sound, while some just get a crash to desktop.

The problem is of course the wonderful Punkbuster that triggers the crash at a hardware level. It's been doing this for me since around mid March.

There are two simple solutions.

1) Play on non Punkbuster servers.
2) Don't use the monitoring software.
 
One possible fix ive been testing is this.

The best workaround in my opinion is one provided by Unwinder himself. That is, to stop MSI Afterburner from accessing certain low-level functions of the GPU by neutering it. To do so, all you have to do is navigate to the Afterburner folder and then rename "RTCore.cfg" to anything else (or delete it, but that's not recommended). Do this BEFORE running Afterburner of course. If you already have it running, you'll need to restart Afterburner. This will stop the freezing/crashing in BFBC2 while having Afterburner running, and will preserve your user-defined fan profiles. However, certain features may no longer work (like fan RPM monitoring, which is all I've noticed different other than a much more stable BFBC2 MP gameplay).

TL;DR version: Rename RTCore.cfg

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=343161

Also seen this one but havent tried it yet.

This completely fixed all my CTD and lock-up problems on PunkBuster servers:

Fix a lot of CTD (crash to desktop), freeze/hard lock-up and others issues


[*] Uninstall PunkBuster Service with latest PunkBuster Service Setup (pbsvc.exe)
[*]Go to your game folder, locate the "pb" folder
[*]Delete the content of the "pb" folder but DO NOT delete the folder itself
[*]In Windows Vista & 7, PunkBuster copies files from the game PB folder to another commonly located at C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\PunkBuster\<Game>\pb\
[*]However PB Setup updates the files located in the game PB folder by default and sometimes fails to copy the updated files
[*]Delete the content of the "pb" folder in C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\PunkBuster\<Game>\pb\
[*]Just change <Game> to the game you are having issues with (ex BC2)
[*]Re-Install PunkBuster Service with latest PunkBuster Service Setup (pbsvc.exe)
[*]Now you can manually update the PB folders using PBSetup (pbsetup.exe)

Found in this thread, look towards the bottom of the first post for links to pbsvc.exe and pbsetup.exe

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/616990.page#5292966
 
Hi, it also might be your Anti-Virus, if its got something like Resident Shield or simular setting look for Manage Exceptions, click on it, something like exclude items, click addpath, goto Documents, click on BFBC2, click apply then ok and now the BFC2 folder will not get scaned.
 
Its funny this post and I'm not laughing at you but I'm about to post up about how I can't overclock My system and game..been testing BC2 and it crashes to the system completley at any sort of overclock on My full Watercooled PC:rolleyes:
 
Ok guys slight update. Played a punkbuster server, system lockup after 10 mins. Played a none punkbuster server (same map) lasted 2 whole rounds and no crash.

I just followed the above guide forcefully removing punkbuster and reinstalling it then updating it, but I don't have time to try it out today now. Will try tomorrow.
 
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Ok so even turning the overclock off doesn't work. Still only affects punkbuster servers. Bah.. yet another game ruined by punkbuster. If BF3 uses it I won't be buying it.
 
The first tip i posted above seems to be ok so far for me, (rename RTcore.cfg in afterburner). Played a few rounds in the past week or so without any issues.
 
I experienced this for myself tonight. I waited about 40 seconds to be sure. Then just as my finger was reaching for the reset button, the PC resumed working normally. Although BC2 was saying PB kicked me from the server.

And this is especially strange because my PC isn't even overclocked.
I got I5 750 @ 2.7GHz and 12Gb corsair XMS 3 @ 1600MHz. Using the XMP profile.
Applaud punkbuster...

I think BC2 is just a game full of weird bugs like that.
 
Have you downloaded the punkbuster exe and update it that way? had no end of troubles until i got it installed.
 
The game is mad it crashes my pc quite a bit and i have to underclock my gfx crads to stop it and also turn off my cpu oc, it just seems to crash for no reason so your not alone.
 
Just been on the EA forum and there is a problem with punkbuster updating at the moment.
 
There's something I read a few days back that may help stop random crashing that wasn't there before.

Click the start button on the desktop, and type %temp% in the search bar and click enter. Delete everything in the folder including the Bad Company 2 folders, and restart your computer.

May or may not work, but worth a try. :)
 
Mine has been crashing ransomly wth vloom set to false in the settings config. Changed to true and i can play again!
Assume from your op that you havent changed any game settings?
 
Well i played vietnam today and got to lockup`s dont ever get them in bfbc2 i dont understand why.
 
all the lockups iv had in bfbc2 have all been overclock related, hard lock everytime. drop the clocks on the cpu a little worked for me, thing is primes ok for just cpu testing but battlefield seems to stress everything more than anything else.
 
I agree with Bad Company 2 being a real CPU stress test. I've had my CPU @ 3.65Ghz on Intel Burn test, but soon as I play Bad Company 2 it will freeze up or restart the computer within 10 minutes, so may be best to run CPU overclocks slightly under the norm for this game.
 
SouthEastBlue said:
I agree with Bad Company 2 being a real CPU stress test. I've had my CPU @ 3.65Ghz on Intel Burn test, but soon as I play Bad Company 2 it will freeze up or restart the computer within 10 minutes, so may be best to run CPU overclocks slightly under the norm for this game.
Click to expand...

You do of course realise that the definition of stable means it's capable of doing everything it would at stock, overclocked?

BC2 is one of the best way to pick out an unstable overclock, or rather one of the best ways to ascertain if an overclock is stable. Primes good, but it's lmited. Try Maxxpi multi (core) preview(, set priority to high and used 128M for testing, 256M for fine tuning. I've found pushing 256M digits through the cpu the quickest way to check the stability of the memory controller (or nb) which will pass prime but fall flat after a couple hours gaming.

Still, it simply means you oc isn't stable and fault finding that is always a pain.
 
Azuse05 said:
You do of course realise that the definition of stable means it's capable of doing everything it would at stock, overclocked?

BC2 is one of the best way to pick out an unstable overclock, or rather one of the best ways to ascertain if an overclock is stable. Primes good, but it's lmited. Try Maxxpi multi (core) preview(, set priority to high and used 128M for testing, 256M for fine tuning. I've found pushing 256M digits through the cpu the quickest way to check the stability of the memory controller (or nb) which will pass prime but fall flat after a couple hours gaming.

Still, it simply means you oc isn't stable and fault finding that is always a pain.
Click to expand...

My CPU is 'stable', it's the reason I downclocked it to 3.5Ghz so I can run Bad Company 2 without blue screening/freezing/restarting.

I was highlighting that some CPU's may pass stress tests such as Intel Burn test and Prime, yet they fail on Bad Company 2. It's probably the most CPU intensive game I think I've played.
 
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