Guild Wars 2

To begin, I have already searched the forums for similar topics but if this issue has been addressed previously I apologize in advance.

Blue Screen error- Memory dump (or something along the lines of that)

Back to my problem- blue screening when playing, I have no idea what the problem is, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s Guild Wars 2. I have ran numerous tests on my RAM, CPU, HDD, GPU, calculated a wattage for the PSU, and even bought a new motherboard. Here’s a list of what I have:
AMD x6 Thuban 1100T
Radeon HD 6870
XFX 650W PSU
ASUS m4A87TD motherboard
Western Digital 1TB Blue Edition
8GB Kingston Hyperx 1600 MHz RAM

I even checked to see if the CPU, GPU, or the motherboard were overheating and they weren’t. I’ve tried running GW2 in compatibility mode. The list is endless. The funny thing is my computer handles more advance programs on a daily basis, AutoCAD, 3dsMax, Intventor, etc. The thing is it only crashes while running GW2. Please help as I love GW2 and would love to play without crashing every 15 minutes!

EDIT: all drivers are also up to date

Have you tried limiting your FPS ingame ? Setting it to 60 or 30?

I have not yet tweaked any of the ingame graphics settings but I average about 35 FPS while playing.. I will try that though

You can try tweaking – Shadows,Reflections, Shaders and Post processing. Try disabling them or setting them in Low see if it helps as well.

Alright.. but if this matters, I had my friend lend me his old GPU (Radeon 5770) and it would still crash, but I am still tweaking with it all now.

Alright.. I changed everything to low and limited the FPS to 30 and it crashed 3 minutes later.. that’s a new record!

Are you running any background programs (IMs,fraps,vents etc) as well? Try to disable any programs non – essential and see if it helps too. You can also look at windows error logs (Control Panel → Admin Tools → Event Viewer → Windows – System logs → Filter logs to Critical /Errors.)

Nothing else was running in the backround.. I use it for school so the only programs I have installed are BitDefender, Google Chrome, engineering software, and GW2 (litterally). I will check the logs though.

Do you have the BSOD error? Not too clear how extensively you have tested from the OP so i’ll just list some things out but note the ‘30min wonder’ tests some people do for stability don’t count:

- Run memtest to eliminate ram.
- Run prime95 blend/linpack/occt psu test (absolute minimum 4hours of each and check load temps)
- Isn’t noted if you are 32-bit or 64-bit OS? I would assume 64-bit though with 8GB ram.
- The PSU noted doesn’t exist, I assume you mean the 650w though?
- How old are the components? Need to factor in capacitor aging…
- Scan hard-drives, I have seen failing drives cause bsods even if they aren’t actively used.

Bottom line I don’t think your system is 100% stable.

I did run memtest on my old RAM.. came out to 100%. I bought new RAM anyways just because I wanted 2x 4GB instead of 3×2GB. I use windows 7 64 bit, and yes sorry I do mean the 650 watt, here is a link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207007.

I built the computer in March of 2011 so about a year and a half, a little under. Also I have run chkdsk, and I installed tuneup just to use their test to check the HDD.

I’ll have to try and run prime95. But one thing that I have been told by plenty of friends is that 650W should definitely be more than enough to run my setup.

Oh and another thing to note, I did check the logs as Alpha Dragon suggested and for every error crash it would say “computer shutdown unexpectedly” or “fatal hardware error- detected by processor”. I’m not a computer expert when it gets that technical.. what component could be going wrong?

I suggest you download WhoCrashed and let it analyze your crash dump files. It should tell what driver the crash is originating from. Usually, it will be display driver.. but occasionally, it might be something odd like some USB driver or whatever. It’s worth checking out, IMO.

Dan.4658:

I’ll have to try and run prime95. But one thing that I have been told by plenty of friends is that 650W should definitely be more than enough to run my setup.

Generally speaking yes if it’s of good quality which it should be as its a Seasonic unit. The older it is though will decrease in output which is why I questioned age – definitely worth loading it up to the max and monitoring the +12v rail stability.

Check the memory timings have been set manually for new your modules in the bios to the appropriate settings.

It’s worth running WhoCrashed as XcomCaveRat has suggested however you may not attain much from this as a graphics driver fail (for instance) could just be a result of hardware instability for ex. vcore too low.
Definitely worth going through the stress test process.

What’s the bluescreen code? 0x__? What are the subcodes (if there are any)? Does it mention any driver.sys that caused it?
There’s a different bluescreen for every imaginble fault that can happen.

