Thread: Taking a Break

Originally Posted by Allane

Here's the odd thing. I get two types of crashes with Battlefield 3. One is where the game fades to black as if the server crashed, but in reality the game is hard locking my system. Sounds will play normally for a short time after it goes black, but then loop very quickly. My CPU also goes into overdrive at this time, as evidenced by my CPU fan going insane.

The other crash is highly variable in itself. It has come in many colors, but as of late I get an orange screen with black lines running vertically down it. Sometimes people report still being able to hear me talk (read: rage) while the screen is like this, but I have no option but to reset. I haven't had this type of crash recently, but I was going to take a picture of it since it's so unusual.

In both cases, I cannot see my mouse or interact with my computer in any meaningful way. With the fade to black lock, people can't hear me talk, while with the artifacting crash, sometimes people can still hear me. I picked out the snippet of event logs around the time, if you want me to send them your way.

Woah wait, the game FADES to black? Bad hdd? Check drive health, if it's fading to black gpus and likely memory are fine (as it wouldn't fade if either were the problem). Are there any dumps being made (os or bf3)?

Yeah send me snippets and any dumps.

Mobile-

Originally Posted by Bunni

Woah wait, the game FADES to black? Bad hdd? Check drive health, if it's fading to black gpus and likely memory are fine (as it wouldn't fade if either were the problem). Are there any dumps being made (os or bf3)?

Yeah send me snippets and any dumps.

Mobile-

I sent you a PM.

The game fades to black as the game normally would if the server had crashed. BF3 was installed on my Solid State Drive, a Patriot Wildfire 120GB, controlled by SF-2200. The drive is technologically speaking old, but the drive itself is factory new, as I accidentally bricked the old one and got a new one in its place at the beginning of the year.

Originally Posted by Allane

I sent you a PM.

The game fades to black as the game normally would if the server had crashed. BF3 was installed on my Solid State Drive, a Patriot Wildfire 120GB, controlled by SF-2200. The drive is technologically speaking old, but the drive itself is factory new, as I accidentally bricked the old one and got a new one in its place at the beginning of the year.

Ity sounds like you are having the same problem I am. It sounds like you are simply losing connection to the servers (either the gameserver itself, or EA's Big Brother server).

When you lose server connection, it goes into the same screen as an end of round. The little "saving" indicater is flashing on the screen, and then it dumps you back into the browser.

I could be wrong, but that is what has been happening to me for the last few weeks.

Originally Posted by dex71

Ity sounds like you are having the same problem I am. It sounds like you are simply losing connection to the servers (either the gameserver itself, or EA's Big Brother server).

When you lose server connection, it goes into the same screen as an end of round. The little "saving" indicater is flashing on the screen, and then it dumps you back into the browser.

I could be wrong, but that is what has been happening to me for the last few weeks.

Only I don't get kicked out to the browser. My system hard locks on the spot. Bunni had me run a battery of tests and the results leave us just as confused as when we started. The only option left is the video card. Perhaps the GPU is faulty, bad silicon, maybe bad GDDR5 RAM, anything's possible. Fortunately it only happens to BF3 and very rarely in Guild Wars 2, so I'm not concerned about getting a new video card.

Originally Posted by Allane

Only I don't get kicked out to the browser. My system hard locks on the spot. Bunni had me run a battery of tests and the results leave us just as confused as when we started. The only option left is the video card. Perhaps the GPU is faulty, bad silicon, maybe bad GDDR5 RAM, anything's possible. Fortunately it only happens to BF3 and very rarely in Guild Wars 2, so I'm not concerned about getting a new video card.

Earlier in the year I was having the same problem. Computer would crash only in BF3. It was the video card. Fortunately it was still under warranty and got it replaced.

Originally Posted by Allane

Bunni had me run a battery of tests and the results leave us just as confused as when we started.

Not entirely true. We know its not the ram or the hdd's. Gotta be GPU or mobo.

I've been trying to research this at work and talk it over with the manager. I've seen 2 systems in the last week that have both acted weird. The culprit in both situations was PSU's not outputting good constant power. In both instances the PSU's ruined other components. I would make sure you have that PSU tested. Just because it seems to run good with other games programs doesn't mean a whole lot.

Also, a couple of years ago, SpecOpsScott was having issues that only pertained to one game. I told him to check/test the PSU, when he did, he found melted pin connectors on the Motherboard & PSU connector. Power problems are one of the hardest to track down, they are not always constant, and they can lead to some other random issues. If the PSU is old, takes a lot of hits from power outages, it weakens it. Remember that a brown out condition {under powered} will damage electronics of any kind slowly over time. At some point it finally becomes a noticeable issue. Ask Scott if he still has the pictures of that PSU / Motherboard. As I remember it he was sure it was the Graphics card.

Originally Posted by 11Bravo

I've been trying to research this at work and talk it over with the manager. I've seen 2 systems in the last week that have both acted weird. The culprit in both situations was PSU's not outputting good constant power. In both instances the PSU's ruined other components. I would make sure you have that PSU tested. Just because it seems to run good with other games programs doesn't mean a whole lot.

Also, a couple of years ago, SpecOpsScott was having issues that only pertained to one game. I told him to check/test the PSU, when he did, he found melted pin connectors on the Motherboard & PSU connector. Power problems are one of the hardest to track down, they are not always constant, and they can lead to some other random issues. If the PSU is old, takes a lot of hits from power outages, it weakens it. Remember that a brown out condition {under powered} will damage electronics of any kind slowly over time. At some point it finally becomes a noticeable issue. Ask Scott if he still has the pictures of that PSU / Motherboard. As I remember it he was sure it was the Graphics card.

Well, my SeaSonic is less than a year old. When I re-built my rig in the new case a week ago, all the connectors and connections were fine. Of course, I can't see inside my power supply.

I'm still probably not going to do anything about it as my system is perfectly stable otherwise.

Good to hear. Might observe the Hardware Monitor settings in windows with a good program {most newer boards have a program on the software disc} that checks voltages and then compare them to what's being reported in the BIOS. It's how I spotted 1 of the 2 at work this week. Doesn't require tinkering, but does at least allow you to verify that voltages are within specs.

There we go. Guild Wars 2 triggered it within seconds of me activating my second monitor.

So, this has triggered two thoughts. One: The second monitor is of a different resolution. Perhaps the drivers are failing because the two are different resolutions. This doesn't explain when it happens to a single monitor.

Two: Perhaps I should disconnect my second monitor, rather than simply deactivate it, and see if I can get Guild Wars 2 to crash as a single monitor.

Also, I was able to make a limited selection of inputs during this time. I was able to communicate with Sfri on Teamspeak via my mouse push-to-talk, but the game audio wasn't reflecting the conditions at the time, it was simply playing ambient noises, and not the sound of fighting as should have been made at the time. I also couldn't move my character, which suggests the game crashed at the same time. I have never been able to bring up the command prompt while the monitors look like this.

And as I've said, the colors are different almost every time. I've seen the green before, but the Halloween theme has shown up on both Guild Wars 2 and Battlefield 3.

This probably doesn't change much at this point, but the picture is there for people wondering.