Guild Wars 2

Hi all of you cyber friends, my first post here in the forum, so forgive me if i make any mistake.

So let´s get started, 9 months ago (christmas time) i bought a kitten gaming desktop computer, here are the specs:

-Windows 7 ultimate edition (64 bits)
-1 stick of corsair vengeance red 8gb RAM
-A Nvidia GTX 660 with 2GB DDR5
-Intel i5-4570 CPU quad-core 3.2 GHz (no overclock)
-Asus motherboard H87M-E (with the lastest BIOS update from the ASUS oficial website, update number 2004)
-Corsair VS 550 W PSU
-500 GB hard drive (sorry cant really dig into more specific information but if you guys need it, please let me know)

So since iam a guild wars 2 fanboy and i´ve been waited for 3/4 years it´s release, i went to a computer store and bought all those parts and payed them to built the computer to play my favorite game. Anyways when i get home, i install the game and i start playing it from the first time and then my computer suddenly shuts down…. it reboots by itself and says that ASUS anti-surge system was triggered to protect my computer from unstable power supply unit….. so well i naturally tried it a few more times during the course of a couple of weeks to see if the error persisted and it did i tried changing the electric socket at first but it didnt did much , so i went to the store and i bought a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) which i was told would protect my computer from anti-surge issues as well as give me some battery when/if the power shuts down. No kidding the error persisted and, after lots of weeks searching on the internet i finally decided to disable the anti-surge protection from my motherboard. It went good for a month or two with no BSOD´s or freezes or anti-surge errors. Until i got a error from windows saying that my hard drive is on the eminent risk of failing and that i should replace the disk immediately, tired of all this crap with my computer i went to the store and told them what was happening and they replaced my hard drive with a new one of the same size, and naturally i installed everything all over again and did everything the same i did before i guess…. (this includes the disabling of anti-surge feature on my motherboard) and after all that i launched guildwars 2, after 30-45 minutes of playing a wild BSOD appears on front of me. Always with a different BCcode (i can however name those) . Also i´ve tried goggling all those different BCcodes and correct them which i think i did with success (otherwise it wouldnt show me other´s BCcodes every time it gives an error, right?) but a new error code keeps coming up. I´m desperate guys.

Also i´ve read this: http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/before-posting-your-minidumps-please-read-this.51365/ and i run memtest on my computer and it showed no errors and i also did the pagefile thing with no results.

I also recently installed and executed WhoCrashed and the program just says it cant identify the driver. I will also attach my most recent minidumps (i only have two because i deleted the others, unintentionally)

I know this issue has already been adresses here as well on half on the internet and i´ve tried almost everything and nothing seems to work.

Best regards, and sorry about the long text, and forgive any grammatical errors.

Long shot in the dark, but reseat your memory stick and video card…..

Do you know what the error message on the BSOD says, this is usually a good place/indicator as to what is happening.

before anything thank you both for the time you are wasting on my topic, i cant stress how much i appreciate that.

i dont know what is reset memory stick and/or video card…. maybe you can be a little more specific? thank you.

Of course of course….. i forgot to include the BCcode´s in the topic, usually is f4 or c1.

I will upload more information about the BSOD´s in a txt file attached to this message.

Thank you all for taking time to read this,

Best regards

reseating means remove memory and videocard, and then put them back in again.

What i find kind of odd is that you have just 1 memory stick, while most modern memory has to be placed in pairs or even tripple modules(dual or tripple channel).
correct me if im wrong

maybe swap your single 8 gig stick for 2 4gig ones and see what happens.
I would say its probably your memory thats a fault here.

are the bios settings for the memory ok? i had one fried module once because
the shop that build it didnt put the correct voltage settings in the bios.

good luck with trouble shooting

Well the BSOD data shows the driver that is crashing, but finding out what is causing it to crash is another story, from what I read from various sites, its hardware drivers that are causing the root issue, Nvidia drivers seem to be a good source of this problem for a lot of people, followed by RAM,

As you only have 1 stick of RAM this could be tricky to test unless you have access to other RAM, but did you try updating any drivers recently/adding new hardware that required newer drivers etc.

no i didnt updated any drivers recently….. meanwhile i tried to run driver verifier, (with the standard options) and it asked me to reboot the computer so the program could start working….. when i rebooted it crashed into a beautiful blue screen with white letters…. i had to run the system restore trough system repair or whatever it`s called.

well i already opened my computer and i removed the RAM and inserted it back in and nothing changed, can you tell me more about that BIOS settings for the memory? i played aroung with my BIOS quite a few times and i dont remember seeing nothing like it….

i also run memtest 86 because i had seen on some forums it pointed the problem to some people, but i run it twice on my PC with no errors…..

