Games crash to Desktop (HD5770)

Taura

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Hello,

recently games crash to desktop for no apparent reason. I mainly play Borderlands and Bad Company 2 and both games crash to desktop almost at the exact same time. It's not like they crash during 10 -50 minutes timeframe but rather exactly after 8 minutes of playing. At least it feels like it (*actually might have to measure it*). I have this problem since sunday. Nothing like this ever happened before. I then updated my CCC but still the same problem. I checked temperatures of my CPU and GPU. CPU lingers around 65°C and my GPU at around 57°C under full load. Games run smoothly but then the screen freezes for a few seconds, sound's still running a bit, and crashes to desktop without an error message. I checked my RAM using err.exe and memtest (let it run until 400% coverage) -> no errors, voltage is around 12.4V. Spybot didn't find any malware, neither did Avira.

My System:
AMD Phenom II X3 740 heka Black Edition
ASUS M4A88T-V EVO/USB3
4GB Kingston Value RAM DDR3-1333
Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor X
Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA-300
PSU: Zalman ZM600-HP

I really have difficulties troubleshooting this one and I hope I can find answers here.
 
Is this the atikmdag, your display driver has shut down and has recovered?

This is a toughie, but the few times I got it, I also got a windows error saying flash had crashed, so maybe try updating flash player. I haven't had it happen since then.
 

Taura

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I don't think so. Did as you say bu to no avail. I don't even get an error message. I tried playing Bad Company 2 two times now and exactly after 8 minutes the game crashes to desktop. Anyway just being in the menu of the game itself doesn't cause a crash as I can be there like forever without anything happening, but as soon as I start playing it will crash. Since it only happens in games I suspect the graphics card. I exclude overheating. Mainboard is at 41°, CPU at 55° and the graphics card didn't even get warm like pretty much all the other parts.
 

leon2006

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Hi Taura

When it crash does it reboot your machine or remain off? Do you get black screen or blue screen.?

Have you check you machine with Prime95 ,and furmark?

Common cause of crash when playing games is insufficient PSU. Check your PSU from this site. It provides a good assessment/review on the quality of PSU.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/index.php

Calculate your load and compare it with the actual capacity of your PSU

http://www.antec.outervision.com/

I'm not too confident of ZALMAN psu.

Have you check your PC with Prime95 and furmark....When you run this test use hw-monitor to check the power consumption of your CPU, GPU, and motherboard.

I run this tests for extended hours (i.e. at night or when i don't have a scheduled task for my machines).

 

leon2006

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Here's one of the review of your PSU

It seems to be discent or good.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Zalman-ZM600-HP-600-W-Power-Supply-Review/402/11


Calculate your load and make sure it is sufficient. It seems to be but its better to be sure.

Also try to update your game and see if there are patches needed. Also check the game forum and you will get more information if your problem is unique or something other users also encounter

 
You said you updated CCC, but what about the drivers? I mean CCC and the actual drivers can be downloaded separately, did you download and install the package drive or an individual driver?

Your power supply is more than sufficient.

Are you overclocking your cpu? If so, clock it back to stock and see if problem persists. If I'm not mistaken those cpu's aren't recommended to go over 62c, so it may be throttling. It is getting warmer now so temps tend to go up in summer.
 

Taura

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Hi,

I did what you asked for and my power supply is sufficient. I ran Prime 95 for an hour now and my CPU heats up to 59°. If the game crashes it just crashes to the desktop, no reboot so far. The game just freezes for two to three seconds and immidiately goes to the desktop. The process of the game is also terminated. I am about to run Furmark as soon as CCleaner is done having its way with my system.
 

Taura

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Hi,

I downloaded the latest CCC Suite (Catalyst Software Suite 11.3(3/29/2011)) from the Sapphire homepage, it says drivers are included. I am not overclocking my CPU. My first information regarding CPU temperatures are wrong btw. since I wasn't home while writing the opening post. Prime95 pushed my CPU up to 59°, it ran an hour.
 

leon2006

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Hi Taura

I run Prime95, furmark, memtest for at least 4 hrs to 8 hrs. That is to make sure that there is no failure for that duration. During my run i datalog the temperature and current consumption of my PC (hw monitor, CPU ID).

Your temperature is not too bad. It should still pass. It will not cause failure.

One thing you can do is make sure your bios settings for your memory match with the specs of your DRAM module. Default always work but its always good to match the settings to the dram specs.

Check for game patch or update. Game makers have forums you can pick up a lot of information on that. Somebody may have encountered your issue and have know fixes.

