Bad Company 2 locks up my system, help!

[Cortexian]

So this has been happening for quite awhile now and I've tried a lot of things to fix it. It seems that Bad Company 2 has some kind of problem with my system, it will randomly lock up/freeze my system after a certain amount of time. Anywhere from a minute of game play to an hour or so. One of two things happen, the image on the screen just freezes and the last quarter second of audio loops on my system. Or my screen goes black and the monitors appear to lose their connection to my GPU's, the audio also loops when this happens.

I read that it had something to do with audio drivers/sound card. Unfortunately the card that came with my board is the only one I have. I've tried some suggestions from other forums like setting my audio devices to 16 bit, 2 channel, 48000Hz (DVD Quality) as well as different versions of my audio driver software. Nothing really seems to help on that front, I've even tried letting Windows use its default sound driver.

In addition I've tried dozens of different graphics drivers, running driver sweepers to clean out remnants and clean installing each time as well. This also doesn't seem to help. I've also tried each of my GPU's individually in case one was malfunctioning or something. Meaning only one in the system at a time, and I've tried them in different PCI-E slots. I've also tried different combinations of SLI/no SLI/etc.

I've even reset my BIOS back to its default state, removing any kind of overclocks and such that were on the system, this didn't help either.

I'm not quite sure what else there is left to try. How else can I diagnose this?

[Warsaw]

This is either an Nvidia or PSU problem. I had this exact same issue with my GeForce 6600GT. Went away mostly when I switched to my 7800GT. Then I started getting the problem and no I have never had it since getting a new power supply.

Check the PSU.

Is this only in BC2 or does it happen in other games, too? For me it liked to do it with Halo more than any other game.

[Amit]

This is either an Nvidia or PSU problem. I had this exact same issue with my GeForce 6600GT. Went away mostly when I switched to my 7800GT. Then I started getting the problem and no I have never had it since getting a new power supply.


This, pretty much, but it may be a gfx issue more than PSU. My cousin had this same issue for BC2 about a month and a half ago. He replaced the GeForce 7950GT with a GeForce 8800GT and that solved the issue.

[Warsaw]

Power supplies usually give before any other component, which is why I'm recommending he check that first. They are also cheaper to replace. If he has one lying around as I suspect he does, he can use that.

[Guardian]

I get the exact same problem and its annoying as hell. Mine seems to happen when heaps if people are shooting around me or things are exploding, but sometimes it freezes up trying to load the main menu, but that requires me to crash my laptop. I'm running it on a laptop with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, so the power supply would make sense.
It also happens for me in crysis at a similar time frame where my game drops down to about 1 fps for 2 or so minutes before it goes back to normal, as though its trying to reload the level.

[Cortexian]

I doubt it's my PSU, I just got this Corsair HX1000 in 2009. Unfortunately I don't have an extra lying around.

This does happen in other games, and I have a few issues with other games as well. Most notably League of Legends, it sometimes freezes the image on the screen for 2-5 seconds every now and then, but the game continues in the background and it un-sticks itself most of the time. Sometimes it will lock up similar to BC2 though.

I'm going to check my BIOS voltages and see if anything is acting weird, once my RAID-5 finishes rebuilding that is... This is another big problem, when my system locks up there's like a 50% chance that my RAID won't like it and needs to rebuild and/or randomly loses one of the drives in the array until I reboot a few more times.

[Warsaw]

Lemon PSU is always a possibility.

Games sticking and then continuing is usually the result of lack of memory. Episode 2 did this to me on this rig until I upgraded to 2GB RAM from 1GB. Mass Effect 1 and 2 sometimes do this to me, but not at regular intervals like Episode 2 did.

[Guardian]

The crysis one for me I thought was some sort of memory issue, because when I used to play it on my desktop I had a similar issue when moving to a different section of the map, back then I only had one gb of ram. This problem went away for my desktop when I upgraded to 2 gb of ram.
I thought it could be a similar problem with BC2 and Crysis on my laptop, but its running 4 gb ram so it doesn't make sense, unless of course the ram is some how dumping the memory, is that a possibility?

I had my task manager open one time with BC2 one time when it froze and I noticed it all of a sudden used ridiculously low amounts of memory (though i might be remembering wrong and it may have been the CPU usage that dropped).

Im not exactly a computer wizz so I don't fully understand what could cause it. Ill chuck my specs up anyway.

AMD Turion(tm) II P520 Dual-Core Processor 2.3ghz
4 GB ram (I think its ddr3, cant remember)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

I don't know about my power supply, or my sound card, but I'm pretty sure my sound cards a pile of crap.
When BC2 freezes up ingame the sound loops for a bit then stops just before it recovers, is that the same as yours freelancer?

[Cortexian]

When my BC2 freezes I can only stop the sound loop/unfreeze by hitting the hard restart button on my PC.

