Guild Wars 2

Hello,

Recently I have fixed my computer after the processor had burnt out. I purchased GW2 and everything was fine for about a day. At completely random moments, my monitor turns black and displays the message ‘No Video Signal’ I still hear the ambient sounds like my music and the background sounds of GW2 but no action, say I were in a fight, upon the screen turning black, all fighting sounds would stop.

I restart the computer via the reset button on the front and carry on as normal, it’s not much of a bother as my PC boots up fairly quick but it is annoying if I am in the middle of an event and I miss out on the rewards because it decided to crap out on me.

After monitoring the GPU and CPU temps for a good 4 hours, nothing is abnormal. They are pretty stable, mid temps and aren’t the reason for this. I have tried with the most recent ATI drivers and the beta ATI drivers. Neither make a difference.

I do not get this with any other game. Just Guild Wars 2.

Also, will this reduce the lifetime of my GPU if it continues?

I hope that someone can help me with this,
Thanks.

(Running an XFX 7770 Black Edition.) – I’m listing just the GPU for now as I am certain that it is a GPU error.

I’d also like to add, this is similar to the black screen issue. However I have the ATI catalyst control center set to use Application Settings. Which is supposedly the fix to it.

Have you tried this yet?

Black Screen Issue (AMD/ATI)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Black-Screen-Issue-AMD-ATI/first#post38195

Yeh, tried that one. My settings were already set to that.

that’s weird that we have the exact same graphics card etonmessy, also to clarify, you are correct the issue is NOT, repeat its NOT the problem that UserX linked, this is a COMPLETELY different issue…

@Fathme
You are correct seeing that several people are seeing this and the link to the sticky didn’t help.

I can only suggest trying different drivers. I am not sure that would even help but without trying we will never know.

yes its strange i dont play frequently so i can’t recall when exactly this started happening but i replaced my old 6670 ddr3 card in december and i wasn’t having this issue, or it might be a game update really dont know, as of now im using the beta drivers, which i just switched from the release ones yesterday and it has not made a difference..no point in switching back i figure

Glad to see I’m not the only one suffering. I’ve only just recently obtained the game myself and it started when I tried out the Shadow Behemoth for the first time. The connection lagged out (due to the amount of people there) and my monitor blacked out and displayed the message ‘No video detected’ – Since, it has increased in frequency and has gotten to the stage where I cannot progress further in the story line.

I have tried different drivers, I have updated DirectX, I have deleted local.dat, I have ran as admin, I have ran in compatibility mode.

I’m at a loss as to what I should do next. Is there more stable, previous version of drivers that people tend to use for this game?

I’ve just played BF3 for the past 5 hours and not had a single problem. Very peculiar.

I will try re-seating the card today and swapping PCI-E connectors to see if it makes a difference.

Did you try a different cable or check if it’s connected properly?
It could be as simple as that.

If it were that simple, it’d be happening with other games. This is not the case, unfortunately.

It’s now gotten to the point where I literally cannot play the game for more than 5 minutes without it cutting out…

The first response to this would be to make sure the video card is correctly seated but this seems unlikely in this case being that the problem only seems present with GW2.

We can probably discount checking the seating of all the other innards of the computer too!

Next, check the monitor cabling and ensure both ends are securely fastened and that the cable is not bent awkwardly such as when pressed against a wall. You guys have discounted this though.

My next try would be to completely (and I mean completely as is possible) remove any and all graphics drivers then, after a restart, install the latest (not beta) driver. Another unlikely solution though!

Having ‘pretty stable’ temperatures in non GW2 use suggests you are OK there – I assume you have used other games or such to test the temperatures when the PC is ‘under load’. I also assume you have good airflow in your PC case and that your GPU is not overheating!

For comparison, you could try running GW2 with differing graphics settings Higher>lower>lowest and monitoring temperatures whilst in each mode!

I suppose a ‘memtest’ would show any memory problems – but you probably already discounted that!

You probably have good power supply too – or the problem would likely show at other times when not in GW2.

What else could it be?

