Major World Of Warcraft Issues

[MaverickBP]

I believe i've posted about this before but can't remember. I'm pretty damn good when it comes to computers but this problem seems to be escaping me. I'll go ahead and list the issues i've been experiencing and what i've done to correct them. Hopefully someone's had similar issues. When WoW first came out I played for hours on end and had absolutely no issues. I got bored because there was nothing left for me to achieve and quit. When I came back is when I starting getting all my issues. The only thing that had changed on my computer since the original time of play was an upgrade to a 22inch widescreen lcd.


I'll be playing the game and it'll be running fine and then BAM!...the ground will disappear. It will look as if i'm walking in the sky. The buildings will usually vanish and allow me to see through the walls...but they will still be there. The game will become a choppy and I can still move around if I can guess where the entrance/walls are. Eventually the game will just freeze up forcing me to quit. When I get back to my desktop the resolution is now at 640x480 and cannot be changed. The Nvidia control panel option is no longer there as if the graphics card wasn't even installed. One would automatically think it's a graphics card issue as I did but alas...it doesn't look that way. This is what i've done in my troubleshooting. These are things I tried doing on my own and things blizzard support has topics on...


I tried different video drivers to no avail
I bought a new graphics card to no avail
My motherboard went out on me and I had a replacement sent from Asus to no avail
I've flashed my bios to the most recent one to no avail
I got a new power supply when the mobo went out to no avail
I've scanned my systems for viruses/spyware/malware to no avail
I've uninstalled/reinstalled the game to no avail
I've reloaded the game patches to no avail


Well that's what I did last time before I quit the game for a second time. Well I just got back into it and the problems are still there. This only happens with this game. Granted I don't play many other PC games such as this so can't really say for sure if it's isolated to this game. After installed the most recent patch I get the aforementioned problems as well as a new set of errors. The most common one is "insufficient resources to perform the specific request" and is usually attributed to the files "data/patch.mpq" and "data/common.mpq" Well according to blizzard support one of the possibilities for these issues is failing memory and instructs the user to use Microsofts memory tester. Now here comes the fun part...


I run this test and it reports 300,000+ errors on dimm 0 and none on dimm 1. So I have a bad stick right? Wrong. I swapped the stick places and the errors are still being reported on only dimm 0. Which means the problem is with the slot. Well when I exit the bios all of a sudden my system doesn't post! I took the memory out to see if the mobo would give me error beeps and it did so the mobo is still somewhat functional. Finally after some troubleshooting I found out that as long as nothing is in the first 2 slots on the mobo the system will boot. So I have 2x 512 in the #2 blue and the #2 black slots. So while the system sees 1gig it obviously won't be running in dual channel. I run the memory test again and failures all around. Only this time when I check the error log it only posts the errors and doesn't give me a readout for each stick. Kinda like it's saying there's only one stick it's testing. Doesn't even name is dimm 0, dimm 1, etc.

So now my system is up and running with 1 gig in the wrong slots, the first 2 slots apparentely won't allow the system to boot, and the problems with WoW are still there. I'm hoping that possibly someone has had similar issues and can give me some feedback. Obviously it's looking like another bad mobo. I'm just not sure if it's not something else as well. Two bad mobo's in the same system smells funny. Now there's always the possibility that Asus sent me back my bad mobo cause they deemed it ok...i'll be checking on that later tonight. I don't have any extra memory so there goes the possibility of checking those. However if they work in the last two slots but not in the first two, signs would point to the mobo.




So after your wipe the blood out of your eyes from reading all that, hopefully some of you have some thoughts on how to proceed. However it's looking like the obvious bad mobo again. Just not sure if that's what's causing the WoW issue either. Last but not least now when I finish burning a disc sometimes my screen bsod's on me no matter what driver I use. All these problems usually would fall on the mobo cause if not, somebody's fvcking with me cause there's no way all these issues could just be happening.



System specs:

Amd 3200+
Asus A8V Deluxe
2x 512 corsair value
7800gs Nvidia
Audigy 2 zs
Ultra x connect 500w ps
CM Stacker (like this matters)
Lite-On Dvd-rom
Nec 3500a Burner

 

[Schadenfroh]

You also have to look at the possibility of data being corrupted as it is being sent back and forth through the bad ram channels, possibly the problems saved on the hard drive as they were created?

Bad ram on my system screwed up a windows install.

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
You also have to look at the possibility of data being corrupted as it is being sent back and forth through the bad ram channels, possibly the problems saved on the hard drive as they were created?

Bad ram on my system screwed up a windows install.

So you're saying there's a possibility that I had bad ram from the get go and everything that was installed thereafter very possibly could be corrupt since it had to go through the ram in the first place? But what about the 2 channels on my mobo all of a sudden not allowing the system to boot? It's all very confusing.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Yes, this sounds like a case for Dr. House, at least we can rule out Lupas for sure in this case.

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Yes, this sounds like a case for Dr. House, at least we can rule out Lupas for sure in this case.