Eg. STOP 0×0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0×0000000000004, 0xFFFFF880051FAD68, 0xFFFFF880051FASC0)
or
STOP 0×00000124: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR

I am getting a similar issue, BSOD occurring sometimes not at all during one day sometimes super regularly another day, ran memtest overnight and tested my harddrive for issues, ran prime 95 overnight and down clocked my gpu, fresh install of windows and running the fan at above normal speeds to keep the temperature stable below 60 degrees Celsius. I have tested my gpu memory overnight and ran 3d mark many times without crashing. I even have bought new ram because i wanted to upgrade from 4 to 8 gb and that didnt fix anything. I can only think that my mobo or psu is having issues but i cant afford to replace them right now and not sure how to test whether or not they are even the issue. My computer doesnt crash running ANYTHING else bf3, multiple eve clients etc etc.

AMD phenom 1090t 3.2ghz
Radeon 6950
8gb 1600mhz gskill
unknown psu (im not sure it seems stock but has run games that are far higher in gpu use so idk)
asus m4a87d/usb3 mobo
windows 7 64 bit
computer was bought march 2011
favourite colour : blue

On Sun 9/09/2012 8:43:44 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\090912-49545-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (hal+0x12903)
Bugcheck code: 0×124 (0×0, 0xFFFFFA800DE11028, 0xB60FA000, 0xA3000175)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

came up using that whocrashed program

help meh

EDITED : added version of windows and age of computer and favourite colour

Dan.4658:

Blue Screen error- Memory dump (or something along the lines of that)

And you didn’t think this information on this diagnostic screen was important enough to note and report?

Well I dont know if I can help in anyway, as my GPU is and NVidia GTX 580.
I also have a 650 psu have no probs with any other games at all, and I played GW2 in Beta.
Everything was fine no graphic glitches no sound issues until the game went live, and they added loads of patches.
Then I was getting BSOD’s, and graphic driver has stopped responding etc.
Did use driver sweeper in safe mode for that, but even that does not alway cure the probs you might get.
I upadated all my drivers, and used the beta 3602’s which Anet recomended, but I also followed there advice to select the GW2.exe, and put it in your nvidai control panel.
Then open it up go to power management control, and set it to Prefer Maximum Performance.
Since I have done that I have had no more BSOD’s “weird”, but I have had CTD or it’s just hung.
I do have a 120 hrtz monitor so I have Vertical Sync on I find I get more FPS that way, and it does stop a lot of ripping also even using the triple buffering can help sometimes.
IMO I still think there is a lot to be ironed out within the game then maybe all of it will be ok, “I Hope”.

I’ll summarize a bit.

Quite a lot of people are experiencing game crashes and BSOD’s. Setups that are experiencing these crashes range from very high end rigs, to decent, to rigs that meet the systems reqs. Affects both AMD and Nvidia cards alike. Some people claim the crashes happen when dying gear, some when fast traveling, some haven’t noticed any recognizable pattern at all. Crashing is fairly random in a sense that sometimes you can play the whole day with no crashes where other times you get streak of nearly instant ones and this makes it extremely hard to say if the treatment is working or not. Some people claim that they have been able to “treat” the symptoms by undercloking their GPU, but as time has passed it has turned out that the problem is still there.

So all we are wiser is that the game crashes randomly and while some people have found patterns of what causes it and possible fix solutions, the sheer randomness makes any of that impossible to verify.

What caused or at least made this epidemic common was either game or Windows patch. Sadly i’m afraid there is not much that the end user can do to fix this issue. We need to wait for a fix, but first step to getting that would be to get someone who can actually to fix this issue to recognize that there is a problem that has to be fixed.

Don’t hold your breath in the meanwhile.

Ever since this latest patch, I’ve had to reinstall due to crashes making me unable to play the game past character select. After reinstalling, I’ve had random crashes and 2 BSODs. No discernable pattern that I can see. All drivers are up to date, computer is 2 months old, bought specifically to play GW2. Never had any issues prior to this latest patch. No overheating going on and no issues with RAM or hard drive.

Would also like to note, that in game issues have come out of nowhere as well such as sound cutting out, dialog voice overs not always playing in cutscenes, broken Skill Challenges and Events that a week ago were working fine. Me thinks someone pulled or changed a small piece of code somewhere and it’s created a domino effect. Hope they can find it and fix it, otherwise I won’t be able to play this game if it keeps shutting my PC down.

I also got BSOD two times yesterday while playing GW2! Never had it in any other game before.

