Computer Shutting Off Since New Patch

[Pullo]

<p>As reported by others in the forums <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=479369" target="_blank">here </a>I am having a problem with my system shutting off.  There are specific reasons for which I suspect this is not hardware related.  </p><p>Specifically - my laptop shuts down (completely) any time I am in our guild hall near our crafting stations (Mistmoore Server, Gorowyn Guild Hall).  Details Follow.</p><p>The problem began Tuesday night.  We had played for several hours running Shard Instances.  At the point where we were ready to finish up for the night, I went back to the guild hall to have my wife craft a piece of Shard Armor.  When I got to our crafting stations, my computer immediately shut off.  It was late, so I went to sleep after verifying the computer was working (did not log back into EQ2).</p><p>Wednesday morning, on a fresh boot, I logged into EQ2 and immediately shut down again.  The client had completed the loading and splash screens and my character was at the spot where the world was visible when the shut down occurred.  I used a different computer in the house to log in and move my character.  I then logged off of that computer and returned to the laptop (which had, in the interim had an sfc and chkdsk performed).  I was able to play without problem for multiple hours Wednesday night (including three different instances). </p><p>Thursday midday, I visited our guild hall again - and once again the computer immediately shut off when visiting the crafting stations.</p><p>System information: HP HDX18 P8800 2.66 GHz Duo CPU.  NVidia 130M (has happened with current and most recent drivers).  4GB RAM.</p><p>Now, shutdowns like this are usually associated with hardware (power supply, motherboard, specifically), but I don't think that's the case for the following reasons:</p><p>1.  I have played for multiple hours in between these incidents.</p><p>2.  The shutdowns have occurred both after long sessions and on fresh boots.</p><p>3.  The guild hall crafting area seems a common link.  If moved on another computer, I'm fine until this computer again sends a character to our crafting stations of instant shutdown.</p><p>4.  The computer is not running any more/less hot than normal.  Additionally, the shut downs occur both on a fresh boot when the system is quite cool and following a longer session when the system is warm.</p>

[Pullo]

<p>An update with a possible linkage.</p><p>It may be related to lighting.</p><p>One thing I had noticed while loading into the world on the laptop at the guild hall (just before the immediate shut off) was that the lighting was ridiculously bright over there.</p><p>After moving my character on a different computer and then logging back in on the laptop, I changed some lighting settings.</p><p>They were Light Quality Very High, Personal Torch on, Max Torch Intensity Full, Secondary Torch Light on, Max Lights Max.</p><p>I dropped light quality to Minimal.  Turned off Personal Torch, reduced max torch intensity to none.  Turned off Secondary Torch light.  Reduced Max lights to Min.</p><p>With those settings, I just completed a run around our crafting areas without a shut off.</p><p>Also - for reference - I am NOT using Shader 3.0.</p>

[Pullo]

<p>More on this issue.  I had a shutdown again last night.  Once again, in guild hall - this time though, at entrance.  It is a heat related shutdown (running a temp gauge), but my system and its fans ARE working.   Something is pushing the heat just over the top.</p><p>Note, the <a href="http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=108112" target="_blank">HDX </a>with the 130M card is noted for running hot - and having problems.  To that end, I have followed guidelines and updated my BIOS - which does appear to have helped temperatures a bit.</p><p>I played around a bit late last night and again this morning.  In Gorowyn and inside our guild hall, my temperatures push into the upper 60's pretty fast now and appear to keep climbing.  Additionally, running around another guild's guild hall in Gorowyn also pushed the heat upwards fairly fast.</p><p>By comparison, running around Kunzar Jungle completing a few quests in the Synod Reet area, I stayed in or near the low 60's.</p><p>Discussing this with a guild mate who recently upgraded his notebook, he notes that our guild hall specifically spikes his heat a few degrees (and always has).  Further, since Halas, his general heat levels are also a few degrees higher overall.</p><p>The combination of these two things, something to do with Gorowyn areas and the recent patch elevate heat in systems.  On top of that, systems that run hot to begin with (the HP HDX being my case) are already running pretty hot in EQ2.  Whatever has changed in this cycle + whatever it is in Gorowyn = just enough heat to tip the edge on a hot system.</p><p>In my case, I'm grabbing a new pair of cooling pads today - one for each of the areas I tend to use my laptop.  I had been using a Belkin, plastic pad - but have read interesting things about both the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DDEV8E/ref=s9_simh_gw_p23_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=02PEF7DA7BJ3GMQG99HX&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470939031&pf_rd_i=507846" target="_blank">Zalman </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001G0WNFS/ref=s9_simh_gw_p23_i5?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1YN50H6483YE7VZ5VAFJ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846" target="_blank">Antec </a>cooling pds.  Disclaimer - I don't know if either of these will be useful, but feedback from other sources suggests both are solid.  I will post more as I learn more.</p>

