Random video problem, locks up PC only in EQ2.

[Blindrage#2]

<p>I am getting a random video problem(which has only happened in EQ2)and after it happens 10-20 seconds later my PC will freeze, making me have to hold the power button in to restart it.</p><p>I have had this happen anywhere from 5 minutes of being logged in, to 8 hours of being logged in.</p><p>I am using the current nVidia drivers, and have tried released up to three previous versions, I have turned my overclocking off, and still had it happen.  I have Disabled Aero, turned off surround sound, selected the refresh eq2 at the same rate as desktop background, and many other things that I can't even remember right now because I am so irritated.</p><p>I have a screenshots of what happens right before my PC freezes.  Also, the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Direct X Diag.  I will post the screenshot, and if you need to see the DXDiag32, or 64, please let me know and i'll post them.</p><p>Here's my system information from the DXDiag</p><p>------------------System Information------------------Time of this report: 9/15/2008, 22:04:10       Machine name: BLIND-PC   Operating System: Windows Vista^TM Business (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.080425-1930)           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)System Manufacturer: NVIDIA       System Model: 132-CK-NF78               BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6600  @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz             Memory: 4094MB RAM          Page File: 1201MB used, 7168MB available        Windows Dir: C:Windows    DirectX Version: DirectX 10DX Setup Parameters: Not found     DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 64bit Unicode </p><p>Thanks for any help.</p><p><img src="http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2462/ss1tf0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></p>

[Blindrage#2]

<p>Help? Anyone? TSRs?</p>

[Antipalad]

Overheating GPU looks like that.

[Blindrage#2]

That is what I thought, however the GPU is running around 45-50c which is normal.

[Antipalad]

<p>Then I'd look into the gfx cards ram overheating.</p><p>Also, don't take a GPU's temperature probe's measurements as fact, some probes are faulty and show way more/less than actual temperature.</p>

[Blindrage#2]

<p>After this happens, and I reboot, I can go anywhere from 5 minutes to 8+ more hours before it happens again.  Do you think it could still be a heat issue?</p>

[Antipalad]

Heat or driver issue, with almost certainty heat. Try another set of drivers and if it persists, you're overheating.

[Blindrage#2]

Ok, I will try that.  Thank you <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Yvan]

I am that same EXACT problem... if you find a fix for it, please PM me!

[Yvan]

Okay so we loaded new drivers, and I'm still getting this problem. If it's a heating problem, why does it happen more often when I'm not actually doing anything than while I'm fighting or running around?And if it IS an overheating issue, what do I do to fix it???

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Yvan wrote:</cite><blockquote>Okay so we loaded new drivers, and I'm still getting this problem. If it's a heating problem, why does it happen more often when I'm not actually doing anything than while I'm fighting or running around?And if it IS an overheating issue, what do I do to fix it???</blockquote> If you have not done it for a while, open the box up and clean all the fans, it appears that the vcard fan is not running all the time. killer dustbunnies can cause this. Run for a while with the side off and if the issue occurs take a look at the fans to see what is not running, or running slow.

[Blindrage#2]

This can't be a heat issue..I had this happen again yesterday, after not having it happen for 4 days.  My GPU was running at 41c when it happened, my CPU was running at 38c.  As I am overclocked to 3.2ghz on my Q6600, I have followed the instructions from the video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUiWgzUkGM) so we'll see if it helps.  The video will start at about 20 seconds in, and the changes that I think help (Quad Core) are at about 4 mins in.  I will post the results of my testing after a few days.<div></div><div>Funny thing about this, Sunday I left my Monk standing in QH at the broker ALL DAY and did not have one issue...I came back after about 12 hours of him sitting there, went to RE2 zoned in, killed 2 mobs went to turn through the first tunnel and it happened.  It's completely Random.  I was also raiding VP on Saturday, when our Tank kept having this issue happen, he could bearly stay logged in long enough for us to kill a named.  I can't beleive no CSR as responded at all with anything on this issue.  Please help, it's getting really, REALLY annoying.</div><div></div><div>P.S.  I used to play Age of Conan, and this NEVER happened, only with EQ2.  I thought this game was 'Meant to be played on Nvidia' or something? Yea right, I am about to go back to my ATI 1900xtx that never had an issue with this game.</div>

[Blindrage#2]

<div>Sorry for the double post. Forums were giving an error so I didn't think the post went through.</div>

[Blindrage#2]

<p>Still having this issue, ever after following all of the steps in the video.  </p><p>It will also still happen if I do not overclock and leave all settings default in the bios.</p><p>Still no TSRs out there who want to take a crack at this one?</p>

[surepaw]

I relize this looks like a video problem, and probably is, but try this:Open your boot.ini file and put /3Gb ram in. Often eq2 will have a problem with 4gig ram for some reason. Not saying it is the problem, just it maybe the issue, worth trying. This also happens at random times but often gives the error "out of memory" or something like that before a crash, but not always.