Phenom II x6
8Gb RAM
Nvidia 680 Lightning

Around 30fps when playing GW2 :/ (that is bad for my high end machine)
Can play BF3 online with ALL on ultra maxed out every setting, Vsync 120hz screen. Smoooooth & flawless.

EDIT: Did memtest 2h, chdsk, no OC on CPU and mem. No errors found.

@elocke and @Rocklynn: no one’s going to even try to help you if you don’t post the details in the BSOD. In particular the STOP code, subcodes (in brackets if there are any), and related driver (not always). You can find these in windows’ event log or by writing them down on a piece of paper next time it happens.

0×124 is almost always caused by hardware, and in the rare case drivers. Graphics, sound, network, chipset, ACPI from the manufacturer if they have it, and maybe upgrading the BIOS.

Yupp, joining the club of BSOD.
Send a e-mail to the support and got a automated response that told me to tweak this, turn that off e.t.c

Since the “tweak” (yesterday morning) I now have only 4 BSODS and 15 crashes that gets reported to Anet, apperantly the crashfile doc. don`t document BSODS, only when GW2 goes down the drain.

Is there anything called memory leak in games still? just wonder cause thats exactly how this feels. (Bsod talk about memory loss or something)

I don’t have time to write down the code. The computer BSOD’s then it starts a crash memory dump counting down from 100. The blue screen is up for about 5 seconds and then the system reboots.

I am going to attempt to run WhoCrashed right now though.

Veeber.3192:

SavageCelery.5940, I would check you temperatures while playing as the following stuck out for me.
“This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue. "

I might be completely wrong, but might be worth a shot.

Im considering the possibility that the stock cooler on the cpu isnt a good idea, therefore i shall buy a corsair h80 and see how liquid cooling goes and report my findings, i feel weird that gw2 crashes my computer and hours of bf3 doesnt

There will be a critical event in Windows’ event viewer with the stop code, or you can disable ‘automatic restart on system failure’ (through "computer -> properties -> advanced settings -> startup/rec -> untick “restart automatically”; or when you start up mash F8 and choose the “Disable restart…” option)

im concerned that im buying these parts for my computer that i dont need, ive narrowed my issue down to a cpu heating issue due to a crappy heatsink, however if it still crashes after upgrading what a waste of 80 dollars. Maybe radeons and x6 phenoms just dont work with the code due to inefficent programming?

SavageCelery.5940:

im concerned that im buying these parts for my computer that i dont need, ive narrowed my issue down to a cpu heating issue due to a crappy heatsink, however if it still crashes after upgrading what a waste of 80 dollars. Maybe radeons and x6 phenoms just dont work with the code due to inefficent programming?

Well, if anything, I heard while playing during week one of live that the game was OPTIMIZED for Radeon, as opposed to Nvidia, and Nvidia users were experiencing extreme graphics issues, even (maybe especially?) with their higher end cards (560ti & i7’s +).

biffbiffson.1489:

SavageCelery.5940:

im concerned that im buying these parts for my computer that i dont need, ive narrowed my issue down to a cpu heating issue due to a crappy heatsink, however if it still crashes after upgrading what a waste of 80 dollars. Maybe radeons and x6 phenoms just dont work with the code due to inefficent programming?

Well, if anything, I heard while playing during week one of live that the game was OPTIMIZED for Radeon, as opposed to Nvidia, and Nvidia users were experiencing extreme graphics issues, even (maybe especially?) with their higher end cards (560ti & i7’s +).

hmm how odd, maybe its an issue with compatibility in the cpu, or the x6 cpus could specifically be overheating for one reason or another, i may as well get the liquid cooling though anyway. It sucks being so close to being able to do citadel of flame explorable but know you wont be able to do it due to crashing every 10 minutes even with the graphics on minimum even though i have a decent rig

Did you try the fixes I mentioned? I’ve been playing with no problems since. However, who knows if tomorrow around the night time again, I will be having the same issues?

biffbiffson.1489:

Did you try the fixes I mentioned? I’ve been playing with no problems since. However, who knows if tomorrow around the night time again, I will be having the same issues?

the only fix i can see in this thread says to stop your computer from shutting itself off in some sort of override which i dont want to do because if its shutting down theres a reason and i dont want to fry anything. ’

could you perhaps link something? i have tried reinstalling new drivers and i did a new windows install which obviously required new drivers again.

im not quite sure what to do.

I accidentally deleted my original post while trying to quote a part of it.

Being groggy on the PC is like driving drunk, apparently.

SavageCelery,

Are your GPU drivers new as far as date, or new drivers as in from a different location? Did you get them from the manufacturer’s website? Do you know how to check a driver’s date?

