Guild Wars 2

okay before i tell you my problem here are my specs:
amd phenom II X4 965 BE

ATI/AMD HD 6770

RAM 8gb

500gb sata HDD

i didnt list the rest because i dont think this problem is involved with any other components.

anyway when i first launch guild wars 2 everything is fine and i can get round 50-60fps but after 10 minutes the game basically starts being very choppy, and i mean VERY choppy. What i mean by this is: smooth for 1 second then freeze for 0.5 seconds then smooth for 1 second then freeze for 0.5 seconds and this basically will not stop no matter what i do i am forced to play like this right up until i close it. but i know i can run it because i get 50fps when i first start up so its asif my GPU or CPU basically gets tired after 10 minutes then gives up and begins making my game choppy.
This is so frustrating ive been trying to fix it all week.

another thing is when it freezes you can hear a loud squeaky high pitched noise come form my pc for the 0.5 seconds that its frozen for so im basically hearing this high pitched noise every second which may indicate and help diagnose the problem.

One thing that i though fixed it was limiting my frame rate to 30fps because i have no problem with 30fps+. by doing this instead of not being choppy for 10 minutes after launch it instead lasted 30 minutes but still the same effect after 30 minutes. when i set it back to 60fps or unlimited then the game is 5x choppier than the 30fps choppiness but the 30fps choppiness is still very much unplayable.

please i have tried everything even underclocking and overclocking my CPU and GPU, i have also turned settings down in game so please some one lighten my day up and give me a solution to being able to play the game i bought last week.

thanks.

How are you cooling your cpu? Water cooled or fan and heatsink? The noise could mean a fan is starting to go bad and it sounds like your pc is overheating.

That noise may be an error code, some PCs have some rather amusing error codes even when they freeze up during every day use. Do you know the thermals of your CPU and GPU? if not it might be worth downloading a program such as RealTemp and monitoring your CPU and GPU during gameplay as it sounds like one of them is overheating.

Edit: For an AMD CPU and GPU you should be looking at about 60-70degrees C each. (GPU generally hotter than the CPU)

my cpu is cooled with an aftermarket fan (sycthe shuriken rev.b) because the stock was too loud

Yeah I’d blow out all the dust make sure the heatsink for the CPU is clear of dust between the fins as best as you can, also try upping the speed on the video cards fan by using something like MSI Afterburner software. Also if the CPU stock cooler was getting too loud for you it was probably ramping up to high speeds to try and keep the cpu cool

I have to agree with the others, this sounds very much like either an overheating issue or something specific (possibly the motherboard) malfunctioning.

jabez.6827:

my cpu is cooled with an aftermarket fan (sycthe shuriken rev.b) because the stock was too loud

Have you taken the side panel off the case and checked that all the fans are actually spinning? Also make sure, while the PC is powered off, that all the fans are clear of dust and able to turn smoothly (if they feel reluctant to turn they may too worn and not doing a very good job anymore).

The easiest way to confirm or rule out overheating is monitoring your temperatures while you play. There are lots of different options for that like Speccy, HWmonitor and many others, but if you only have 1 monitor and play in fullscreen alt-tabbing out will cause temps to drop instantly as the load is taken off the hardware, so the best tool would be one that either plots temperature changes over time in a graph or one that at least records min/max values (HWmonitor does min/max temps – I’m not sure about anything that graphs both CPU and GPU temps).

Cpu no more than 60 degrees and Gpu 70 degrees and yes my fans are spinning and no dust since the computer is 1 month old

Oh and did i forget to mention that it ONLY happens on guild wars 2 not d3 or COD4 or wow on ultra settings but only gw2 no matter what settings i play on

GW2 only crashed for me too, according to EVGA Precision the temps were still within range but they were crashing my video card around 73C I’d get a driver crash. Ramped up my fan speed on the video card and don’t crash so it won’t hurt to try and rule out overheating, GW2 uses your system much more than COD4 or D3 does. It runs your stuff full tilt a lot of the time.

jabez.6827:

Cpu no more than 60 degrees and Gpu 70 degrees and yes my fans are spinning and no dust since the computer is 1 month old

Those temps are fine – if they’re like that under load around when the issue occurs then it isn’t overheating.

However I didn’t see you mention anywhere before that the PC is practically brandnew – that introduces the possibility that you have a faulty part somewhere in your configuration that has never been performing quite right but hasn’t been a problem until you started stressing the machine with GW2 (and don’t underestimate how stressful GW2 is, it’s the first game I’ve seen stress the CPU + GPU combined to such a level).

The biggest problem with issues like these is always figuring out if it’s a specific part and if so, which one.

To that end, I would highly recommend running some stresstests on your machine to test both the CPU and GPU (think of things like Prime 95, Unigine Heaven, Furmark, anything that stresses your hardware) and if it passes those, then try running Memtest for at least several hours (best done overnight since you won’t be able to use your PC at the same time). If it doesn’t pass all of the tests flawlessly then that would certainly point to a hardware problem (in fact the odd noises point that way as well), but if it fails only on a specific test that might help pinpoint the cause of the problem.

okay i may try them but also even when im not on any games or even when im idle i can hear a loudish high pitched noise coming from my pc asif i have tinnitus. lots of people say this is simply just graphics coil or something and there is nothing wrong but its rather annoying lol. Problem is i cant diagnose the problem so im only 60% sure that this is the graphics card. is there a possibility that a patch may get released to fix this issue or do you think this is all up to me to sort out?

What is the RPM on your 500GB HDD? Is the sound a constant whine, or a intermittent scratchy sound? This almost sounds like your hard drive is going bad or your power supply has some blown caps.

my hard drive couple weeks ago popped up with a message saying there is a critical problem replace my hard drive but i ignored it because everything was working ok to me and i had no money left for a replacement but how do i check the rpm?

anybody any ideas?

could this be anything to do with my Hard Drive?

jabez.6827:

could this be anything to do with my Hard Drive?

It very well could be, especially since you already had an error about it.

I’m not sure what the best way of testing it would be, since I’ve never needed to test for a failing HD myself.

However I do use Defraggler (a free util I normally use for defragging my harddrive) and it also includes a Harddrive Health monitoring feature which reveals a lot of statistics from the harddrive. You could give that tool a try – you don’t have to run a defrag, only start the program and make a screenshot of the “Health” tab. It might be able to reveal how bad the state of the harddrive is.

somebody suggested disabling my sound card in device manager and i did and this seems to make my game last 10 minutes longer when limiting to 60fps before it continues frame skipping. could this mean anything?

well i just started up Orcs Must Die 2 through steam and noticed i have the same issue on that now too wtf? i thought it was only guild wars 2 but last month i was playing wow and diablo 3 and call of duty 4 fine so it has just started doing it im guessing?

This is happening to me too. It happens when playing Saints Row 3 also. I’ve reformatted my PC and I’m running a radeon 6850 that isn’t overclocked and stays pretty cold while I play. Nothing seems to change how it runs. I could have 1 square inch of a window and it will still do it.

track down where the sounds coming from, it could be your psu or motherboard or videocard, its not normal, its either a bad coil or bad caps, either way, its a sign somethings not right.

replace that hdd if its chucking smart errors, its not worth the risk or problems that can come from such things.

grab speedfan, use its smart function to get a full report on your hdd, take a screenshot of it(use snipping tool its part of windows) then post the screenshot of the results, sounds like your hdd’s going out, and you got something else wrong….could be your psu, motherboard or videocard with the kind of noise you mention…..