You could try:

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8981/~/the-guild-wars-2-client

Follow the link and use the ‘Additional Information’ > ‘How do I repair the game client?’ link then follow the instructions to … repair!

Maybe you could run the ‘game adviser’ and post the results here for a dev to check out. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/How-to-Submit-a-Technical-Support-Ticket-2)

After all that lot, we are starting to stretch the ideas!

You have the ATI catalyst control center set to use Application Settings. Maybe you could try, if you have not yet, downloading and using the ATI application profiles;

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

A review of other system drivers could help (maybe)! Are all your other drivers for motherboard, audio, controllers etc correct and up to date? I once had a problem that I thought was GPU related but was fixed by updating the audio driver!

Finally, for now, if your mother board has built in graphics you could try to disable them in BIOS to eliminate any potential clash (unlikely cause but worth a try at least) or you could maybe take out your GPU and try running GW2 from the built in graphics – just for comparison.

I’m fresh out of other ideas just now but will post again if I think of anything else.

Just a note on ‘Also, will this reduce the lifetime of my GPU if it continues?’. The easiest answer is; if your GPU is causing the ‘No Signal’ because it is over stressed / over heating then, potentially, the lifetime of the GPU may decrease. Modern tech tends to have auto shut down on error or other built in safety features to help stop this being the case though.

I hope you find a fix soon.

Edited to order the text as I had accidentally put a suggestion in between the lines of another!

Same thing with my XFX R7770. Just started playing again after a long break. This has never happened before on my PC and laptop until yesterday. What gives? It’s extremely disappointing to come back excited to play and you can’t even play. It’s not my hardware, i’ve already ruled that out.

I’m currently emailing back and forth to technical support over the past few days and at the moment I’m being told to reseat my graphics card, but i just do not see the possibility of all of us having a physical connection issue with our cards…

Maybe we can give some more information on this issue.. I’ll try and start.

When the disconnect of the monitor occurs, the computer makes the brief sound that you would hear the moment the computer starts up —- the screen goes black and I get a DVI signal loss message, audio in the background continues to play (Youtube music streaming). I have (probably not a smart idea) tried reconnecting the DVI cable WHILE this issue is happening and I am STILL not getting a connection, meaning the ONLY thing available to do it to hold down the power button on the computer and turn it off.

Same here, Fathme. Another thing is that the fan noise from my computer reduces when it occurs. As if it is booting up again, like you said.

If you discover anything whilst talking to the tech support, don’t forget to post here. Haha. I will do the same if I find anything.

Alright guys, I THINK I might have a solution. I have downclocked my GPU settings ever so slightly and I have a slight increase in performance of about 5-10 FPS. I have also been able to play for the past 20 minutes rather than a couple of minutes before. Will continue to play for a while longer and post back with results.

Here’s what I changed:

Disabled Reflections (Don’t think that you NEED to do this but it definitley increased my performance.

Using MSI Afterburner, (You can also use the settings in your ATI Catalyst Control center or the NVIDIA control panel) I decreased my Clock Speed from 1120 to 1100 and decreased the memory speed from 1300 to 1200.

This may not be the solution, but it’s allowed me to play for longer. I hope that this information can help anyone else out.

Will keep this thread updated on the situation after a few hours of gameplay. (If I manage it)

>Screenshot of my settings: http://puu.sh/2vUSn<

i haven’t tricked downclocking yet…. but i know for certain that the settings have no affect for me, game could be on min or max settings etc

Give it a go, from the time of my last post to the time of this post I played the game solid and finally got somewhere with my character without it cutting out. Looks like the problem has been solved on my end.

Scratch that. It has allowed me to play longer but it’s still occurring. At a loss now, absolutely no idea what to do.

talk about strange… i’ve accumulated about 8 hours of play since i changed the clock speeds and i haven’t gotten a single disconnected….and this was the only thing i changed since then.

the two previous steps i had taken were installing windows 8 (yes random but figure it might help, and i had a cd key lying around which was previously bought), and reinstalling the game completely…..both of which hadn’t done anything

Glad it is sorted for you. Still happens for me but it’s not as often thankfully. In the middle of talking to support about it. Hopefully they can help.

