WoW Makes My Computer Crash; UPDATE! New video card, same problem

projectmayhem

So my computer has been crashing when I have WoW up. Because of my luck with computers, I assumed straight away it was a heating issue.

So I took off the side panel of my PC. That worked for about 10min

So then I pointed my small desk fan into my case and that worked up until today.

I am starting to think it isn't a heating issue. Anyone have any ideas? I have SpeedFan running and it seems my cores are running a little warm:
58C
48C
48C
52C
Thats with just Google Chrome, SpeedFan and Skype running.

tsmvengy

Is your video card fan working? Get in there with a can of air and blow dust out of all your fans/heatsinks.

projectmayhem

tsmvengy wrote: »

Is your video card fan working? Get in there with a can of air and blow dust out of all your fans/heatsinks.

Yeah did that.

All the fans are blowing out cool air. At least from what I can tell.

tsmvengy

Use speedfan to make a log of your temps and leave it open while you play WoW. Then after it crashes take a look.

You might need to reseat your CPU heatsink.

Grimm

This reminds me of what happened to my old laptop when i first started playing WoW. Game would run unplayable slow and then the entire computer would crash. Turned out it was my cpu fan dieing and the computer over heating.

Avicus

Hmm those temps aren't extraordinaryly high or anything. It may be a video card heat issue. If you have ati go into Catalyst control and in the overclocking tab it has the temp of your vid card. I'm sure there is a similar thing in the nvidia control panel.

I was having problems with my 4850 where it was getting very very hot. I found the fan wasn't working properly so I installed a 3rd party fan and now it idles at 20 degrees lower.

Shurakai

does it crash with any other game?

My WoW client began to crash when my hard drive began to show signs of age. Being that WoW has 15gb+ of stuff on your HDD by now, its a pretty important component in keeping the game running smoothly.

Other than the fact that my hard drive was old, it was also near capacity and had lots and lots of fragments.

When I cleared out some old stuff (minimum capacity to accomplish a decent defrag is 15% free) and did multiple primary defrags with Diskeeper, the game ran fine.

projectmayhem

My HD is pretty recent, as is the whole computer (April) and the HD is of good size (640gig).

Let me check out the catalyst thing.

projectmayhem

Ok. Installed the newest drivers + catalyst. My Temp was somewhere around the mid 40's and my fan speed was between 3-10%.

As soon as I logged into wow and saw my character, computer shut off. When I saw shut off, the moniters went black and very briefly i saw some red lines before the monitors turned off. Whats odd is that my computer was still 'On'. All the fans inside were still running like everything was normal and I had to manually turn of my computer.

Apogee

Were those temps you posted before at idle? If so, that's a bit hot. If not, that's pretty cool, actually. Check the video card temps as posted, too. See if you can make it keep a log incase it crashes again.

Another consideration is your power supply - they tend to be less efficient with age and it may not be giving you enough juice anymore. If it's a non-named brand and <500 watts, it's a possibility.

projectmayhem

Those were with wow open for about fifteen seconds until computer crahsed.

My power supply is a 650w corsir. And like the rest of the computer, bought in April.

Here are some other general specs

windows7 64bit
ati 4670
4gigs ddr2
640gig HD

Could it be my ram going bad? I would like to buy whatever part I need today to fix it, just don't want to buy the wrong one

Madpanda

This was already asked but never answered.

Does this happen in any graphically intense game (i.e not minesweeper) or just WoW?

If you have nothing to test it with aside from WoW try the Cryostasis tech demo or the stress test in ATI tuner (this may be called something else, all I can remember is it rendered a fuzzy/furry cube on the screen and would push temps pretty high, also would display artifacts if something was up).

I had the exact same issue with my Gtx 280, would be fine for anything 2d, firefox etc. The minute I started a 3d game or even went into the 3d preview in the nvidia control panel it would crash the display and leave the computer on. 1 RMA card later and everything was fine.

Do you have another card, maybe even onboard you can try? Also check the power connectors to the video card.

projectmayhem

I dont have another card I can test it with. So far it's happened with WoW, WoW+iTunes, WoW+Streaming Video, and just Streaming Video.

Is it more or less set in stone that it's going to end up being my video card?

nuclearalchemist

I would do what other people have suggested and try testing it with another game. Your temps don't seem terribly unreasonable for idling, and it seems strange that it quits only during the playing of wow.

projectmayhem

Welp. Currently playing Titans Quest with no problems so far.

And just played some TF2 again no problems.

projectmayhem

Just ran the Windows 7 memory Diagnostic tool, came up with no errors.

projectmayhem

I talked to a friend who works in Tech Support, he suggested either video card problem or a slight chance at a mobo problem. So I went on a limb and just ordered
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150369

Fingers crossed!

projectmayhem

Ok. I just got and installed a ati 4770 hd card.