Do you know how to run CHKDSK?

Do you know if your PC is overclocked?

These questions in order to save me some time typing out how to do all of these things, because I’d rather tell you myself than direct you to some website that you may not understand.

The following is rough recap of what I had posted earlier and accidentally deleted, in case it helps anyone:

“After not having any serious issues with the PC I build just over a year ago, I installed Guild Wars 2 on top of a new install of Windows 7 64-bit just before launch. I played fine for about a week (and spent a lot of time in game – and that being the only thing I was really using my PC for), when suddenly my PC began freezing/locking-up completely, as if I had a BSoD, but instead of the actual BSoD screen coming up, I just saw a frozen GW2 client and whatever else was displaying on my 2nd monitor, and there was a strange skipping audio sound coming out of my speakers.

I remember that I meant to reapply thermal paste to my heatsink, anyways, so I went through with that after my PC froze about 10 minutes into playing GW2 about 3 times in a row.

Lo and behold, maybe it was CPU overheating! I had noticed higher CPU temps than I’m used to recalling, and my PC went about a week without any lock-ups!

Then my PC started locking up again during GW2. It happened intermittently a few times, and it didn’t really become an issue (because I just ignored it the couple times it locked-up) again until the night of Sept. 17.

I was running the same dungeon all day (maybe about 12 hours) with no problems. At a certain point in the night, CPU temps all looked fine, I began getting lock-ups. Hoping it was just a couple intermittent ones, I rebooted, hopped in game, rejoined a new dungeon group (after losing the loot & xp from the first runs I had gotten disconnected from because of having the hard reset my PC – please fix this Anet! If you get disconnected and try to re-enter a dungeon your party is already in, the dungeon only shows as completely reset!), and began getting lock-ups every 10-15 minutes.

This is when I used 3 different fixes at once, so I’m not sure which one worked (noob mistake!), but I was just frustrated and wanted to get back in game! Like I’m sure all of you feel.

#1.) The first thing I did was return my CPU to its factory clock speed. I am using a x6 Phenom II 3.3 GHz CPU overclocked to 3.79/3.8 GHz. This is kind of tough to walk someone through, so I hope if you OC’d your PC, you know how to un-OC it.

#2.) The next thing I did was run CHKDSK (Kind of and accident. I scheduled one because I saw it as a repair suggestion and my PC locked-up, so when I rebooted it automatically ran. If you do not know how to run CHKDSK, please let me know."

#3.) Finally, I made sure to update my GPU driver (which funny enough is a Radeon – so I’m at least the 2nd person in the post to have a x6 AMD CPU and I have a Radeon card like the OP. I thought the locking-up might have also been a going bad/overheating video card) from the manufacturer’s website, and made sure NOT to get a beta driver, as well as download the most recent driver (don’t be embarrassed, I was originally using the GPU driver from the CD-ROM! noob mistake!). If you do not know how to check your driver date, please let me know."

I have still not had any lock-ups, but I am also unsure of what fixed the issue. However, none of these things are actually bad for your PC, minus maybe losing some speed if you return to factory clocks, so don’t be afraid to run CHKDSK or update your driver. Also, I am still not sure if it really was caused by my GPU overheating, I am starting to check GPU temps at the moment. I will let everyone know here if I continue to have the same issue later.

P.S. Sorry, I can’t seem to get any sort of formatting to work on this forum…

Rocklynn.5269:

I also got BSOD two times yesterday while playing GW2! Never had it in any other game before.

Phenom II x6
8Gb RAM
Nvidia 680 Lightning

Around 30fps when playing GW2 :/ (that is bad for my high end machine)
Can play BF3 online with ALL on ultra maxed out every setting, Vsync 120hz screen. Smoooooth & flawless.

EDIT: Did memtest 2h, chdsk, no OC on CPU and mem. No errors found.

I dont consider your CPU anyway “High-end”. Its bottlenecking your GPU, which causes such low performance. And the reason u can play such games as BF 3 , Crysis 2 maxed out because they use mostly your GPU only.

Dan.4658:

I don’t have time to write down the code. The computer BSOD’s then it starts a crash memory dump counting down from 100. The blue screen is up for about 5 seconds and then the system reboots.

Use this program to see all BSOD event on ur system http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

I’ve been having the same problems. Used DriverFusion and replaced all drivers. Thermal grease on the CPU cooler. Ran memtest with no errors. Some days I’ll play for hours with no problems and like today, 3 BSOD in the last hour.