[Gaealiege]

<p>Since the last update I have had these exact same problems, but primarily inside the zone of Everfrost.  There are several times when log in and the computer will immediately freeze.  I checked the running temp and my card is staying steadily around 35c.  It isn't overheating.  I have no such issue with Oblivion, Crysis, Supreme Commander, or Unreal Tournament 3.  The problem seems isolated to EQ2 and only recently.  </p><p>I would just like to reiterate....this ONLY happens in Everfrost.  I can log on in any other zone perfectly, but if I camp out in Everfrost, I'm screwed.  To get myself out of the problem I typically have to log onto another character and drop my display settings to my raid profile, then log onto the character that is in Everfrost.</p><p>On a related note, after logging into a character in Everfrost successfully from the above method, my computer will freeze if I go AFK for more than 10 minutes.  The instant it hits that mark within Everfrost the computer freezes.  </p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This can't be a heat issue..I had this happen again yesterday, after not having it happen for 4 days.  My GPU was running at 41c when it happened, my CPU was running at 38c.  As I am overclocked to 3.2ghz on my Q6600, I have followed the instructions from the video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUiWgzUkGM) so we'll see if it helps.  The video will start at about 20 seconds in, and the changes that I think help (Quad Core) are at about 4 mins in.  I will post the results of my testing after a few days. <div></div><div>Funny thing about this, Sunday I left my Monk standing in QH at the broker ALL DAY and did not have one issue...I came back after about 12 hours of him sitting there, went to RE2 zoned in, killed 2 mobs went to turn through the first tunnel and it happened.  It's completely Random.  I was also raiding VP on Saturday, when our Tank kept having this issue happen, he could bearly stay logged in long enough for us to kill a named.  I can't beleive no CSR as responded at all with anything on this issue.  Please help, it's getting really, REALLY annoying.</div><div></div><div>P.S.  I used to play Age of Conan, and this NEVER happened, only with EQ2.  I thought this game was 'Meant to be played on Nvidia' or something? Yea right, I am about to go back to my ATI 1900xtx that never had an issue with this game.</div></blockquote><p>There are a ot of other things that can cause heat related issues then just the GPU and CPU - memory can be overheating, the controller chipset can be overheating for two examples, don;t just look at the two devices, look at the system completely. had a newly built machine that drove me up the wall for two weeks with overheat indications until I finally compared photos of the motherboard to the actual board - the cooling fins where not on the board chipset, it was a facotry oversite that the cooling find where not applied at manufacturing time. The the most used tool in my building arsenal at this time - a 35.00 infrared thermonitor from newegg. I now use it on every burn in on every box I build</p><p>Just thought of something that could casue the same results - are you OCing the cpu or the gpu?</p>

[Blindrage#2]

<p>That won't do anything for me.  I run Vista Business x64.</p><p>Thanks for the suggestion though.</p>