[Shiirr]

<p>I'll chime in with your speculation about lighting.  I had a mechanical meltdown recently - processor had a core go flakey, NB is running hotter than norm, fun stuff - and after a clean install of Win 7 onto a brand new 1TB sata drive and a new CPU with a Zalman cooler on it, I was still getting shutdowns.  Or rather, the PC would lock, still powered but non-functioning and no input to the monitor, requiring a reset.  Pulled the heat sinks off the north and south bridge, cleaned & reapplied Arctic Silver, and the heat, while still much higher than I like for the bridges, seems to have a smaller impact.  Hot but stable.  What I'm getting at is that one thing that was fairly consistent at pushing me into a lockup prior to the heatsink cleaning was light changes outdoors.  Sunup would kill the game, and a few times sundown did. In those cases, if I rebooted, when it came to logging in, I would lock up as soon as it rendered my character (same or very similar lighting conditions in the exact same spot just a couple of minutes later).  I went into the options from the character select screen, and dropped a few settings, including those under lighting.  Then I was able to get into the game.  Shadows and light quality were set to high; I dropped them to medium.  I don't think in my case that they were what was causing the lockups, but I'd say that they exacerbated the situation.  Now, off to buy the smallest fans possible.  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Wingrider01]

<p>it sounds logical, the changes and the lighting will put a heavier load on the video chipset and cause it to heat up more. Newegg, Officemax, bestbuy, Microcenter and a few others sell laptop cooler pads, they are basicly a 2 or more fans in a pad that the laptop sits on. They are pretty effective for dropping the internal temperature of the laptop or just about any device, I use a couple of them under my Diretv DVR's. The get their power for the fans from the USB port</p><p>You might want to look into trying one of these - they sel for anywhere betwee 20 bucks to 60 or 70 depending on the number of fans and extras on it</p>

[juggalo0385]

<p>unfortunately the only way for me to fix this same problem I was having was go to a different game I did everything SOE tech support told me to do and it did not fix it.  I am not going to waste my time with this anymore so I canceled my subscription....This is nothing against the game I loved EQ2 but why pay for something you cant play</p>

[Pullo]

<p>Unfortunately, it's not heat related.</p><p>I just had a shut off with my GPU at 47c and both cores under 52c.  </p><p>The shut off occurred on load in - right as the character entered the world.  It occurred, once again, with my main character - but this time NOT in the guild hall.  This time in Kunzar Jungle over by the Sinod Reet camp.</p><p>I was using a Belkin fan previously, I moved to the Zalman fan set.</p><p>I am going to delete EQ2 and reinstall from scratch and see if that helps.  I'll also be spending some time in other games to see if I can duplicate the problem elsewhere (to add evidence to whether its hardware, software, or the interaction of the two).</p>

[Canthh]

<p>This needs to get addressed NOW!  I am having the same problems as other folks - since the Halas download - computer shuts itself off as it tries to load my char into the zone or sometimes earlier.  I have tried going into the game on alts that I know are not in any intensive settings (ie not in GH) Is there a way to change settings prior to logging in?</p><p>I have checked to make sure drivers were all updated (had plenty of time to since I have rebooted at least 10 times)</p><p>Game is unplayable at the moment</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>Canthh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This needs to get addressed NOW!  I am having the same problems as other folks - since the Halas download - computer shuts itself off as it tries to load my char into the zone or sometimes earlier.  I have tried going into the game on alts that I know are not in any intensive settings (ie not in GH) Is there a way to change settings prior to logging in?</p><p>I have checked to make sure drivers were all updated (had plenty of time to since I have rebooted at least 10 times)</p><p>Game is unplayable at the moment</p></blockquote><p>Sorry but 90 percent of the time this is end user equipment releated, complete shutoff of a machine is a hardware fault that can be triggered by a application.</p><p>If the machine is throughng a BSOD and halting then it is a kernel fault brought on by a corrupt or bad driver, the bsod screen will detail out the information of the driver that caused the fault - if you are not getting a bsod screen then you need to turn off the auto restart to let it display - right click my computer, properties, advanced tab - system restart</p><p>If the machine just shuts down it is either a heat related issue or a PSU issue. Heated related issues can be on the GPU, the chipset and CPU to name a few,  someone mentioend 52c for their CPU - that is 125.6 farenheit - personally find that about 35 degrees to warm. I two box on a machine and the cpu temperature monitor does not show move then 95 F in Halas using air cooling, 84 F on the liquid cooled box.</p><p>Thier might be a chance that something in the application graphics are incompatbile with the end user hardware causing the machine to shutdown, but suspect that there would be more more posts.</p><p>Csanthh - if the machine is self restartig you are throught a Kernal fault for a BSOD, go into the settings fo auto restart and turn it off, copy the text of the screen into the post, it will allow the identifcation of the driver at fault that is eother corrupt or defective. Just have a thought - do you have shader 3.0 turned on when this started?</p>