Also have a Phenom x6, 8 gigs of ran 6XXX Radeon.

I love this game, but this is soooo frustrating.

This happens to me randomly, and I’ve tried everything I can think of.

Only happens with GW2 and no other programs or games on the highest settings.

In fact I didn’t have any BSOD on this system until the day I installed GW2 and it’s been hit and miss ever since.

Possibly something to do with the 6x processor?

I have an ASUS mb that has a core unlocker. I’ll try disabling this I guess?

Try to run everything on stock and disable settings that OC your cpu.

Here are the two crash codes I keep getting. One is for the kernel and the other hal.dll

On Wed 9/19/2012 1:18:48 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (hal!HalBugCheckSystem+0x1E3)
Bugcheck code: 0×124 (0×0, 0xFFFFFA8007CE5028, 0xB607A000, 0×41000135)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

SECOND:

On Wed 9/19/2012 1:48:57 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\091812-18330-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x4B09CC)
Bugcheck code: 0×124 (0×0, 0xFFFFFA8007F3C338, 0×0, 0×0)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I love this game but am becoming frustrated with this.

Have you tried disabling the Automatic Restart ?(Control Panel → System → Advanced system → Startup and Recovery → Untick Automatic Restart).

Done. Turned of core unlocker and disabled the automatic restart. Reset mb to stock default settings. I’ll repost if I have the crash again.

EDIT: Also, this might be part of the cause as well. I have GW2 installed to a secondary hard drive which is separate from where the windows installation is. As I was going through the Advanced System tab, I noticed that drive protection was not turned on for the second drive! Hopefully this helps someone if it hasn’t been mentioned before.

Ok just crashed again.

STOP: 0×00000124 (0×0000000000000000, 0xfffffa8007cc5028, 0×00000000b6442000, 0×000000005000135)

Hopefully this helps get to the bottom of this. It’s really bad tonight, not a single crash yesterday.

Have you tried moving it to the Primary drive? Might be the disk is failing. You can also look at this http://www.sevenforums.com/crash-lockup-debug-how/35349-stop-0x124-what-means-what-try.html

Yup did that already. So far so good. I’m now thinking my secondary hard drive might be failing.

Might be. Try running chkdsk /r see if fix some errors.

biffbiffson, i had a look at your suggestions, have had it at standar 3.2 clock that it came with and never had issues with it, except when i was having it turn off without a BSOD during BF3 sometimes and turning the core unlocked off on my mobo seemed to fix that issue.

My drivers as i said are the most recent ones and i have done a fresh install of windows, used drivefusion and ran all sorts of diagnostics, ill have to have a look into the chkdsc you mentioned though.

there was a patch of the client last night so i might give it a go again, however as far as i can tell us poor fellas are stuck with a cpu that doesnt like gw2, looking like a bit of an upgrade is in the works for me considering new ram and looking to buy a h80 watercooler, may as well splash out when i come into some cash to get a decent new cpu and maybe mobo.

I checked everything above and still crashed.

However, I did add a program that shows the temp of my cpu. At idle it was 43c, which is too high.

I switched out the stock cooler with a huge zalman I had in another old pc and haven’t had a problem since.

Running at around 31c now and no crashes. I hope this was the problem.

my cpu is running at 52c so maybe the cpu overheating is the issue

a consumer-grade IC chip can withstand up to 75’C with just air cooling.

Ok this is getting annoying trying to figure out why I get BSOD. I have ran all the test’s on my computer, updated all my drivers, uninstalled and re installed GW2, and even wiped my computer to free up memory which really wasn’t low to begin with and reloaded all my games. And I still get BSOD ONLY on GW2. It didn’t start out that way It use to run great, and I am not the only one I know who is having the problem so Im coming to the conclusion that it is the game.

Every other game like Wow, and Darkfall online runs great. Guild Wars 2 use to but now is not even playable.

I am in the BSOD club also. Seriously I will have to reconsider playing this if it continues much longer. All my drivers are up to date, it HAS to be something on the GW2 side of the equation since it only happens with this game and nothing else.

/crosses fingers and prepares to go back to WoW or something else

I’ve been getting BSOD’s only recently too. It was running great since the release, but then about a week ago, the game would freeze, forcing me to restart, or BSOD.

My comp is brand new (3-4 months old) with all my drivers updated. CPU and GPU temp hovers around 49-51C. I’ve never gotten a BSOD until now.

The weird things is, I could play for hours upon hours with no problem. But then I would log off and then come back on only to crash for no apparent reason, over and over.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a software issue.