[Blindrage#2]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This can't be a heat issue..I had this happen again yesterday, after not having it happen for 4 days.  My GPU was running at 41c when it happened, my CPU was running at 38c.  As I am overclocked to 3.2ghz on my Q6600, I have followed the instructions from the video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUiWgzUkGM) so we'll see if it helps.  The video will start at about 20 seconds in, and the changes that I think help (Quad Core) are at about 4 mins in.  I will post the results of my testing after a few days. <div></div><div>Funny thing about this, Sunday I left my Monk standing in QH at the broker ALL DAY and did not have one issue...I came back after about 12 hours of him sitting there, went to RE2 zoned in, killed 2 mobs went to turn through the first tunnel and it happened.  It's completely Random.  I was also raiding VP on Saturday, when our Tank kept having this issue happen, he could bearly stay logged in long enough for us to kill a named.  I can't beleive no CSR as responded at all with anything on this issue.  Please help, it's getting really, REALLY annoying.</div><div></div><div>P.S.  I used to play Age of Conan, and this NEVER happened, only with EQ2.  I thought this game was 'Meant to be played on Nvidia' or something? Yea right, I am about to go back to my ATI 1900xtx that never had an issue with this game.</div></blockquote><p>There are a ot of other things that can cause heat related issues then just the GPU and CPU - memory can be overheating, the controller chipset can be overheating for two examples, don;t just look at the two devices, look at the system completely. had a newly built machine that drove me up the wall for two weeks with overheat indications until I finally compared photos of the motherboard to the actual board - the cooling fins where not on the board chipset, it was a facotry oversite that the cooling find where not applied at manufacturing time. The the most used tool in my building arsenal at this time - a 35.00 infrared thermonitor from newegg. I now use it on every burn in on every box I build</p><p>Just thought of something that could casue the same results - are you OCing the cpu or the gpu?</p></blockquote><p>I appreciate the feedback, but I think we need to move on from a 'heat issue' since I know of, at least 4 other people having this EXACT same issue.  We can't all be having heat issues in ONE game, which happens to be Everquest 2.  Have you Seen age of conan? the graphics wtfpwn EQ2, my card will run a hell of a lot harder in that game than in eq2.  btw most rendering in eq2 is dont on the cpu, taxing the graphics card even less than most games.  IT'S NOT HEAT.</p><p><img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This can't be a heat issue..I had this happen again yesterday, after not having it happen for 4 days.  My GPU was running at 41c when it happened, my CPU was running at 38c.  As I am overclocked to 3.2ghz on my Q6600, I have followed the instructions from the video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUiWgzUkGM) so we'll see if it helps.  The video will start at about 20 seconds in, and the changes that I think help (Quad Core) are at about 4 mins in.  I will post the results of my testing after a few days. <div></div><div>Funny thing about this, Sunday I left my Monk standing in QH at the broker ALL DAY and did not have one issue...I came back after about 12 hours of him sitting there, went to RE2 zoned in, killed 2 mobs went to turn through the first tunnel and it happened.  It's completely Random.  I was also raiding VP on Saturday, when our Tank kept having this issue happen, he could bearly stay logged in long enough for us to kill a named.  I can't beleive no CSR as responded at all with anything on this issue.  Please help, it's getting really, REALLY annoying.</div><div></div><div>P.S.  I used to play Age of Conan, and this NEVER happened, only with EQ2.  I thought this game was 'Meant to be played on Nvidia' or something? Yea right, I am about to go back to my ATI 1900xtx that never had an issue with this game.</div></blockquote><p>There are a ot of other things that can cause heat related issues then just the GPU and CPU - memory can be overheating, the controller chipset can be overheating for two examples, don;t just look at the two devices, look at the system completely. had a newly built machine that drove me up the wall for two weeks with overheat indications until I finally compared photos of the motherboard to the actual board - the cooling fins where not on the board chipset, it was a facotry oversite that the cooling find where not applied at manufacturing time. The the most used tool in my building arsenal at this time - a 35.00 infrared thermonitor from newegg. I now use it on every burn in on every box I build</p><p>Just thought of something that could casue the same results - are you OCing the cpu or the gpu?</p></blockquote><p>I appreciate the feedback, but I think we need to move on from a 'heat issue' since I know of, at least 4 other people having this EXACT same issue.  We can't all be having heat issues in ONE game, which happens to be Everquest 2.  Have you Seen age of conan? the graphics wtfpwn EQ2, my card will run a hell of a lot harder in that game than in eq2.  btw most rendering in eq2 is dont on the cpu, taxing the graphics card even less than most games.  IT'S NOT HEAT.</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote>You choice - the primary cause of graphics tearing that you show is either caused by overheating in some subsystem or over clocking of some subsystem in the pc, not restricted to GPU and CPU. You need to remember that eq2 taxes the other subsystems a lot harder then the graphics card. have run up to 4 instances of the game on this currect system and have not expirenced the issues that you are displaying. have seen machine run high pressure vertical applications perfectly then fail on something as simple as MS word, so have the habit of never comparing one application to another when there are problems in the system.