I have the same problem. This doesn’t occur in any other games, and I play graphically “demanding” (for lack of a better term) titles on a regular basis.

I recently started up GW2 after a six month absence. I don’t recall this issue happening six months ago. (I also get more random crakitteno-desktop moments than before.)

This problem occurs regardless of graphical settings—I’ve tried it on ultra-low to auto-detected (high). All my drivers and relevant software seem to be up to date.

It’s fairly debilitating in WvW when you’re in the middle of a fight and your monitor cuts out for 5-10 seconds!

Does yours recover, Guns and Giblets? Every time it’s happened to me I’ve waited a good few minutes, given up and had to restart. I’d be happy to just have your interruptions as I’m not a regular to WvW yet. Haha.

I seem to be having the exact same issue you are describing, the problem started sometime between Sunday night and today for me. No issues with other games, checked all my connections, upgraded and downgraded drivers – nothing is helping so far.

I did however let it run for ~20 minutes after the last crash and got an (unhelpful) error in the Win7 event log:

[ Name] nvlddmkm

– EventID 14

[ Qualifiers] 49322

Level 2

Task 0

Keywords 0×80000000000000

– TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2013-04-09T23:56:40.273975200Z

EventRecordID 409669

- EventData

\Device\Video11
An uncorrectable double bit error (DBE) has been detected on GPU (02 00 00).
0000000002003000000000000E00AAC0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

My config:
Windows 7 x64
Intel Core i7-3770K
16gb RAM
DirectX 11 (Latest available)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660

Everything is at stock speeds. I am going to reinstall the game and see if that helps.

Edit: I reinstalled and seemed more stable at first, but I am running in a window with GPU-Z graphing temperatures now and GW2 is instantly spiking my GPU to ~80C+ temperatures. That is at minimum settings and well over twice the temperatures I ever see running anything else (Witcher 2, Metro 2033, Crysis 3, etc.) at max settings.

I’m not sure what changed to cause that but I’m guessing that’s at least a system of the crashing if not a primary factor (card is apparently rated for ~130-140C or so).

I’ve been having the exact same problem since the latest patches end of march. My videocard is quite new, used it since january and never had problems. But now since these last patches, i get the symptom where my monitor gets no signal from the desktop computer and the only thing i can do is reset the computer.

My videocard is an AMD Radeon HD 7770, right now the temperature of my card is 24C. And while playing GW2 i never really reach 40C.

I’m kind of at a loss on what to do because it’s incredibly annoying. It seems to happen mostly in Lion’s Arch or during heavy fights. One time i had a blue screen even from it i believe. Not sure if it has something to do with it, but the error message gave me a LiveKernelEvent.

I did already try to downclock my card. But i don’t think that improved it any.

Anyways, i don’t know if it’s the driver, hardware or the game itself. The only thing i know is that it started since the latest patches and that i’m apparently not the only one who has this problem.

I saw someone with a “possible” fix
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Black-Screen-Crash-Issue-I-just-want-to-play-my-game/1800736

I’ve yet to try it, but i could only find one folder.

EtonMessy.1836:

Does yours recover, Guns and Giblets? Every time it’s happened to me I’ve waited a good few minutes, given up and had to restart.

If I turn my monitor on again, everything continues as normal (until the next blackout).

Hope you get yours resolved soon!

I’ve been talking to support for quite some time now, they’ve had me install at least 5 seperate programs so they can analyze my system and I’ve just been told that my Bus Speed is underclocked as is my RAM Frequency. So I slightly overclocked them and actually got a good 2 hours in until the next crash.

Surely overclocking it only just over the stock speeds would not cause this anyway? I’ve been told by them that it could make the system unstable just like it was when it was underclocked.

I’ve decided to stick with what I’ve got the speeds currently set to as I believe that what they ask of me is too much hassle and won’t result in anything. I hate jumping through hoops to making something work that I have paid for.

