Hard lock when playing BC2. Need help!

**Phyrelight** · 02-24-11, 03:49 PM

have you visually inspected the MB for leaking capacitors? It's rare but you could have a bad processor. There are so many things it "could" be. Have you run a fill hardware diagnostic? http://majorgeeks.com/downloads7.html you can download one from there for free. Heat can cause this as well but normally you will get a warning beep of some kind if it's thermal based. Do you get an error logs in your bios? error logs in windows? The memory not posting with all 8GB assuming they are all the same and you are pairing them correctly for the MB leads to believe either the memory or the controller on the MB are to blame.

**VARianT** · 02-24-11, 04:45 PM

Phyrelight, which diagnostic tool are you speaking of? "The Ultimate Troubleshooter" does not say it is compatible with Windows 7 or Vista.

I've never seen a thermal error in the error logs.

I'm leaning toward the actual MB controller or the leads.

How do I inspect for leaky capacitors? Do they darken or something like that?

**WileECyte** · 02-24-11, 06:20 PM

I'd wager it's either the motherboard, GPU or CPU. If memtest doesn't return any errors, it's likely not your memory. Try Prime95 and see if it locks up. If it doesn't lock up then, it could possibly be your GPU. The next test I'd try is Furmark and if Furmark locks it up it almost certainly is your GPU.

It could also be a driver issue. Have you tried doing a full uninstall and reinstall of your GPU drivers?

Uninstall via Control Panel.
Reboot into Safe Mode (Press F8 after post but before Windows splash screen)
Run Driver Sweeper. Phyxion.net
Reboot into Normal Mode
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**VARianT** · 02-24-11, 07:13 PM

Thanks WileECyte,

I've run Furmark as well as nVidea's GPU taxing utility with no errors (plateaus out at around 85°C). Plus I have swapped video cards (read original post) as well as recently done a clean install of Windows 7(64bit) in place of Vista64.

I recently ran Driver Sweeper but since my install of Windows was so new I did't run CC Cleaner.

I definitely have the most recent version of DirectX.

I really don't think it is heat related or driver related. Like I said I've been battling this for two years. I suspect the MB at this point. If anyone has an nVidia chipset 780i FTW I would appreciate help in the BIOS to see if I have some setting wrong.

**Phyrelight** · 02-25-11, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by VARianT

Phyrelight, which diagnostic tool are you speaking of? "The Ultimate Troubleshooter" does not say it is compatible with Windows 7 or Vista.

I've never seen a thermal error in the error logs.

I'm leaning toward the actual MB controller or the leads.

How do I inspect for leaky capacitors? Do they darken or something like that?

Hardware diagnostics are not OS specific. You burn it to a CD/DVD and boot off of it. Your OS doesn't come into play. The boot environment then tests your memory, hardware, video etc based typically on a symptom tree or you can select short test or extended test. Fair warning extended tests can run for 24 hours and they test everything on your system regardless of the symptoms. I recommend the symptom tree approach where one of the symptoms you can select is "PC locks up" and it will test those areas. If you have a home grown system you will have to use individual testers (GPU one from GPU vendor, MB one from MB vendor etc) If you had something like a dell then they have a dell diagnostic disk on their website that can be used to test all the dell hardware regardless of model inside one bootable DVD. I wonder if you could use the Dell diagnostic boot CD on your system? Give it a try: This is the windows 7 32bit version, it will extract the files and should have instructions on making the bootable disk. Otherwise Google "Free hardware diagnostic boot software" you will find many many options including the link I gave earlier but the options are typically individual (ie GPU tester)
Drivers & Downloads

Leaking capacitors in the extreme case will look like is oozing out the top of them. Here is a Google image of an example.

**HeavyG** · 02-25-11, 12:24 PM

Are you overclocking anything at all? Are you able to run Prime 95 for hours at a time without crashing?

**VARianT** · 03-06-11, 01:27 AM

Originally Posted by HeavyG

Are you overclocking anything at all? Are you able to run Prime 95 for hours at a time without crashing?

Hey Guys, Thanks for all your help. All of your help led me in the direction of my motherboard which in turn led me to a web forum on the EVGA site that specifically outlined a similar problem that I was having with intermittent lockup and Prime95 failures.

I ended up increasing my RAM voltages from 2.1 to 2.2 and I also modifing voltages for the core, the FSB, the nforce SPP, the nforce MCP, CPU PLL, etc. So far it has made it 12 hours on Prime95 with no errors. I have played BC2 with no crashing.

Embarrasingly, this is the first time in two years that I finally have this beast stable. Yay!

Once again thanks for the help.

VARianT