[CTD] Crashing to Desktop (Once again)

[Urme the Legend]

Ok I have gone from blond -> gray -> white haired over this problem. And my hair are starting to fall off now.

I had problem with Crashing to Desktop (CTD) since TOA was released. The first crash I had was on release day of TOA.. the last crash was last night. A total of 300+ CTD since TOA release.. sometimes 2-3 / hour.

The message is that game.dll made an error bla bla.
Don't have the error log from windows XP here at work but I can add it to the thread when I get home.

I need a solution to this problem.
I didn't change/install/removed anything the day before TOA was released.

These are the things I have done since february (nothing helped).

* Upgraded bios
* Reinstalled Windows XP Pro 4 times.
* Changed Graphic card from GF4 Ti4400 to a Geforce FX 5700 Ultra.
* Bought a new harddrive (200gb Maxtor 8mb cache, IDE)
* Changed partition from Fat32 to NTFS
* Installed SP1 and SP2
* Updated Network, Sound and Graphic card drivers (Tried other drivers then Nvidia also)
* Installed DirectX 9.0C
* Updated VIA 4in1 drivers
* Installed Windows on the new harddrive
* Bought more RAM, I had 512 and bought 512 more.
* Turned down all graphics in Daoc to minimum.
* Tried different resolutions and both windowed and full window mode.
* Turned off V-Sync, anti aliasing etc in graphiccard setup.
* Turned off alot of effects in Windows, like shadows etc etc
* Scanned harddrive for viruses, spyware etc.
* Closed all programs and processes that I didn't need.
* Checked that my CPU is cold enough, around 50 Celsius when I play daoc.
(I'm sure I missed alot of stuff i tried)

System spec:
AMD Athlon 2400+
1024mb RAM (2xTwinmos 512mb)
Geforce FX 5700 Ultra 128mb
Asus A7v8x motherboard
Built-in NIC and soundcard(AC97)
300W PowerSupply.

Is it worth buying a new PowerSupply? I mean it is only DAoC I'm having problems with. I played WoW for 6 hours+ without any problem, I tried Doom3 with no problems.

Can it be the powersupply? Imo i doubt it since it is ONLY daoc that I'm having these problems with.

Can it be that my first memorystick is bad? I haven't tried memtest since I thought I should have problems with WoW and other games to if that is the problem.

I'm willing to pay for a solution :>

 

[Joor]

OK
First check if your gfx card support dx9.
Turn off fast write in bios.
Turn off all cache in bios.
Try 4xagp in bios
Set agp size to 128.
Set pci latency to 128

Download prime95, and run a Blend test 3-4 hours to check if your ram are ok
ftp://files.chip.pl/43117/p95v238.exe

Download Speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan417.exe
And check if your lines are stable: +12, 3.3 and 5.0.
they should all be around 12.00 3.3 and 5.0..

try that first...

 

[Urme the Legend]

OK
First check if your gfx card support dx9.
Turn off fast write in bios.
Turn off all cache in bios.
Try 4xagp in bios
Set agp size to 128.
Set pci latency to 128

Download prime95, and run a Blend test 3-4 hours to check if your ram are ok
ftp://files.chip.pl/43117/p95v238.exe

Download Speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan417.exe
And check if your lines are stable: +12, 3.3 and 5.0.
they should all be around 12.00 3.3 and 5.0..

try that first...

The Graphiccard is supporting DX9
Fast Write is off.
the agp size is 128 in bios.

Haven't tried the turn off all cache.. (Will check that when I get home)
Will also try the pci latency.. haven't seen anything about that.
Not sure I can change the agp setting.. it was "greyed" on 8x when I checked last night.

Will also try the prime95 and Speedfan, do you suggest to remove one memorystick (the old one)?

 

[Chronictank]

Will also try the prime95 and Speedfan, do you suggest to remove one memorystick (the old one)?

yes
or just run a memtest on it , its all the same

might also wana try seeing how hot the vpu is running if youre card allows it

 

[Boni]

Ok... an error in game.dll is the software throwing an exception, the most likely cause of this is im afraid your video card. You say you have even changed cards,, which drivers are you using, just confirm you are getting them straight from nvidia.com using their unified drivers (after uninstalling any video card drivers manually before).

