Yet another case of black screen, sound loop, and hard reset

**Kromm** · 11-15-09, 12:38 AM

I've had L4D since just after its release in 2008. It ran smoothly up to last week, whereupon it decided to crash regularly, often within 5-10 minutes of starting a game. The crash involves a black screen (with the monitor signaling no video feed) and a sound loop. The only way out is to cycle the power.

Salient system information:

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q-E
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 9300
Memory: 4GB OCZ DDR2-1066 Reaper
Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320NS
Video Card: ASUS EN9800GT Hybrid Power
Display: Samsung 2253BW
OS: MS Windows Vista Home Premium x64, SP2

The case is oversized with virtually no cable or card clutter, and has five fans. My sound and ethernet are on the motherboard; I don't have separate devices for those. I've attached my DxDiag output below.

My game settings are all at the highest levels, I use multicore rendering, and I run in 1680×1050 resolution. This all worked beautifully up to a week back.

Things tried so far:

Checking Event Viewer for any inkling of what's going on. Nothing logged.
Simple in-game fixes: Reducing detail, mat_queue_mode 0, etc. Fail.
System Restore to just before the crashes started. Fail.
System Restore to before all recent Vista and nVidia updates. Fail.
Completely excising the nVidia drivers and replacing them with 178, exactly as posted here. Fail.
Verifying WMI components and repository consistency (with winmgmt), as often recommended elsewhere. No errors.

I've pretty much run out of ideas. Any further suggestions would be welcome!

**imported_Iggy** · 11-15-09, 06:35 AM

As I look at your dxdiag information, I see that your video card is listed as a 9800GT, but it shows it as having shared video memory. Is this an on board video card, or is it a PCI-E card?

The reason I ask is that we seem to have a high incidence of people with L4D problems, many of which are people who have shared video RAM.

I have a 9800GTX+ with 512MB video RAM, but NO shared memory.

I am curious if there is a BIOS setting that will allow you to enable or disable shared video memory.

If you wouldn't mind, can you boot into your setup and see if there is a setting somewhere that lets you control shared memory? Maybe there is a setting that is Auto, and it needs to be disabled?

Since you and I have what appears to be essentially the same video card, I am curious what the difference is.

**Kromm** · 11-15-09, 11:20 AM

Originally Posted by Iggy

As I look at your dxdiag information, I see that your video card is listed as a 9800GT, but it shows it as having shared video memory. Is this an on board video card, or is it a PCI-E card?

It's a PCIe card. I still have the box.

The P5Q-E mainboard doesn't even have native video.

Originally Posted by Iggy

I have a 9800GTX+ with 512MB video RAM, but NO shared memory.

My card has 512MB DDR3 RAM.

Originally Posted by Iggy

I am curious if there is a BIOS setting that will allow you to enable or disable shared video memory.

Sadly, there doesn't appear to be such a thing. The lack of native video on the mainboard means that there isn't even a video menu in the setup.

Originally Posted by Iggy

If you wouldn't mind, can you boot into your setup and see if there is a setting somewhere that lets you control shared memory?

I just tried, in case I missed it the last time. No dice. There are lots of settings for PCIe devices, RAM, etc., but none refer to "video aperture," "shared RAM," "video RAM," etc.

**imported_Iggy** · 11-15-09, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's a PCIe card. I still have the box.

The P5Q-E mainboard doesn't even have native video.

My card has 512MB DDR3 RAM.

Sadly, there doesn't appear to be such a thing. The lack of native video on the mainboard means that there isn't even a video menu in the setup.

I just tried, in case I missed it the last time. No dice. There are lots of settings for PCIe devices, RAM, etc., but none refer to "video aperture," "shared RAM," "video RAM," etc.

Well, pewp.

I have been Googling shared video RAM to see if I could find anything that might help. The shared video RAM may just be a coincidence anyway, it just seems like I keep seeing the same issues with people that have it.

It also appears that the shared memory may be a Vista thing. The web is full of people asking about it, but I have yet to see a definitive answer on it.

You have tried all the other things I was going to suggest. Sadly, I don't know what to tell you at this point, other than to prowl the Steam forums and see if you find an answer there.

Sorry.

**Kromm** · 11-17-09, 03:02 PM

Looks like I was too hasty to rule out temperature. Yeah, my case is large with virtually no cable or card clutter, and has five fans. However, shining a bright light in there (just like the ones on the guns in L4D, amusingly) revealed a very slow-turning fan. What does RealTemp tell me? Idling at 80°C and ramping up to 90°C, 95°C, 100°C+ in-game. ASUS warns that it'll lock up at 105°C. Yikes.

I took out the card and discovered that the fan bearing was seized up good. No amount of air, vacuum, etc. helped. I replaced the card with another, identical one. Now it idles at 40°C and hits 55°C in-game. I work full-time, so I didn't have time to stress-test, but it's looking fixed. We'll see, I guess, but I'm optimistic.

Moral: It could be your hardware, so look close and check fans. It would suck if this happened to you and you were short on cash. (Whether I pay or get the replacement cost refunded depends on whether someone thinks I broke it – dust, voodoo curses, whatever – or it failed, but I'm an old, employed gamer, so it doesn't break the bank if I have to pay up.)

**imported_Iggy** · 11-17-09, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by Kromm

Looks like I was too hasty to rule out temperature. Yeah, my case is large with virtually no cable or card clutter, and has five fans. However, shining a bright light in there (just like the ones on the guns in L4D, amusingly) revealed a very slow-turning fan. What does RealTemp tell me? Idling at 80°C and ramping up to 90°C, 95°C, 100°C+ in-game. ASUS warns that it'll lock up at 105°C. Yikes.

I took out the card and discovered that the fan bearing was seized up good. No amount of air, vacuum, etc. helped. I replaced the card with another, identical one. Now it idles at 40°C and hits 55°C in-game. I work full-time, so I didn't have time to stress-test, but it's looking fixed. We'll see, I guess, but I'm optimistic.

Moral: It could be your hardware, so look close and check fans. It would suck if this happened to you and you were short on cash. (Whether I pay or get the replacement cost refunded depends on whether someone thinks I broke it – dust, voodoo curses, whatever – or it failed, but I'm an old, employed gamer, so it doesn't break the bank if I have to pay up.)

Good deal, glad to see you may have it fixed.