PC constantly crashing/freezing while playing a specific game (SC2 Beta)

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smashr

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Hello everyone, and thanks for making a Forum like this one ! I hope someone can help me as I'm curious about finding the cause of this problem !

(attachements to this post contain additional infos I gathered to try to help you help me.)

I was happy enough to get a Starcraft 2 Beta key. I immediately started playing with friends. Then the problems came:

First type of problems

The game runs great with really decent FPS, and my PC matches the minimum specs (I play with all on low). However, I regularly had FPS drops, making the game almost unplayable for about 10-15 secs, then everything came back to normal, and later the problem came back on and on, regularly having the problem. In every games. A part from SC2 I also play a lot of other games, and I only get this problem in SC2 and Heroes of Newerth (a dota like game). I also play WoW and even if my PC isn't top notch the game runs and doesn't make my PC crash.

My graphic card and pc is quite old and it seems my graphic card has it's fan not working good (or too old) and so it heats a lot (about a 104-108°c during a SC2 game). So a friend told me I might have to clean a a bit the fan and the PC, so I used a dry gas spray to clean inside using air.

Then I started playing again.

Second type of problems

After the cleaning I didn't have any more FPS drops. But now I had a even worse problem, the game keeps crashing, about 10 min into a match. Sometimes it's a freeze with the game crashing and a return on windows (rare), sometimes it's a freeze and the game resumes itself normally (very rare) and other times it's a freeze, followed by the PC rebooting automatically (no BSOD, even though I'm on XP and I think I disabled the BSOD).

I have no idea where the problem could be coming from. I upgraded my graphic card divers to the latest (no change), I downgraded to a prior version that is said to be better for the fan control (no change), I upgrade the driver of my network card (no change), installed SP3 for windows, hundreds of undownloaded windows updates (no change). I tried to upgrade my sound card driver but I couldn't: when I do, after I reboot at the end of the installation, the PC boots, but then I have no sound, and it seems the drivers have been installed but they don't take my sound card into account. So I rolled my sound driver to the previous one I had. The sound card is integrated in my Asus P5GD1 motherboard.

Event Logs

Also I heard about the event log of Windows, so I tried using that to see what happened when I got the crashes. I used it for two crashes so far, one was giving me a Atapi Error:

Type de l'événement : Erreur
Source de l'événement : atapi
Catégorie de l'événement : Aucun
ID de l'événement : 9
Date : 01/05/2010
Heure : 08:45:52
Utilisateur : N/A
Ordinateur : STFU
Description :
Le périphérique \Device\Ide\IdePort0 n'a pas répondu dans le délai imparti.

Pour plus d'informations, consultez le centre Aide et support à l'adresse hxxp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp
Données :
0000: 0f 00 50 00 01 00 a4 00 ..P...¤.
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 07 00 00 00 ........
0038: 40 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 @.......
0040: ff 20 0a 12 48 01 00 10 ÿ ..H...
0048: 08 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 ........
0050: 70 cc 60 8a 80 08 4b 8a pÌ`??.K?
0058: 00 00 00 00 e8 3c 50 8a ....è<P?
0060: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0068: 4a 01 00 00 5a 00 00 00 J...Z...
0070: 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

Here is a screenshot of the log:

hxxp://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2162/atapierror.jpg

I read on internet it could be caused by a bad connection cable, not well plugged or something, I have not yet checked it myself but I will very soon.

But tonight I got another crash, with this time another / different event log (a1.56 am)
I saw two event logs I think are giving us informations:

here is a screenshot: hxxp://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6663/systemerror.jpg

Copied infos from the Savedump event:

L'ordinateur a redémarré après une vérification d'erreur. La vérification d'erreur était*: 0x100000ea (0x892379f8, 0x8926cd08, 0xf78b6cbc, 0x00000001). Un vidage a été enregistré dans*: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini050210-01.dmp.

Pour plus d'informations, consultez le centre Aide et support à l'adresse hxxp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp

The beginning says "the computer has rebooted after an error verification. The error vérification is : 0x100000ea (0x892379f8, 0x8926cd08, 0xf78b6cbc, 0x00000001), a dump is saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini050210-01.dmp

Here is the copied infos of the event named System Error:

Code erreur 100000ea, paramètre 1 892379f8, paramètre 2 8926cd08, paramètre 3 f78b6cbc, paramètre 4 00000001.
Pour plus d'informations, consultez le centre Aide et support à l'adresse hxxp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp

It says: Error code: 100000ea, parameter 1 892379f8, parameter 2 8926cd08, parameter 3 f78b6cbc, parameter 4 00000001.

When I go to the adresses on the microsoft site that they suggest I get a "we're sorry, nothing about that was found" kind of message with just the error code.

Attachements to this post containing infos (DxDiag, Computer specs, etc)

- My PC specs from Everest (sorry in french, I don't know if you can put the program in english on a french windows, if you need a translation I'll do it for you) are attached to this post

- I attached my DxDiag to this post as well.

- And I attached a report from a hardware monitor I used to get the temperatures of my graphic card.

- I have joined to this post the Mini050210-01.dmp file.

I have two hypotesis: it's the graphic card, probably too old, bad shaped (fan not efficient, card heating a lot, damaging itself overtime), or it's a software issue, but from where !? Or it's both of them. What's strange is that I didn't have the crashes before I clean the fans. And the cleaning got rid of the slow downs. So I'm really lost lol ! I would really like to update the soundcard drivers but like I explained it doesn't work, so maybe I don't have the right ones, I tried on the Realtek website, and used a french website that scans your PC do check what you have and tell you what drivers you need, and both drivers I got this way didn't work. Should I look on Asus' website ? I tried but couldn't find the ones for my soundcard.