[Canthh]

<p>Hey Wingrider - greatly appreciate your feedback!</p><p>Actually I never had Shader turned on - I did download the lastest driver last night.  To further describe the problem - gets to the part of loggin where it says loading character into zone and then the screen goes black as if the computer was shut off - it does not restart the computer - and ctrl alt delete does not work - I have to physically shut it off and restart it at that point.  I guess I am reluctant to admit to a heat problem considering I have played EQ2 on the 2nd or 3rd from the top graphics setting for over a year without an issue.  I use a Gateway FX6000 and the internal fan was supposed to be adequate</p><p>Not really a computer guy and trying to be helpful - would there be a log of the error somewhere - after I do the physical reboot? </p><p>Again appreciate the feedback</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>Canthh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey Wingrider - greatly appreciate your feedback!</p><p>Actually I never had Shader turned on - I did download the lastest driver last night.  To further describe the problem - gets to the part of loggin where it says loading character into zone and then the screen goes black as if the computer was shut off - it does not restart the computer - and ctrl alt delete does not work - I have to physically shut it off and restart it at that point.  I guess I am reluctant to admit to a heat problem considering I have played EQ2 on the 2nd or 3rd from the top graphics setting for over a year without an issue.  I use a Gateway FX6000 and the internal fan was supposed to be adequate</p><p>Not really a computer guy and trying to be helpful - would there be a log of the error somewhere - after I do the physical reboot? </p><p>Again appreciate the feedback</p></blockquote><p>screen going black triggers something but I can't find my notes on it. Out of curiousity - try a online malware/rootkit scanner on the system.</p><p>Also what vidoe card are you running, don;t think I have seen that mentioned.</p>

[Canthh]

<p>video card is a ati radeon hd4850</p><p>Have seemingly decent malware - security settings hasnt allowed anything through since purchase over a year ago and its set to scan every night. Going to break down and buy a nuclear powered fan and create a wind tunnel in the machine just to see if in fact its a heat issue. Again appreciate the feedback.  Havent seen any further post from the above individuals so wondering if they were able to find some sort of resolution. </p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>Canthh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>video card is a ati radeon hd4850</p><p>Have seemingly decent malware - security settings hasnt allowed anything through since purchase over a year ago and its set to scan every night. Going to break down and buy a nuclear powered fan and create a wind tunnel in the machine just to see if in fact its a heat issue. Again appreciate the feedback.  Havent seen any further post from the above individuals so wondering if they were able to find some sort of resolution. </p></blockquote><p>couple of things to remember - there is malware out there that will bypass the installed version and prevent it from throwing a warning to the end user, second - not all av packages do rootkit scanning. You never mention what you have.</p><p>If the 4850 has external power plugs on the card make sure that these are powered by a line from the PSU that does not run anything else, this can cause wierd and wonderful things to occur especially under a load.</p><p>I believe you mentioned this was a gateay machine - did the card come from the factory or did you upgrade is sperately with a aftermarket? You don;t specify which 6000 model so can;t look at the specs</p>

[Canthh]

<p>Model is a FX6000 - video card came installed with purchase.  Webroot and Windows Defender are both running.  Had the Webroot scan again last night and came up clean.  It is current version and updates itself constantly.  In terms of a heat issue willing to rule that out - I purchased a 9 inch fan and had it blowing inside machine - really pretty sure that wasnt the issue - found an application from ATI that displays GPU temp and it never went above 45C. Was watching it while loading until the crash - had to keep switching back and forth between EQ2 loading and the ATI app and the gpu temp might have gone up one degree at best then the game did the usual got to the screen where its loading my char into the zone and blackness and system lockup.  Really am frustrated as this machine has been bullet proof with EQ2 from the beginning.  I raid most weekends with Vent and ACT running and never a glitch, till the Halas last patch</p>

[Canthh]

<p>Well found this and hoped it might help diagnose the issue:</p><p>Game Data: SOEBuild: SOEBuild=6442L SOEVersionString: SOEVersionString=2010/5/3 12:34:16 OS Version: 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 VER_SUITE_PERSONAL VER_NT_WORKSTATION CPU: 8 x86 GenuineIntel 14MHz RDTSC MSR CMPXCHG8 SSE SSE2 DirectX Version: 10.0  Video Card/Driver: [ATI Radeon HD 4850] [atiumdag.dll] 7.14.10.597 {d7b71ee2-d702-11cf-ae76-1ac8a1c2ca35} Performance: 3 Multi-core support: enabled Low-Memory Mode: disabled Resolution: 1440x850 (60 hz) maximized UI: ui/default</p><p>this info was on an old crash log but that was just a random once in a while things not like this current permanent shutdown</p>