I doubt its your PSU, if that starts failing your PC will probably reset (not just crash to DT), though I would NOT use a 300W PSU with an nvidia card (they really need power), try and get a 400W PSU just to set your mind at rest.

It could be your memory is faulty, if you havent tried swapping in and out your sticks then try that.

After that its try and replace or swap one bit with another untill it works, the hardest thing to discover is that your CPU or motherboard is faulty, again that could be the cause.

Ill repeat myself again on the video card drivers, believe me when I say they are your most likely source of this type of crash, check em untill you will bet your life they are ok before looking at other stuff

 

[Urme the Legend]

Ok... an error in game.dll is the software throwing an exception, the most likely cause of this is im afraid your video card. You say you have even changed cards,, which drivers are you using, just confirm you are getting them straight from nvidia.com using their unified drivers (after uninstalling any video card drivers manually before).

Yeah I got atm 66.93.. latest drivers, downloading them at nvidia.com. I can bet my life on it

I doubt its your PSU, if that starts failing your PC will probably reset (not just crash to DT), though I would NOT use a 300W PSU with an nvidia card (they really need power), try and get a 400W PSU just to set your mind at rest.

But wouldn't it show in some other way also, like other games crashing or as you say my whole PC would reboot or something. Not just DAoC crashing. Don't like to spend cash on something that is working

It could be your memory is faulty, if you havent tried swapping in and out your sticks then try that.

Will run memtest tonight.. though I doubt that it's something wrong with them.

After that its try and replace or swap one bit with another untill it works, the hardest thing to discover is that your CPU or motherboard is faulty, again that could be the cause.

If it's my CPU or motherboard is faulty.. shouldn't other games crash or something? I played WoW with no problems at all, and Doom3 works perfect for a couple of hours (can't be arsed to play it that long) :>

Ill repeat myself again on the video card drivers, believe me when I say they are your most likely source of this type of crash, check em untill you will bet your life they are ok before looking at other stuff

I must have tried like 10 different Nvidia drivers.. and some other "tweaked" nvidia drivers.. same thing on all of them.

Well will try memtest tonight.. btw the caching Joor talked about is that UC and UCWC in the bios? ... it's set on UC atm.

My GPU(VPU) temperature is 45 celcius when I'm playing daoc.

 

[scoof]

Run daoc in compatibility mode for Windows NT 4.0

 

[Siftwind]

May have missed it above but have you posted that error message yet?

Regards,
Sift.

 

[Chilly]

google for 'omega drivers' and use those, i find they fixed the erros i had with TOA and also give considerably better performance.

 

[Boni]

But wouldn't it show in some other way also, like other games crashing or as you say my whole PC would reboot or something. Not just DAoC crashing. Don't like to spend cash on something that is working

If it's my CPU or motherboard is faulty.. shouldn't other games crash or something? I played WoW with no problems at all, and Doom3 works perfect for a couple of hours (can't be arsed to play it that long) :>

Yeah your symptoms dont sound like PSU failure, but 300W is on the low side, depending how good it is, if its a nice branded PSU then I guess your ok, but I thought I would mention it as a vauge possibilty.

Well I doubt youll find a DAOC specific problem, its more likely that DAOC is just the sofware that brings this to the surface quickly. Theres a lot more texture swapping and sudden load changes in DAOC than some other games. Just cause you cant find it quickly in doom, or another modern title doesnt mean its directly DAOC but possibly just DAOC thrashing parts of your machine that other games dont reach

As a last resort if you can find a rl friend with a vaguely similar PC you could try all his hardware bit by bit to rule out problems like memory, PSU, motherboard without blowing cash.

 

[Urme the Legend]

Download prime95, and run a Blend test 3-4 hours to check if your ram are ok
ftp://files.chip.pl/43117/p95v238.exe

I ran the Torture Test! for 8 Hours, the Blend test. WIth no errors or warnings..

Download Speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan417.exe
And check if your lines are stable: +12, 3.3 and 5.0.
they should all be around 12.00 3.3 and 5.0.. try that first...