I have read through so many forum threads now regarding similar issues to ours and a lot of the time AVG pops up. Disabling AVG or completely removing it has solved this problem for a lot of people. I myself have uninstalled it and I’m currently running the software that comes with Windows 8. (Windows Defender/MSE)

Will keep this updated with results.

Also, Retsuko. I’ve tried that one, it didn’t work. There is only one folder normally under something like X:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Temp. It’ll be called gw2cache.

Eton -

If ‘downclocking’ your GPU fixes the problem, then you have found the problem. It’s one (or both) of the following:

1) Your graphics card IS defective.

2) Your graphics card is failing due to heat (which you said isn’t the problem).

I recommend replacing the graphics card.

No, it doesn’t fix it. It only prolonged the time between crashes for a small amount of time. Swapped it back to the settings I had before.

If the card were defective, it would happen with all the other games I play. No?

Well, so far so good? I’ve just done the story mission where you play in the massive golem suit. This would usually cause the problem just as I would land from the air drop.

Touch wood what I’ve done has worked, I really am enjoying this game without the interruptions.

EtonMessy.1836:

No, it doesn’t fix it. It only prolonged the time between crashes for a small amount of time. Swapped it back to the settings I had before.

If the card were defective, it would happen with all the other games I play. No?

Not necessarily. Different games use different resources in different ways.

Your graphics issue will occur again – it’s only a matter of WHEN it will occur.

abomally.2694:

Not necessarily. Different games use different resources in different ways.

Your graphics issue will occur again – it’s only a matter of WHEN it will occur.

What games use similar resources so that we can test this? Concrete examples will be helpful. Otherwise we can’t rule out a fault in GW2.

abomally.2694:

Eton -

If ‘downclocking’ your GPU fixes the problem, then you have found the problem. It’s one (or both) of the following:

1) Your graphics card IS defective.

2) Your graphics card is failing due to heat (which you said isn’t the problem).

I recommend replacing the graphics card.

i don’t think that’s the case… i downclocked and now my problem is solved, but really who knows it could have just resolved itself, its the kittening client, lets make that clear, not anyone hardware, all of our hardware must be broken then.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

abomally.2694:

Not necessarily. Different games use different resources in different ways.

Your graphics issue will occur again – it’s only a matter of WHEN it will occur.

What games use similar resources so that we can test this? Concrete examples will be helpful. Otherwise we can’t rule out a fault in GW2.

It’s irrelevant.

Evidently, I have to teach some people HOW to troubleshoot. Fine, here goes:

Symptom:

The video blanks out (no signal) after a certain period of time has passed. If this was a
driver issue, the driver would crash OR cause strange discolorations on the screen – the video signal would not turn off, leaving no signal to the monitor. That alone indicates one of three things:

1) The video card is bad.

2) The cable from the video card to the monitor is bad.

3) The monitor is bad.

Now, the OP states that lowering the GPU clock speeds allows him to play longer before the problem occurs. That eliminates the cable AND monitor as being related to the problem. Lowering the GPU clock speed has no effect on the cable or the monitor.

When the GPU speed is lowered, this results in the video card operating at a lower temperature. This also means that it takes longer for the video card to reach the temperature where it fails.

You see, the video card is actually failing at a certain temperature – just not a HIGH temperature. This is quite common with BGA (look it up) mounted components (failing video cards, the Xbox360 “red ring of death”, some HP laptops, etc.).

I have seen this exact issue many times. It’s obviously a bad video card.

Good day.

Fathme.5216:

abomally.2694:

Eton -

If ‘downclocking’ your GPU fixes the problem, then you have found the problem. It’s one (or both) of the following:

1) Your graphics card IS defective.

2) Your graphics card is failing due to heat (which you said isn’t the problem).

I recommend replacing the graphics card.

i don’t think that’s the case… i downclocked and now my problem is solved, but really who knows it could have just resolved itself, its the kittening client, lets make that clear, not anyone hardware, all of our hardware must be broken then.