The way you describe your crash it seems that it close the game and return to desktop so the OS is still OK. It seems to be more of a software issue than hardware one. It may be addressed by software updates of the game.

Also update your bios and drivers (including the motherboard) not just the GPU.

For ATI ... Use ATI drivers from ATI website not from the GPU maker.

Cheers
 

Taura

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Hi,

I checked the forums and Bad Company 2 does crash to desktop sometimes, but I already knew that. At first I checked Punkbuster but that didn't fix it either. Even my EventViewer doesn't tell me anything or maybe I am not looking right. On a related note, Borderlands still crashes but I did get an error message this time as well as an entry in my EventViewer.exe.
I updated my BIOS and several other devices but to no avail.
I checked my device manager this morning and its telling me that ATItools has unsigned drivers. Does this help?

Thanks in advance!
 

Taura

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65 degrees is too hot for that cpu. reapply thermal. check your ventilation


I am sorry I should've clarified earlier but my initial info about the CPU temperature were wrong since I wrote my opening post not on my home PC to check. I doublechecked it with Prime95 and the CPU goes up to 59°.
 

Pc Guru_07

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Sound drivers,anti virus,lan drivers.There may be other important services depending upon the type of applications installed by OP.And doing this may prevent the game from starting.OP's problem is more related towards software.He can try game booster.What about other games?YOu can try prime 95 to test cpu and furmak to test gpu.
 

Taura

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what important startup items?

Click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box.<-----------------------Whats that?
Never seen a clean boot brick a pc. Its there for troubleshooting


I did what you asked for, but the games still crash. I have Prime95 running now and my CPU is at 60°. I sill have the matter of the unsigned driver but i don't know if this is relevant. Windows decided to give me today an error message for the appcrash of Borderlands:

Faulting application name: Borderlands.exe, version: 1.4.1.0, time stamp: 0x4cb4e5ae
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x05c78c03
Faulting process id: 0x1db4
Faulting application start time: 0x01cbf9b68a79edf2
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\2K Games\Gearbox Software\Borderlands GOTY Edition\Binaries\Borderlands.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: 21edf02e-65ac-11e0-9bc5-20cf30ab3700

This information is collected from EventViewer.exe.
 

Taura

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Both games are up to date. Bluescreenview didn't find any .dmp files and appcrashview doesn't find anything regarding Bad Company 2. It's as this application never started. I did find an xml formated crashfile for Bad Company 2 from today though.
 

Taura

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Here is the crashreport file for Bad Company 2 I found, I can't read that maybe you:

<report>
<version>
2
</version>
<sessionid>
38fb22844da59c6e
</sessionid>
<type>
crash
</type>
<sku>
ea.dice.RomePC.Cl
</sku>
<createtime>
2011-04-13 12:55:14
</createtime>
<buildsignature>
602574
</buildsignature>
<systemconfig/>
<categoryid>
0x98C03
</categoryid>
<stack>
0x98C03 0x75EF5F74 0x75EE7809 0x75EF5F74 0x11DBE13 0x75BE4505 0x1000000 0x1000100 0x1000001 0x1000000 0x75BE7502 0x75BE6F1C 0x75BE39F5 0x75BE433F 0x75C00FFF 0x75C00CB6 0x75C00F8F 0x20000 0x75EF62D5 0x2C8410D0 0x75EF6381 0x75EE80A9 0x20000 0x75EE80BB 0x75F4A61E 0x75EE80BB 0x77D6F8DA 0x75EE8148 0x77D6011A 0x77D60080 0x20000 0x2C841030 0x77DB439F 0x75EF0735 0x75EF60ED 0x75EF60DC 0x76BE1725 0x76BE1725 0x75EF5F74 0x5A96BC 0x75EE7BBB 0x5A96D7 0x76BE1725 0x5B46C5 0x51DCEB 0x1504C42 0x76BE1136 0x51DEF9 0x75D20849 0x5198FE
</stack>
<threads/>
<screenshot/>
<memdump/>
<contextdata>
registers: Edi 05350000, Esi 05350002, Ebx 00000001, Edx 052d08e8, Ecx 05250e78, Eax 052d0501 Ebp 000003e9, Eip 00098c03, Esp 1ea3fa78
</contextdata>
</report>
 

Taura

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I have maxed out almost anything except MSAA which is at 4x instead of 8x. Since I only have an 19" Screen my maximum resolution is 1280x1024. I am now reinstalling the game, maybe that fixes it.
 

Taura

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delete the my documents BFBC2 folder


Si I just tested it, and apparantly I can play as much as I want when I run this game as administrator. You think my profile files in my user folder are corrupted?