Thank you all once again for taking some time to try to help me, i really apreciate it.

Best regards.

Your problem is most likely a failing or under rated power supply check the lable on the side of the supply and post the rating. It should be at least 450watts or higher. I personally will not use a supply rated under 700watts in any of my gaming systems I have built over the last 5 years. The high demand for power in a modern gaming rig requires a good stable power supply. Also what brand power supply did you buy for your system I see to many people build high end gaming systems and cheap out on the power supply. Don’t buy one of those $19 Chinese junk specials, if you didn’t pay more than $70 for your PSU then this it most likely the problem stay with the good brands like Coolmaster or Corsair. I’m not talking about the uninterrupted supply you bought but the power supply inside your system.

yeah yeah….hmmm ok ok

i bought a VS Corsair 550w with up to 85% effiency and it costed me around 36.4 euros, which roughly translates to 46.01 dollars…. but it`s suposed to be solid, right?

should i get a better one? the problem is not the money, but i dont want to spend it on something without beeing sure of what it is, i need some kind of diagnosis first you know?….

Anyways, i will upload the front and back of the package so you guys can confirm and give me some more advices if needed.

So I did a bit of research on that PSU, and where itself its not really all that bad, and should run your system ok, it doesn’t mean that its not the cause of the problem, it could just be defective, some reviews on it that I seen showed that the 1st one they tried failed nearly all tests and they had to get replacements etc, I guess this can happen with all hardware,

The only way sadly to truly rule out hardware failure is to test each part with a different version, that’s just the slow process of elimination when it comes to potential hardware failure.

Okay thank you so much for the reply (sorry the extended delay, i had exams…..).

But if the PSU is really defective shouldnt it give me more signs in other high end graphics games?

also i tried connecting my computer to other parts of my house (because it could be a defective socket, or the grounding could not be working perfectly) and run gw2 on it had absolutely no success, the BSOD persisted with the error code f4

Update: i downloaded a bunch of tools to check the health of my my hard drive, so far so good, i also run memtest86 and it came back with 0 errors.

My hard drive already failed once, and i had it replaced with a new one (the one iam currently using) and i researched (a lot tbh), and some people think it`s hard drive related, but if it was i would have more symptoms right? like hard drive failing warning from windows 7, or it would happen with other games……..

i dont know anything anymore, xD

Thank for your time reviewing my thread and Best regards

PS: Sorry about the delay

Hey, tell me something. Do you use an internal wireless card? If you do, can you remove that from the slot and connect a LAN cable directly. Then test and see if you get BSOD.

Also, what is your RAM speed? like 1300 or 1600 or higher?

How long did you run Memtest for if it was a couple of cycles than that doesn’t cut it needs to run for several hours like 24hr or at least over night. Also do you have or can you borrow a power supply just to eliminate it being the PSU.

First of all THANK YOU for taking the TIME to read my thread and give me some attention.

hmmmm in fact i´m using a external wireless card adapter (thomson tg123g), and when i tried my computer on a different part of the house i also tried to disconnect the WLAN adapter and put in directly a LAN cable which didnt work, i was still getting a BSOD, so cross that out of the list xD….

My RAM is a single stick ripjaws g.skill red vengeance DDR3 8GB RAM (http://img.bomnegocio.com/images/93/9370796001.jpg)
On one hand i´ve looked on the package where i received the RAM and after some research i found out that the speed is (suposed to be) 1600Mhz. it´s from Gskill btw from which i´ve read it´s comparable to corsair (some even said superior).
On the other hand, i dont trust packages very much so i downloaded CPU-Z to verify if that information was true and i honestly couldnt figure it out, because it´s too confusing for me but i will attach in a HTML file (because it looks nicer than that ugly .txt format, so it will be easier to read i guess). If someone of you guys could confirm that iam in fact running 1600 Mhz i will make some brownies for you!

Well to be completely fair with you, memtest86 only run for like 2 hours or something and it found no errors, so i will download it and and leave it running from 11PM over night, which will be around 12-13 hours (should be enough right) and i will say something after it……..