+3.3V = 3.31V
+5V = 5.13V
+12V = 12.40V

Are those numbers "ok" ? ..

 

[Urme the Legend]

Forgot to add the Error messages last night... so here is last nights 2 crashes:

(It's in swedish, since I use XP SWE )

Händelsetyp: Fel
Händelsens källa: Application Error
Händelsekategori: Ingen
Händelse-ID: 1000
Datum: 2004-11-18
Tid: 20:40:13
Användare: Saknas
Dator: URME
Beskrivning:
Felaktigt program game.dll, version 0.1.5.2, felaktig modul unknown, version 0.0.0.0, felaktig adress 0xecfc74a7.

Mer information finns i Hjälp- och supportcenter på sidan http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 67 61 6d ure gam
0018: 65 2e 64 6c 6c 20 30 2e e.dll 0.
0020: 31 2e 35 2e 32 20 69 6e 1.5.2 in
0028: 20 75 6e 6b 6e 6f 77 6e unknown
0030: 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 0.0.0.0
0038: 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 at offs
0040: 65 74 20 65 63 66 63 37 et ecfc7
0048: 34 61 37 0d 0a 4a7..

Händelsetyp: Fel
Händelsens källa: Application Error
Händelsekategori: Ingen
Händelse-ID: 1000
Datum: 2004-11-18
Tid: 22:41:53
Användare: Saknas
Dator: URME
Beskrivning:
Felaktigt program game.dll, version 0.1.5.2, felaktig modul unknown, version 0.0.0.0, felaktig adress 0xd231a2e7.

Mer information finns i Hjälp- och supportcenter på sidan http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 67 61 6d ure gam
0018: 65 2e 64 6c 6c 20 30 2e e.dll 0.
0020: 31 2e 35 2e 32 20 69 6e 1.5.2 in
0028: 20 75 6e 6b 6e 6f 77 6e unknown
0030: 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 0.0.0.0
0038: 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 at offs
0040: 65 74 20 64 32 33 31 61 et d231a
0048: 32 65 37 0d 0a 2e7..

 

[Urme the Legend]

google for 'omega drivers' and use those, i find they fixed the erros i had with TOA and also give considerably better performance.

Yepp it was the Omega drivers I tried also.. same problems with them.

 

[Sycho]

Since your game.dll is causing an error you could try this(who knows it may work) :

- Get a friend or someone know you know who has daoc to send you their game.dll over msn/irc.
-copy the whole toa folder which you can use to make another toa directory on desktop.
-delete the game.dll from the copied folder and replace with the one you got given over msn/irc.
-log onto daoc through the copied folder directory, if you never crash then there's your problem.(replace the file with someone from a friend)

Only do that though after copying the folder incase it doesn't work.(if it still crashes through the copied folder directory then at least we know it's not the game files causing it)

The only other way i can think of is a big re-format of hardrive since that will lose everything on it.Anyway give that a try, make sure you copy folder though like the steps i said above.

 

[Joor]

I ran the Torture Test! for 8 Hours, the Blend test. WIth no errors or warnings..



+3.3V = 3.31V
+5V = 5.13V
+12V = 12.40V

Are those numbers "ok" ? ..

yes, and 8 hours in blend test without errors, looks stable to me.

Must be daoc. I'll be back..

 

[Joor]

oh btw
If you're using SP2 check to see if windows enabled your XP firewall. I found mine turned on by itself a couple of times and was causing me to LD randomly..
I use sp1 now tho , sp2 still had to meny bugs.

 

[Urme the Legend]

The only other way i can think of is a big re-format of hardrive since that will lose everything on it.Anyway give that a try, make sure you copy folder though like the steps i said above.

I bought a new harddrive last week and still having the same problem.. but I'm willing to try another game.dll file. Will try that later tonight.

oh btw
If you're using SP2 check to see if windows enabled your XP firewall. I found mine turned on by itself a couple of times and was causing me to LD randomly..
I use sp1 now tho , sp2 still had to meny bugs.

I installed SP2 wednesday.. was hoping that would solve my problem.. but it's the same thing, Windows firewall is turned off.

 

[Joor]

Try delete game.dll, will update dl new?