[Blindrage#2]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This can't be a heat issue..I had this happen again yesterday, after not having it happen for 4 days.  My GPU was running at 41c when it happened, my CPU was running at 38c.  As I am overclocked to 3.2ghz on my Q6600, I have followed the instructions from the video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUiWgzUkGM) so we'll see if it helps.  The video will start at about 20 seconds in, and the changes that I think help (Quad Core) are at about 4 mins in.  I will post the results of my testing after a few days. <div></div><div>Funny thing about this, Sunday I left my Monk standing in QH at the broker ALL DAY and did not have one issue...I came back after about 12 hours of him sitting there, went to RE2 zoned in, killed 2 mobs went to turn through the first tunnel and it happened.  It's completely Random.  I was also raiding VP on Saturday, when our Tank kept having this issue happen, he could bearly stay logged in long enough for us to kill a named.  I can't beleive no CSR as responded at all with anything on this issue.  Please help, it's getting really, REALLY annoying.</div><div></div><div>P.S.  I used to play Age of Conan, and this NEVER happened, only with EQ2.  I thought this game was 'Meant to be played on Nvidia' or something? Yea right, I am about to go back to my ATI 1900xtx that never had an issue with this game.</div></blockquote><p>There are a ot of other things that can cause heat related issues then just the GPU and CPU - memory can be overheating, the controller chipset can be overheating for two examples, don;t just look at the two devices, look at the system completely. had a newly built machine that drove me up the wall for two weeks with overheat indications until I finally compared photos of the motherboard to the actual board - the cooling fins where not on the board chipset, it was a facotry oversite that the cooling find where not applied at manufacturing time. The the most used tool in my building arsenal at this time - a 35.00 infrared thermonitor from newegg. I now use it on every burn in on every box I build</p><p>Just thought of something that could casue the same results - are you OCing the cpu or the gpu?</p></blockquote><p>I appreciate the feedback, but I think we need to move on from a 'heat issue' since I know of, at least 4 other people having this EXACT same issue.  We can't all be having heat issues in ONE game, which happens to be Everquest 2.  Have you Seen age of conan? the graphics wtfpwn EQ2, my card will run a hell of a lot harder in that game than in eq2.  btw most rendering in eq2 is dont on the cpu, taxing the graphics card even less than most games.  IT'S NOT HEAT.</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote>You choice - the primary cause of graphics tearing that you show is either caused by overheating in some subsystem or over clocking of some subsystem in the pc, not restricted to GPU and CPU. You need to remember that eq2 taxes the other subsystems a lot harder then the graphics card. have run up to 4 instances of the game on this currect system and have not expirenced the issues that you are displaying. have seen machine run high pressure vertical applications perfectly then fail on something as simple as MS word, so have the habit of never comparing one application to another when there are problems in the system. </blockquote><p>I would agree with you if my system had this problem in ANY OTHER GAME, except IT DOESN'T.  it's ONLY EQ2. ONLY, ONLY, ONLY.  I have 20 other games that I play, and this seems to be the one that it happens on, ALL of the time. </p><p>P.S. People with 'DIFFERENT' video cards, and DIFFERENT computers, are having this EXACT same issue as well. I can run 4 instances of EQ2 on my current Pc as well, but again, at random the graphics glitch will rear its ugly head eventually.</p>

[TSR-TrevorG]

I have to agree with the over heating causing an issue.  If you do believe this to be a game problem, your best bet is to /bug the issue so QA and the developers will get information on this.Testing this issue with another video card or memory will hopefully provide different results.

[Blindrage#2]

<cite>TSR-TrevorG wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to agree with the over heating causing an issue.  If you do believe this to be a game problem, your best bet is to /bug the issue so QA and the developers will get information on this.Testing this issue with another video card or memory will hopefully provide different results.</blockquote><p>Trevor, can you explain to me how this issue is heat related if, when it happens to me during a raid, I log back in after rebooting, and it doesn't happen again for 2-3 more days?  Don't you think that if it is heat related, it would keep happening over and over until whatever is overheated cooled down? A reboot isn't going to clear all heat, especially when I log right back in to a raid and keep going.  That's why I don't think it's heat.  I would lik to hear your explanation on that though.</p><p>Thanks for the help.</p>

[TSR-TrevorG]

  I have seen this issue many times, and each time the issue was heat related.  I do not doubt there there could be other possibilites for this situation, but in this case I do not believe that to be true.  If you have anotehr video card handy, you may wish to test that out.  I do not think it is a memory over heating issue though or a CPU overheating, but a video card overheating issue. There could be epic dust bunnies that are causing air flow issues.  I would pop open the machine with a mighty can of air outside and see if you cannot defeat the bunnies and then check on how the PC runs after that.