I am very sorry for this huge wall of text, that is litterally chinese to me, and I hope anyone will be able to help me. I tried to make as readable (not sure it's the correct word) as possible If you need more informations don't hesistate to ask.

Thanks a lot for reading if you have had the courage to, and for any help you can give me !

I'll come back to gives updates.

See you soon !

PS: sorry for the modified links that I posted, it seems that since my account is brand new here I can't post links, however these are just screenshots of the event log to help you see what I see, I really didn't mean to infringe the rules of the Forum, if any moderator wants me to take them out I'll do it.
 

Attachments

  • Mini050210-01.dmp
    104 KB · Views: 0
  • EverestSpecs.txt
    30.7 KB · Views: 2
  • DxDiag.txt
    43.1 KB · Views: 1
  • HWMonitor.txt
    16.6 KB · Views: 1
Update: I did another game and got two freezes in one game, the PC didn't reboot this time. I also played even lower setings. And during the play, the event log shows two other atapi errors like the ones I posted in my previous post. Do you think that the atapi errors and the System error are linked ? What could be causing this atapi error ? Should I check the cables inside ?
Update 2: :I set the graphical settings of the game to really low. They were low already, just the shaders were on medium. It seems my graphic card is still heating a lot but not as much (about 10°C less). The PC so far didn't crash/reboot during a game and I played a few hour long games. However I still get freezes from time to time, that freeze graphics and sound too (sounds repeat itself for a few secs), then the game resumes and the PC doesn't crash. For these freezes I noticed everytime à Atapi error in the event log (like the one showed in my first post). Do you think it might be a cable that not plugged well because of when I flipped the PC on the side to clean it ?

What's strange is that if the PC just freezes now, but does not crash, I think the crashes might be because of a combination of the atapi error and the heat. Or maybe just the heat, and sometimes the atapi error. Can an overheating graphic card cause the computer to crash/reboot ? I head the only sign of a card heating too much are artifacts.
 
Well, you did say it was a beta game. This kind of thing is usually a given. I think your post is better directed to the game suppliers, not us.

As you have probably already discovered, the error 100000EA is generally thought to be a driver error or faulty video. Check for a more recent driver. Or better still, replace the video card. In terms of your everest output, the only thing of note is how full your drives are. This can be a problem if there is a huge memory load, since that will call for a lot of virtual memory - really paging to your hard drive a lot. Full drives get flakey. I would suggest you clear as much space on the C: drive as you can (backup to DVD etc). Defragment. Set the paging drive to a fixed size. Disconnect from the internet, then temporarily disable your protection (anti-virus and firewall). Run the game(s). Any improvement says you essentially have a paging timer error which is effecting the very time-critical parts of the game (such as texture mapping etc).

Similar problems http://forum.novatech.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-205.html
 
Hi, thanks for your reply, I understand this could be more suited on their forums but the fact is that I play with a lot of friends and none has those problems. Some people have similar problems but not these ones. I thought about the hard drives being too full, but the fact is I already cleared as much on C as I could, all that remains is installed programs. I guess I should uninstall a lot then reinstall elsewhere, or reformat (which I would like to do). About the fixed memory manipulation, won't it cause any kind of problems?

Also, when I play the game on low settings with shaders on medium (i get great fps, but the game crashes the PC like I said), my graphics card goes up to a 108°C ! When I told that to a friend he was shocked, maybe it's coming from there. I tried with all on low, even shaders and I still go high in temp (about 90-98°c) but the game and PC doesn't crash, I only have some freezes sometimes, which sometimes correspond to event logs about an atapi error.

I guess it's my graphic card the problem: too old, burnt out, on the brink of exploding. It's 5 years old (approx.), and the fan isn't so well preserved, and I beginned recently to have artifacts in WoW. So i'm guessing it's that problem the main cause. What do you think ?

Also, like you said the 100000EA error can be caused by a driver or the card itself right? I tried all the things I explained with a up to date driver (the latest) and a downgraded one, and I get the same problems with both, so I guess it's not a software problem.

Thanks for your help ! It's really nice, and I learn new stuff along the way.
 
Thanks for those infos. Would you suggest to create a page file that would be as big as possible ? Like can I make it 10gb if I want and see greater performance in games for exemple ? Also, when you say I should clear some space on C, it's about the page file right ? So instead of clearing space, could I transfert the page file to D for exemple, where I have more room. My harddrives are in fact partitions of one single real harddrive. In the 2 link they say it's better to have the page file on another disk that C if I have a second harddrive (not partition), si I was wondering what would happen in my case.
 
If you read the links carefully, you will find moving the pagefile from c: to somewhere else would not have much, if any effect because you do not have a second actual drive.With two drives, your HDD heads can work independantly. With your present setup of only one drive, the heads would actually need to move further to access a second partition than they do to access a pagefile on the main C: drive.

I would say in your case, a C: pagefile not exceeding 3Gb would be adequate. With 2Gb memory you might choose a variable size minimum 2Gb, maximum 3Gb, or a fixed size of 2Gb. You can assume a large pagefile would have no visible effect whatever. It is not a once-and-for-all situation anyway. For myself, I also have 2Gb memory, and a fixed 1Gb pagefile, but it is on a second drive, none at all on C:. I don't do any gaming, however. You might study various settings by popping up task manager and looking at the performance tab while gaming.

There is also a link from the first link I gave to a monitoring utility. Never used it myself.
 
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