Lol ya I hear that. At this point i'm willing to take a tongue lashing and get embarressed by him in order to resolve my issue.

 

[MaverickBP]

Anybody else have any ideas? I'm at a loss.

 

[JBT]

I admit I didn't read the whole post but most of it... Did you reload the OS? Id didn't see that anywhere. If the memory or memory slots were doing something weird its certinly possible something with the OS is hosed.

 

[invidia]

corrupted hard drive? I played WoW on a corrupted hard drive before and it showed graphical problems with choppy lag. My initial thought was that my graphics card was going bad. Turns out my hard drive was getting too old.

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: invidia
corrupted hard drive? I played WoW on a corrupted hard drive before and it showed graphical problems with choppy lag. My initial thought was that my graphics card was going bad. Turns out my hard drive was getting too old.

Hmm I guess that is plausible. That would explain why it wasn't happening at first and starting happening down the road. Only thing is I use a 74 gig raptor so it's not old by any means (still could be corrupted though) and I still have that issue with my mobo that draws my attention.

This is all very frustrating.

 

[Anubis]

IMO if its not the Ram its gonna be the HDD, i know what you are talking about and have seen it happen in game, happened to me when my vid card died,
however you replaced that, so im guessing bad memory or a corrupted OS install or failing HDD

it also could be your CPU now that i think about it, WoW is prettu CPU intensive especially when loading lots of stuff like a City, if the CUP is on the way out it coudl also cause this when you need to draw a lot of stuff at once


memtest will test the ram and is pretty foolproof to use
Prime95 or Sandra can do a CPU test and if it locks up you have an issue someplace, SuperPi might also work on a big enough run

 

[se7en]

I had a similar issue a few months back after a patch but I can't remember which one. Mine would result in like you described the world disappearing except for a few fireplaces or maybe a door.

I haven't had the problem since and the only thing I found to have worked was rolling my vid drivers back. I use an old 9800pro OC'd a bit so I always thought it was either the heat, it being a piece of crap or probably both. I ended up finding out alot of people having issues with the latest drivers so I rolled mine back about 3 versions and presto.

Currently Im using the ATI Catalyst drivers from an August build as I wasn't able to get any of the newer ones working 100% the way I thought they should. No problems so far but not to say they wont return one day.

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: Anubis
IMO if its not the Ram its gonna be the HDD, i know what you are talking about and have seen it happen in game, happened to me when my vid card died,
however you replaced that, so im guessing bad memory or a corrupted OS install or failing HDD

it also could be your CPU now that i think about it, WoW is prettu CPU intensive especially when loading lots of stuff like a City, if the CUP is on the way out it coudl also cause this when you need to draw a lot of stuff at once


memtest will test the ram and is pretty foolproof to use
Prime95 or Sandra can do a CPU test and if it locks up you have an issue someplace, SuperPi might also work on a big enough run

Ya the corrupted OS install though would've shown issues from the get go...or should've at least.

The hd failure is A possibility and one I will have to look into.

The cpu idea sounds plausible. It worked in the beginning but could be on the way out and that's why the issue is only presenting itself now. Only thing I worry about is it's been going on for over a year. I'd think the cpu would've gone out by now.

Ya i've ran memtest but it pointed to the board being bad rather than the memory. I'll run some cpu tests tonight.


To Se7en: Ya unfortunately it isn't the graphics card as i've tried multiple drivers and multiple cards

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: JBT
I admit I didn't read the whole post but most of it... Did you reload the OS? Id didn't see that anywhere. If the memory or memory slots were doing something weird its certinly possible something with the OS is hosed.

No I haven't reloaded the OS yet. I didn't think that was the issue as other things work fine and WoW use to work just fine. I rather make sure it's not any other issue because uninstalling an OS and reinstalling the OS/every other application I have is the last option for me. Way too time consuming to try without ruling out other options.

 

[MaverickBP]

Bump before I strap c4 to my machine

 

[videogames101]

Honestly, you NEED to do a clean windows install, it should be the first thing on your list.

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: videogames101
Honestly, you NEED to do a clean windows install, it should be the first thing on your list.

You hate me don't you?


Well I just remembered that I have a spare 250gb drive lying around in my machine doing nothing. So tonight I will install XP on there and WoW to see what happens. Do you guys think I should disconnect all my other drives first to prevention cross contimination if anything is on them causing this?

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

Format and reinstall OS would have been pretty high on my list of possible fixes if I were you. And as a matter of fact my buddy was having *similar* issues with his WoW install, he was unable to see his character, unable to inspect other people, and just having weird problems like that. The only things I tried for him were disabling all his addons (found out quickly that didn't do it), deleting WTF and WDB folders from the WoW directory (also did not work), and formatting his computer.

The format worked...and thank god it did. For some reason WoW is becoming a more compelling game to me lately. Once I got this guy's shit working again we did our 2v2's for the week and it was actually fun! Hard to believe, I have played this game since release, but I have just been going through the motions until recently. With season 3 and the new patch there is a lot to look forward to within the next few weeks.