So…the way the client (evidently) works, is that it detects GPU speeds then jumps to a loop that turns off the video if the client doesn’t like the GPU speed. So you lower the GPU speed and the client says “ok I like that speed better. I won’t jump to the video disabling loop.”

Is that right?

The reason your problem is “solved” is because the video card is not able to operate at the speed it was designed for, due to some type of failure that occurs at that speed.

In other words; your video card cannot operate within its designed specifications. Therefore, you have to operate it below spec in order to prevent the failure.

The majority of players do not have to do this. If they did, this board would be flooded with posts about it. Now, why do you think that is?

It’s NOT the client software causing this issue. If you knew more about hardware and programming, you would understand why.

Edited to add:

Roughly 3 million copies of this game have been sold. If even 1% of the player base had this problem this forum would be flooded with complaints about this.

How many “no video to monitor” posts do you actually see here?

I’ve read all the posts here and seems abomally knows what he’s talking about the most here. However, I should note I’m not a tech guru. Anyways, my predicament is interesting because I’ve never encountered this problem until this march but my computer is in a terrible state regardless. I’ve had a motherboard problem for a while where my keyboard locks and starts typing one letter over and over until I have to manually shut the computer down…. I’ve never made a post about it because I looked into it and found that my mobo has had a lot of users posting similar issues/failures with their boards. But interestingly, it only does the keyboard lock (and sometimes blue screen) when I haven’t had the computer on in a LONG time and it’s cold. Once the computer warms up and has been ON for a couple hours, it doesn’t ever lock on me.

Anyways, I digressed there but interestingly, I haven’t had this loss of video signal problem until this recent patch. Hmm…

well this issues wasn’t happen when i first started playing the game, and now it is, my graphics card has not changed —- the game has…. also if this was my card i would be experiencing it with other games, this only happens in guild wars. tech support even admitted that it might be the client

RELEVANT: "Thanks for getting back to us. To answer your question, yes it’s possible that this issue could be related to the latest patch. The steps we provide are in an effort to rule out all possibilities. I previously told you we were about out of options, and as such if you’re not willing to reseat your card then it’s likely that the issue is due to the latest build and as such there’s nothing further we can do other than hope ArenaNet is able to address it in a future build. "

Logged in today and lost my video signal in the middle of a pvp tourney. My system restarted. It repeated this several times during play. Temps of both the cpu and gpu in the logs were low. Went and tested my system with various other games = no problems. /confused

680 GTX 4GB

We need to keep this thread busy so that Anet’s tech support can re-read tomorrow when they get to work! I’m now unable to play the game for more than 30 seconds until I get a black screen/video signal disconnect.

nvidia 8800 GT hasn’t failed me for five years and I don’t think it’s failing me just yet! ArenaNet, please help.

@abomally

How many times do I have to repeat myself?
>>>MY TEMPERATURES ARE LOW, THIS DOESN’T OCCUR WITH OTHER GAMES<<<
I can play WvW without any interruptions, this is at the factory overclocked speeds. This problem only occurs in PvE regardless of what I do.

Ergo, it’s not my card.

Tech Support have clearly ruled out that possibility as they’re asking me to change the speeds of both my RAM and CPU which I will be doing tomorrow.

Also, how is asking to try other games that use similar resources irrelevant? It’s perfectly relevant. If you’re going to troubleshoot our problem for us it’d be a great idea to tell us similar games so that we can test our systems with them.

“I can play WvW without any interruptions, this is at the factory overclocked speeds. This problem only occurs in PvE regardless of what I do.”

So now your story changes? I don’t recall reading in your posts that this occurs ONLY in PvE. It really helps to get accurate information for an accurate diagnosis.

This reminds me of ages ago repairing consumer electronics:

Me: “What’s the problem you are having with your camcorder?”

customer: “It doesn’t work.”

“Does that mean no power?”

“No, it turns on just fine, I just don’t see a picture…”

After 20 minutes of questions and vague answers

“Oh, so the viewfinder doesn’t work…”

“Yeah.”