I have 8GB of DDR2 memory, so memory shouldn't be an issue. I've run 6 passes of MemTest on it and it was 100% okay as well.

[Guardian]

Oh ok, mine just seems like it dumps everything and has to reload it all.

Well I dont have a clue tbh.

[Warsaw]

It's either the PSU or the graphics card then. Do you have another PCIe card lying around?

[Cortexian]

I could borrow that 570 I just installed in my friends system at some point.

[Warsaw]

Do it. Even an older card will help you out.

[Cortexian]

Actually, I think the friend I sold my old 8800 GTX to still has one of the two he had in SLI. I know one of them stopped working and he decided to upgrade to GTX 460's in SLI.

[Jelly]

onboard sound drivers will conflict with punkbuster (lol amazing job)

play on non-punkbuster servers with punkbuster disabled to see if the issue appears. If youre still ok after an hour or so, disable your onboard sound in the bios and get a usb or pci soundcard

[Warsaw]

Punkbuster is a heaping pile of steaming shit. I don't know why DICE continues to use that atrocious service with its games. They have to have received innumerable complaints about it over the years.

I'll try and join a server in BF2 and get a "hearbeats stopped" error message from PnkBstrB.exe or I'll get kicked because I tried using the Steam overlay. It's the more annoying than a system lockup because I know nothing is actually wrong.

[Cortexian]

Technically it's a PCI-E sound card that was included with my motherboard. Asus calls it the SupremeFX card, so it's not really your run of the mill integrated sound card.

[StankBacon]

Lemon PSU is always a possibility.



http://bacon.modacity.net/img/images/ccpk76c5hg6la565.jpg

WHAT!

[Warsaw]

I think that's actually an integrated X-Fi. I know ASUS has done that in the past. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Fake E: Ninja'd!

[paladin]

I get black flickering sometimes, and sometimes my screen stays black. After I move around a bit it stops.

[Warsaw]

Are you using a multi-card configuration?

[Cortexian]

I get black flickering sometimes, and sometimes my screen stays black. After I move around a bit it stops.
That's a different problem that I also have sometimes.

[ExAm]

I doubt it's my PSU, I just got this Corsair HX1000 in 2009. Unfortunately I don't have an extra lying around.

This does happen in other games, and I have a few issues with other games as well. Most notably League of Legends, it sometimes freezes the image on the screen for 2-5 seconds every now and then, but the game continues in the background and it un-sticks itself most of the time. Sometimes it will lock up similar to BC2 though.

I'm going to check my BIOS voltages and see if anything is acting weird, once my RAID-5 finishes rebuilding that is... This is another big problem, when my system locks up there's like a 50% chance that my RAID won't like it and needs to rebuild and/or randomly loses one of the drives in the array until I reboot a few more times.Okay, I had this exact problem a couple months ago when I first got my new GTX 470. Worked fine for two weeks, then it did the same thing you're describing, with any 3D accelerated application. Necessitated a hard restart each time. I put in my old 260 and bam, everything worked. RMA'd the 470, got a new one, no more problem. I'm 98% sure one of your cards has gone lemon. Try removing each of them in turn, see if the issue persists.

[Warsaw]

Sounds like I was right on the money then. I just like to play it safe and check PSU before anything else.

As for the flickering, that's a common issue with SLI and Crossfire setups. It is also present in Crysis and Crysis 2.

[Cortexian]

Okay, I had this exact problem a couple months ago when I first got my new GTX 470. Worked fine for two weeks, then it did the same thing you're describing, with any 3D accelerated application. Necessitated a hard restart each time. I put in my old 260 and bam, everything worked. RMA'd the 470, got a new one, no more problem. I'm 98% sure one of your cards has gone lemon. Try removing each of them in turn, see if the issue persists.
Okay, I'm going to let my RAID array finish its rebuild (done tomorrow hopefully, fucking 47 hour average on these rebuilds) and try this.

[Cortexian]

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/7588/psucalc.jpg

Oh, that might be why... Pulling a GPU seems to drop the requirements down to 834 Watts though, so once my RAID is rebuilt I'll definitely pull a card and try some gaymes. What I don't get is why benchmarks don't ever seem to cause problems, yet BC2 and League of Legends seem to be suffering...

[Warsaw]

Do you regularly clean your GPUs? Power requirements can go up if the fans have to work harder. Your PSU might also not be performing to spec.

[ExAm]

That's weird. I guess my card probably had an issue with not being able to draw enough power. The new card I got after the RMA works flawlessly.

[Cortexian]

I clean out my system every three months at minimum. Last cleaning was a few weeks ago so particle buildup shouldn't be a problem.

[Jelly]

have you tried playing without punkbuster yet? it really sounds exactly the same as my soundcard issue. once your sound starts looping your computer does a hard reset right?

plus you get to play BC2 instead of pulling out hardware. cool!