Same thing happened. WoW was up and Hulu, then my computer crashed. I got this error on a blue screen :

System_Service_Exception

After reading around some think that a update to ones BIOS can fix the issue. I have never done this, how does one go about doing this or do you guys have any other ideas why this is happening?

edit:

After reading around some more I see that a 'Memory leak' can cause this problem as well. I just downloaded and ran this tool from
http://www.errornerd.com/system-2.php?seed=Memory-Leak

I usually dont just download random things and run them but I am desperate. Right now it's found 600+ 'problems'. So I am going to run this and hopefully this will do the trick. If not....I mean, I really don't want to stay on the trend of buying parts that I hope fix it.

edit edit:

ok fuck that noise. Wanted me to pay 30$. Found a free registry cleaner which I would assume does about the same thing.

FightTest

Don't have a solution to your problem but you should use CoreTemp to get your temperatures rather than Speedfan. Speedfan won't be accurate until you calibrate it and will give you lower numbers than reality.

Speedfan reports 14 degrees cooler (celcius) than my actual temps on this machine which can be the difference between running hot and running crashy.

And again, not saying it's heat causing you to crash, just saying you aren't seeing the real numbers.

edit.. also don't download random things as stated in your last post. If you want to check your memory download the Ultimate Boot CD and run Memtest.

projectmayhem

Cool cool. I will look into that.

It just crashed again this time just trying to use the internet.

I got a blue screen with this error:

driver_irql_not_less_or_equal

Found this on http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=308429

"I have had this exact problem in two different cases.


Computer #1. I flashed the BIOS and it fixed the problem.
Computer #2. I removed one of the RAM sticks and it fixed the problem - turns out the RAM was bad...


Should be enough to get you started"

I have no idea what flashing the bios means

FightTest

You can find instructions on how to flash your BIOS in your motherboard's manual. There are usually two ways, one being an in-Windows utility that should work fine but can be risky (particularly if you're crashing a lot), and the other being downloading it to a USB thumb drive and doing it from your BIOS screen.

Find your motherboard manual and visit your mobo manufacturer's website.

projectmayhem

Sad days. No manual Its at my parents house in Arkansas.

This is my motherboard:
ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

I tried finding it on the Asus website, but I couldnt find what model this one is.

FightTest

Their website will have the manual somewhere. Just shut me down saying it was too busy, but it'll be there.

MrOletta

I would suggest trying memtest as a memory diagnostic to see if it encounters any errors? How many sticks of RAM did you have? Have you tried removing one and running (and vice versa) to see if it fixes the issue?

projectmayhem

MrOletta wrote: »

I would suggest trying memtest as a memory diagnostic to see if it encounters any errors? How many sticks of RAM did you have? Have you tried removing one and running (and vice versa) to see if it fixes the issue?

I have yet to try removing RAM. I will try that when I get off work. I have 2 2gig sticks.

Hopefully I can get this issue fixed before I get Left 4 Dead 2 this weekend!

Apogee

This is starting to sound like memory errors to me. The problem with RAM errors is that everything runs on the RAM - so if it screws up, the error can manifest itself in any software. It'll be more common when accessing a whole lot of memory quickly, though.

Get Memtest, burn it to a CD, and let it run overnight. That'll let you know right away.

projectmayhem

Just took out one stick.

Everything worked fine. wow, streaming video, chrome.
=D

Testing the one that appears bad. If everything works ok my mind will be blown but at least I know it was memory!

projectmayhem

Alrighty. Everything is working fine with just the 'problem' stick.

So it is SOMETHING to do with ram is seems. Just not the actual sticks. Something being be maybe the slot on the motherboard is bad or I read something about timing of the ram?

Getting close to solving the problem I think! You guys are awesome!

Madpanda

Same speed memory? Also how many slots does your mb have? Dual channel memory requires them to be placed in pairs in specific slots, which are usually color coded. I.e slot 1+3 and 2+4

edit: assuming this is your board,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131377&Tpk=ASUS%20P5Q%20Pro%20LGA%20775%20Intel%20P45

It has 4 slots so you would need to go both yellow or both black. The manual would say which ones should be filled first but since you dont have it just try either way or get the manual from the asus site.

Your motherboard *should* automatically pickup memory latency, if it isn't pulling it correctly (use cpu-z to check this against the memory specs from newegg) you might have to set it manually in the bios.

projectmayhem

Fair enough good sir. I have one in yellow and one in black.

Right now I have both sticks in (one black one yellow right beside each other) and everything is working. I will switch those around.

Seriously guys. You have all been amazing. Hopefully the problem is gone forever