Neuroscar.4028:

We need to keep this thread busy so that Anet’s tech support can re-read tomorrow when they get to work! I’m now unable to play the game for more than 30 seconds until I get a black screen/video signal disconnect.

nvidia 8800 GT hasn’t failed me for five years and I don’t think it’s failing me just yet! ArenaNet, please help.

Well…evidently it’s the game, others have pointed this out to me.

It’s pretty strange (though) that my Nvidia 8800 GT has no problems when playing this game for several hours at a time.

In fact, I played today (still in that crazy maze inside the mountain near the Vista in Lion’s Arch).

It seems you’re not here to help, instead you’re criticising posts. Please stop posting in this thread unless you actually have something constructive to contribute towards our problem. Thanks.

I have failed to point out this problem doesn’t occur in WvW for me in this thread. It is something I mentioned to Tech Support. So my story hasn’t changed I just failed to mention it here.

What nvidia drivers are you using Abomally? And I just logged in and it’s still happening. Complete d/c from video signal after 30 seconds of being loaded into game. And actually, I said I haven’t had the problem since march patch but it’s actually only since the patch I downloaded last night. I hadn’t logged in all day and when I got home from work around 9:30pm, there was 25 (roughly) mb patch to download. Ever since that one last night, has the problem actually begun to happen. I kinda keep forgetting we’re in April now :P

But anyways, my screen will disconnect from video signal, come back for a brief moment (but my mouse is unable to click anything), and then go back to black screen for another 6-8 seconds, and then the signal will come back with mouse not being able to click anything and it’ll just rinse repeat that until it stays black eventually.

I’m using Nvidia drivers 314.07 WHQL. My game is fully patched.

A couple of things to try:

1) A clean boot:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

2) In game, in the graphics options, set your refresh rate. In the U.S. that will be 60 hz (59.94).

3) I suspect that some of these issues MAY be sound related (doesn’t sound related to your video issue, but it’s worth a try). Try setting all the sound sliders to the middle or lower.

Due to the new info that Eton provided, I cannot determine that it is for sure the video card. I don’t have any problems with the game, but since my system is quite old, I have it configured to squeeze every bit of performance out of it that I can.

That means that I have as little as possible running in the background when I start the computer. I disable all unnecessary startup programs and services. I use Avast antivirus (very low on resources, no issues with gaming) – I simply don’t like AVG- it has too many compatibility issues. I have a Logitech G15 keyboard and the drivers are updated.

My CPU is overclocked, but only by 200 Mhz (runs at 2.8 Ghz). My GPU is not overclocked, nor is my RAM. My CPU voltage is manually set slightly higher than default for a stable overclock. My power supply is a Corsair CX430.

When running GW2, I don’t usually run anything else; although I’ve had no issues running Firefox and I often have Fraps running so I can monitor the frame rate (sometimes I play around with the graphics settings).

There ya’ go. Good luck with this issue. I really can’t think of anything else that could potentially cause such a strange video problem (other than hardware).

I am also having a “Like” Issue. I am using a Radeon HD4800 updated drivers. When I log in Every 5 minutes my game will lock up for 10-30 seconds and then run… After 4/5 times of doing this it will have a “Critical Graphics” error and crash. I just bought this game and have only had 20 minutes of played time. Very frustrating.

do you all loose video signal when playing the game in windowed mode ? or it happen only in fullscreen ??

what are your power saving settings ? could be a problem with the driver too … anyone tried to disable power saving of your monitor like disable after 5 minutes ?

So far it seems to work for me when I changed the settings of the screen inside gw2 to windowed mode today. I always played fullscreen mode when it happened to me.

Well I should note that I’ve tried a few other recent games (Left for Dead 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive) and I’m having the same problem. I suppose it’s safe to assume that the fact that this started happening after I downloaded the patch last night is a coincidence. I’ve tried a ‘Clean Boot’ and tried loading the game that way but still the same problem. Going to try windowed mode now (It’s now doing it in the character selection screen so it’s difficult to even get into the game now).

Edit: Windowed mode gives me same problem.