[Cortexian]

Still waiting on the RAID to rebuild, but I doubt it's punkbuster. I had an issue with punkbuster and audio stuff for crysis once and was able to get it fixed fairly easily. I'll try it without PB but my PC doesn't automatically hard reset, I have to do it because it's the only way to un-fuck the system.

[paladin]

Are you using a multi-card configuration?

Yes. Is it a similar problem to Crysis 2 and crossfire?

Also, what the hell is punkbuster?

[Warsaw]

Yes. It is a similar problem.

PunkBuster is an anti-cheat software layer that runs with all Battlefield games (though it is not exclusive to the Battlefield series...Crysis 2 uses it). It has a bad reputation of kicking and banning players for false positives. It also breaks all the time. It's also easy to circumvent.

[Guardian]

I found that my Laptops power settings were restricting my graphics card, when I changed that BC2 now runs smooth.

[Cortexian]

Okay RAID is finally rebuilt and I'm trying some games.

Hopefully my network stops being gay, trying to test out BC2 and my network drops.

[Cortexian]

Guess it's not a PSU issue, tried BC2 with only one GPU and only had time to jump into a helo, take off, get shot by two volleys of enemy help missiles, then my system hard-locked. The screens went blank and the audio loop/chirping thing happened.

When I hit the hard reset button this time it failed to boot a couple times (does this often after a game locks up the system). What happens is the system gets stuck in a reboot state before POST is even displayed on the screen. The only indication I have that it's trying to boot is that I can see the activity lights on my optical drive bays blink a few times like they normally do when they boot. However it just does the same blink cycle over and over... Blink, blink, bottom drive no blink - top drive blink, pause, restart.

When the POST fails I hold the power button until it shuts off, then reboot and it usually works. I'm greeted with a "SYSTEM FAILED TO BOOT PRESS F1 TO CONTINUE" message during POST.

I assume they're related since this reboot loop happens 50% of the time after a game locks up my system.

EDIT: League of Legends also crashed while using that card. Trying the other now, played a bit with BC2 and it was fine.

[Warsaw]

Lemon GTX285?

[Cortexian]

Been playing a bunch of Bad Company 2 now on my original GTX 285 and I haven't crashed once. Going to test more tomorrow, can't test LoL tonight because Riot sucks and broke their servers.

[ExAm]

Damn right. Replace that sonovabitch.

[Cortexian]

It's an eVGA card so I should be able to RMA it. Lifetime guarantee ftw.

I'm pretty sure if they don't have any 285's left in stock they'll give me the next gen same-tier card that they do. Most likely a GTX 480. Hopefully they have more GTX 285's though, or can repair mine, because I need SLI to run Nvidia Surround.


Products sent in for RMA will be repaired or replaced with a product of equal or greater performance if an exact replacement is not available.

[Warsaw]

That means more like a GTX460 or so.

[Cortexian]

Yeah I suppose you're right.

Suggestions on making my working card start sucking so I can RMA it for another 460 then?

Edit: Seems to be that one card, played a game of LoL just now without issue.

[RedBaron]

I once successfully RMA'ed an XFX card that had a physically broken capacitor. Obviously the tech asked me if I broke that myself, and I played dumb. They replaced the card anyway lol.

Btw I'm not endorsing the tampering of your card, but it could be a last resort...

[Cortexian]

eVGA warranty doesn't cover ANY kind of physical damage. Pretty sure if I just pried off a component they'd notice, but maybe I could subtly bridge a few random points on the card with wires... :allears:

"Sir, my GPU sparked and stopped working sir".

Which it did, we'll just not tell them about the whole bridging components thing.

In all seriousness though I started the RMA process, uploaded my invoice, talked to a tech support guy already. He actually CALLED me and basically expressed his love for me because I detailed exactly what steps I'd taken so far. Said I pretty much did his job for him, so he forwarded me to RMA immediately. I asked what kind of product I would expect to see in return in the RMA request, and also detailed how I need an SLI system to run my triple-monitor Nvidia Surround setup. Maybe they'll just let me RMA my other card as well for whatever I end up getting in place for the messed up one.

[ExAm]

EVGA forever \m/

[Warsaw]

Never bought any other Nvidia brand, myself. Just can't see a reason to not buy eVGA.

[ExAm]

Seriously.

Dat warranty.

[Cortexian]

Shipped my card out today, will see what I get in return. Going to try and get them to RMA my other card as well, can you guys help me look through the warranty information to see if I can use their "Products sent in for RMA will be repaired or replaced with a product of equal or greater performance if an exact replacement is not available." statement to get them to agree?

This is how I see it, I've been using SLI for along while now and I absolutely need it to run Nvidia Surround. By only replacing one of my GPU's they are effectively dropping the performance gain I had using SLI and preventing me from using Nvidia Surround.