Unfortunately i dont have another PSU that i can borrow so i would say i (with all of your help) have to rule out everything else….

Best regards and Thank you everyone.

Well I know the PSU can be a major issue.. My girl friends old PC was doing the BSOD thing put a new PSU and never had any issues again… Really that is where you should start I think the cost will be well worth the time saved… But that comes from some one that has been dealing with computers for 30 years…

There is a piece of software called Burnintest, ( google it ) ive read on some sites this is a good program to stress test hardware ( normally used I think by people who are overclocking to check hardware is stable ) this will likely push your system to failure point, AFAIK you can test certain parts of the hardware that you think are failing.

Also memtest overnight 12hours should be fine.

Really?!?!? ok ok thing is: i would like to have a diagnostics first…. but yeah i will see what i can do.

But my PSU should handle my PC with gw2 no problems…. i researched before buying it and it should handle my PC …… if “we” could just rule out everything else and be left with the PSU, i would look into it (obvisouly)….. but anyways thank you for your tip, if someone else could give me a second opinion that would be great….

hmmmmm i should also say that i installed furmark and run the burnintest (the burn-in-test embedded in furmark) for 40 minutes with no problems (besides the graphics card beeing at 66ºC).

I will try that burnitest thingie, if it shows problems i will report them here today (i hope) if not i can also post something telling you guys that didnt work, if that´s the case i will carry on with my plan to run memtest86+ for 12 hours and then report here the results.

Apologize my english and grammar.

Best regards and thank you all for your time spent looking into this.

hmmm…possible you can try this?
Try the RAM on a different slot. Set BIOS to default and test.
Also take out the GTX660 from its slot (take all pci cards, if you have others).
The i5 4570 has a gpu in it.
Play the game with the Intel gpu, i know the graphics will look crap, but just wanna see if it BSOD.

Ok, i´m back, for starters the memtest86+ acused nothing after running for 22 hours, so i think it´s safe to assume the problems lies elsewhere….

Also i downloaded and installed that burnintest program, and executed it and after 15 mins it failed, but the only error it showed to me was sound related (i will upload a screenshot and hopefully one of you will be able to tell me what does it mean)

Hmmmmmm Sleepwalker, yeah i could try that, but if i reset my BIOS it will turn ON a feature called anti-surge protection and if that is active it will trigger (so what it does: it basically reboots my computer and instead of starting windows normally it automatically enters the BIOS giving an error mesage like this: http://img.tapatalk.com/728f30ee-51d1-0c97.jpg ) so if i complety reset my BIOS that will happen instead of the BSOD,but i can put everything else on the default value and change the RAM slot and see how it goes…

Yeah i know that, i did some research and if i disable the driver on my windows OS doesnt that has the same effect has removing my GPU from my PC? thing is iam kind reluctant of opening my computer and messing with the GPU, i mean changing RAM slots is one thing, but removing your graphics is another. so….. will disable the driver in windows posses the same effect as removing it? or do i really need to take the graphics card out?

Thank you all for your time spent here and best regards.

I think the fact that computer is posting a PSU related problem on startup that stops the computer from booting, and when you disable it you still get the same problem, its highly likely that you have a defective PSU,

Even though its rated that it can run your system, hardware can be damaged before you buy it, if you can confirm 100% its not the PSU, then id be looking at a faulty motherboard, which is flagging the issues.

Ok, but shouldnt, anything else point me to something like it?

I mean the burnintest acused no problems and so as the Furmark which supposedly stresses both GPU and the PSU.

And how can i be sure of that? and if that´s the case, what PSU should i get?

Ok guys so i was just playing GW2 and instead of a BSOD my computer just rebooted without giving me any type of warning whatsoever…

Is it still the same problem? Before i started the game i went to my BIOS settings and i turned on something called Intel virtalization because i couldnt start virtual machines without it ( intel vt-x )…… does it have something to do with it?

thank you all and best regards

This may be a long shot but another possibility… Check the temp of your CPU. You could have a fan or pump (if you are water cooled) going out. That would cause your CPU temps to rise too high and sometimes give a BSOD or a restart.

Speedfan is free program you can use to check your system temps. I’ve had this happen to me on my system before. It would give me BSOD’s, restart, and consistent in game lag every few minutes. Cheap and easy fix if this is the problem would be to get a new CPU fan/heatsink combo and you’ll be good to go.

Just a thought.