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FrozenGate by Avery

Hardware problem, help needed

Are you overclocking the video card? I have an ATI 4850 that refuses to overclock if I use multiple monitors, and I can only overclock a little before I get all kinds of driver failures. The card could, at least in theory, be giving bad signals to the monitor whenever the driver fails.

In my experience video overclock errors seem random, as in some games work fine all the way through when overclocked and others fail constantly and still others fall in between extremes..
 





Nope, nothing was ever overclocked in my friend's PC.

However, a while back while he was still using a stock reference cooler, his card very frequently went into thermal shutdowns because the cooler cloggled up so bad that we could only shrug, say "Meh" and replace it with Zalman we got off Ebay.

Perhaps all that overheating did some damage, somewhere somehow?


UPDATE
Okay now check this out.

So he finished a mission that was in progress for like 45 minutes no problem without any crash, and Alt+Tabbed out of the game to tell me about it, and while he was typing a message in Skype, computer crashed with "No Input Detected" monitor signal but the system still being powered on (not shutting down like before).

When he pressed restart button, it gave off speaker warning (short beeps) until he switched the power off the hard way (PSU's switch) and turned it back on. Now it works, I told him to try the game again with same settigns he used to finish that longer mission, if it still crashes, I'm all out of ideas.

Black magic?
 
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If the system gives beep codes at startup again, you should count them and consult the mobo manual to find out what the problem is.
 
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I'll relay the information, thanks.

No crashes yet since that Skype shutdown and beeping incident, and that's almost 2 hours of gameplay.

Looks good, I guess.
 
Did you look at the power saving features of the computer ? While playing the game, the computer think nobody is there and start the power savings. One of the feature is disabling the videocard signal so that the monitor can turn off automatically.

Maybe something is not right at the settings.
 
Based on the fact that you got some beep codes it sounds to me like you've got an intermittently failing part on the motherboard, possibly something to do with the pcie bridge and associated parts (only a guess though). It's great that things are working well now, but I wouldn't expect 100% out of that machine given the facts so far.
 
Yeah neither do I - good luck is that next month he's finally gathering up all his savings and buying a new PC, this will be a secondary one.

He was playing the game until a few minutes ago and no crashes what so ever, computer acting normal.

So I guess it really was the Terrain Detail. Who would've thought?
 
You know what, I've had issues with BF3 as well... totally different problem though.

My system is:

AMD Phenom II x4 955 3.2 ghz CPU
600 watt Steathxstream OCZ Power Supply
4GB of DDR2 at 800 mhz (OCZ stuff)
Radeon HD 4870 512 MB Factory Overclocked with Aftermarket Cooler
500 GB Hitachi 7200 RPM Hard drive

And a very nice Asus LED 1440 x 900 res monitor.


So, my problem is whenever I try to play BF3 on anything Medium or higher, it just, stutters.

It's not a FPS issue. It literally, stutters. There's a definite difference in when the fPS is low, and when this problem shows its head.

Now I know it's not my internet connection, because the problem persists in single player. It's just worse in Multiplayer.

It's also rather random at times too; it'll play ... okay for a while and then suddenly a stuttering spike, and my jet is blown to hell because I did a nosedive straight into the ground. I lose control of my player when this happens, and it's really irritated me for so many reasons. I've tried just about every damn thing in the book.

Turned down my GPU's clockspeed, memory speed, I've tried reinstalling the game, updating origin, turning down ALL of the settings, the refresh rate, the vertical sync, texture sizes, whatever, and the problem will ALWAYS show up. And no other game has this issue... I've checked core temps, nothing out of wack, CPU temps, nothing, the power supply is fine, I don't know. Demanding games like Crysis and Company of Heroes, Metro 2033 all play fine, just Battlefield 3 that gives me a hard time.
 
That's very weird problem - first thing I'd reccomend is turning down the Texture quality because it sounds like lack of video memory, updating new parts of the level with new textures too often - but you said you tried turning all the settings way down and it didn't help?

Perhaps you've got some programs running in the background, like Antivirus scanner working or some other AV software scanning your game or keeping an eye on it? That can strain the system.

Also try increasing your paging file size in your OS - perhaps that's also what's bothering it, I've seen people solve some problems regarding BF3 that way too. Use at least 3 GB of file size.

Other than that, I dunno, black magic? :D
 
Eudaimonium said:
That's very weird problem - first thing I'd reccomend is turning down the Texture quality because it sounds like lack of video memory, updating new parts of the level with new textures too often - but you said you tried turning all the settings way down and it didn't help?

Perhaps you've got some programs running in the background, like Antivirus scanner working or some other AV software scanning your game or keeping an eye on it? That can strain the system.

Also try increasing your paging file size in your OS - perhaps that's also what's bothering it, I've seen people solve some problems regarding BF3 that way too. Use at least 3 GB of file size.

Other than that, I dunno, black magic? :D
Click to expand...

I'll take a look at the paging file to see what size it is... I'm pretty sure it's system managed, but I'll look anyway.

I've also tried it with my antivirus stuff all off. As well as using minimal textures, the problem still exists no matter what.

Seeming to me that Black Magicks might be the most definitive cause. :D
 
Update; I'm guessing it was my memory overheating on the card...

When I have the fan speed manually running at 88% or higher...

Nevermind. Still having issues. I don't get it at all.
 
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I didnt see this thread earlier.

Speaking as someone who repairs computers for a living, 99% of the time, the computer instantly shutting down without warning is the CPU overheating.

Also a "no name" psu rated @ 450w running bf3? if that psu is pushing out more than 300w i'll eat my hat.

Seriously get that psu swapped out as well as the cpu cooler.
 
ped said:
I didnt see this thread earlier.

Speaking as someone who repairs computers for a living, 99% of the time, the computer instantly shutting down without warning is the CPU overheating.

Also a "no name" psu rated @ 450w running bf3? if that psu is pushing out more than 300w i'll eat my hat.

Seriously get that psu swapped out as well as the cpu cooler.
Click to expand...
Uhm, you may want to read the rest of the thread, specifically this page :D

For a person who repairs computers for a living, you were 100% wrong in your diagnosis, since PSU is sitting comfortably in forties of Celsius' degrees, and PSU is just fine since under stress testing the computer did not crash.

Seriously dude, did you even read all the stuff I wrote in the opening post, explaining what exactly were the sympthoms?

Cutting the 3-page thread post-short, problem was in the in-game setting of Terrain Detail level, which if set at anything over Low, attempts to check DX11 paths for rendering the terrain with tesselation tricks, and since this is DX10 only system, some sort of software bug and conflict here caused critical error in the drivers every time.

Simply setting the Terrain to Low fixed the problem, and game was completed start to end without a single crash or a problem.
 
Eudaimonium said:
For a person who repairs computers for a living, you were 100% wrong in your diagnosis, since PSU is sitting comfortably in forties of Celsius' degrees, and PSU is just fine since under stress testing the computer did not crash.
Click to expand...

Actually, I wasnt, I said in my experience, a computer that shuts down instantaneously is 99% of the time, the CPU overheating, and I maintain that.
There is allways that 1% that will catch you out.

And using a a no name psu when branded, certified psu's are so cheap is insane .

But it's sorted now so its all good :)
 
Ha at least you figured it out, I picked PSU also, I also fix pc. Not for a living but I work for tips :P I never would have guessed that, but it reminds me playing oblivion on a DX11 card and having my terrain turn into a purple wonderland. because of a texture path being messed up.
 
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