 

[Hawkwind]

Ok I have gone from blond -> gray -> white haired over this problem. And my hair are starting to fall off now.

I had problem with Crashing to Desktop (CTD) since TOA was released. The first crash I had was on release day of TOA.. the last crash was last night. A total of 300+ CTD since TOA release.. sometimes 2-3 / hour.

The message is that game.dll made an error bla bla.
Don't have the error log from windows XP here at work but I can add it to the thread when I get home.

I need a solution to this problem.
I didn't change/install/removed anything the day before TOA was released.

These are the things I have done since february (nothing helped).

* Upgraded bios
* Reinstalled Windows XP Pro 4 times.
* Changed Graphic card from GF4 Ti4400 to a Geforce FX 5700 Ultra.
* Bought a new harddrive (200gb Maxtor 8mb cache, IDE)
* Changed partition from Fat32 to NTFS
* Installed SP1 and SP2
* Updated Network, Sound and Graphic card drivers (Tried other drivers then Nvidia also)
* Installed DirectX 9.0C
* Updated VIA 4in1 drivers
* Installed Windows on the new harddrive
* Bought more RAM, I had 512 and bought 512 more.
* Turned down all graphics in Daoc to minimum.
* Tried different resolutions and both windowed and full window mode.
* Turned off V-Sync, anti aliasing etc in graphiccard setup.
* Turned off alot of effects in Windows, like shadows etc etc
* Scanned harddrive for viruses, spyware etc.
* Closed all programs and processes that I didn't need.
* Checked that my CPU is cold enough, around 50 Celsius when I play daoc.
(I'm sure I missed alot of stuff i tried)

System spec:
AMD Athlon 2400+
1024mb RAM (2xTwinmos 512mb)
Geforce FX 5700 Ultra 128mb
Asus A7v8x motherboard
Built-in NIC and soundcard(AC97)
300W PowerSupply.

Is it worth buying a new PowerSupply? I mean it is only DAoC I'm having problems with. I played WoW for 6 hours+ without any problem, I tried Doom3 with no problems.

Can it be the powersupply? Imo i doubt it since it is ONLY daoc that I'm having these problems with.

Can it be that my first memorystick is bad? I haven't tried memtest since I thought I should have problems with WoW and other games to if that is the problem.

I'm willing to pay for a solution :>

Had very similar problems. Posted this a while back:

Hope that Ram is not Kingston 'valueRam'. Athlons are very picky when it comes to RAM. Thought my 1024 Mb of Kingston was fine until I upgraded the video card. I First upgraded with a Radeon after hearing good reports. Then the comp kept crashing out of games or just hanging. Only during very intensive graphics in the games. I obviously thought the video card was to blame so went out and purchased a NV 5750 Ultra. I bought the Radeon in Paris whilst there on business and could not take it back for at least a month . This was with a Gigabyte KN8 Pro MoBo with nForce 3 chipset. When the NV showed the same results I started searching the web for answers. Tomshardware.com had some good articles on the Athlon64's and MB combo's with makes of RAM that caused problems. Only wish I read it before I built mine

http://www20.tomshardware.com/mothe...0112/index.html

I went for some low latency Geil memory in the end and now have no problems.

Good luck.

Edit: think the Mobo should be K8N Pro.

 

[Grimmen]

Have you checked your CPU's temperature? Didnt see that you had, sorry if I missed it. Usually PCs reboot when they overheat, due to the CPU safe circuit kicks in and reboots to cool down the CPU. But sometimes your CPU can run a little hot but not hot enough for the circuit to kick in, at this stage your CPU can cause errors and causing game.dll to crash. I have myself had both problems when the computer reboots and when things starts to crash turning out to be heating problem.

My primary problem is that I have a cat and teh sand rom his litter box produces a insane amount of dust, even though I clean the room the fans on my PC sucks that dust in like a vacum cleaner causing heating problems after a while.

I think you should also look your PSU up as that can definatly be another source of problem. 300W is idd a little low.

I am just throwing suggestions here and sharing things I have expierenced myself.

EDIT: NM the cooling part of my post I just saw that you had your eye own the temperature. /slaps himself