BTW, I have 3.5k arena points and 45k honor banked for Tuesday (Season 3 release) with my main character (Gnome War)...where do you all stand?

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: tHa ShIzNiT
Format and reinstall OS would have been pretty high on my list of possible fixes if I were you. And as a matter of fact my buddy was having *similar* issues with his WoW install, he was unable to see his character, unable to inspect other people, and just having weird problems like that. The only things I tried for him were disabling all his addons (found out quickly that didn't do it), deleting WTF and WDB folders from the WoW directory (also did not work), and formatting his computer.

The format worked...and thank god it did. For some reason WoW is becoming a more compelling game to me lately. Once I got this guy's shit working again we did our 2v2's for the week and it was actually fun! Hard to believe, I have played this game since release, but I have just been going through the motions until recently. With season 3 and the new patch there is a lot to look forward to within the next few weeks.

BTW, I have 3.5k arena points and 45k honor banked for Tuesday (Season 3 release) with my main character (Gnome War)...where do you all stand?

I just got back into it. I was high warlord on my server back when you had to earn high warlord status. After that and having BWL on farm status back when that was the highest thing to achieve I got bored and quit so haven't done arena's yet.

Leveling a shaman to 60 when we were gods and having the best gear possible means absolute sh!t once BC came out . Before that...I couldn't be stopped.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: tHa ShIzNiT
Format and reinstall OS would have been pretty high on my list of possible fixes if I were you. And as a matter of fact my buddy was having *similar* issues with his WoW install, he was unable to see his character, unable to inspect other people, and just having weird problems like that. The only things I tried for him were disabling all his addons (found out quickly that didn't do it), deleting WTF and WDB folders from the WoW directory (also did not work), and formatting his computer.

The format worked...and thank god it did. For some reason WoW is becoming a more compelling game to me lately. Once I got this guy's shit working again we did our 2v2's for the week and it was actually fun! Hard to believe, I have played this game since release, but I have just been going through the motions until recently. With season 3 and the new patch there is a lot to look forward to within the next few weeks.

BTW, I have 3.5k arena points and 45k honor banked for Tuesday (Season 3 release) with my main character (Gnome War)...where do you all stand?

75k honor and 2K arena points on my Lock
i cant stand areans, IMO they with resiliance runied PVP, i was a former Grand Marshal, ground that out long before you coudl AFK bot it, long before Xrealm BGs, used to love PVP but it honestly sucks now

areans are just team duels, and i always hated dueling

 

[Zbox]

IMO they with resiliance runied PVP

this could not be more true. resilience completely wrecked wow pvp. it is flat out horrible.

 

[MaverickBP]

Originally posted by: Zbox

IMO they with resiliance runied PVP

this could not be more true. resilience completely wrecked wow pvp. it is flat out horrible.

I understand what Resilence is and have heard that it ruined pvp before. Can someone fill in a guy who's taken a long leave of absence in on why it ruined pvp?

 

[MaverickBP]

This is the email blizz just sent me. Good god my eyes!


If you are having an issue where your characters are constantly falling through the game world, there are a couple of things that you may try, to try and isolate the issue. These troubleshooting steps are designed to work out what may be causing the problem so that a resolution can be obtained. If one or more of these steps helps to fix your issue temporarily, please gather the system files requested at the bottom of the email and attach them to a reply email, letting us know what has helped and what has not.

1. First, this issue can happen if the sound card is having problems or out of date drivers. Multiple sound cards conflicting with one another have also been known to cause this in the past. To begin, try adding the -nosound option to the game launcher to see if this helps to prevent your characters from falling through the world. This isn't designed to be a permanent fix, but if this helps then please let us know, it may simply be that you require updated sound card drivers.

Note: Command line options appended to the desktop shortcut will not take effect unless "Show Launcher" is enabled at the login screen of the game.

- Click Start
- Highlight Programs
- Highlight World of Warcraft without clicking on it.
- Right click on the World of Warcraft icon
- Click Properties
- In the Target field, add '-nosound' after the last quotation mark
Example: "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft.exe" -nosound
- Click OK
- Try the game now with the icon you just modified.

2. If the system pauses due to another program trying to gain use of system resources, it can cause the game to miscalculate your characters movement for that split second, resulting in this issue. Please try closing all non-Windows-critical applications, as explained on our support site: http://us.blizzard.com/support...le.xml?articleId=21052

3. There have been some reports coming from users of Dual and Quad core CPU machines that have resolved this by setting the affinity of the game to a single core. If you have a Dual or Quad core system please try the following steps:

- Start the game as normal, go to the login screen
- Hold Alt and press Tab to swap out of the game
- Start the Task Manager program, Hold the Windows Key and press R to bring up a run box, then type TASKMGR in the run box, press enter.
- Click on the processes tab near the top of the Task manager window.
- Find the WoW.exe entry in the list, Right click on this entry and select Set Affinity
- Make sure that only 1 option is Checked, it does not matter which, and un-check the rest
- Click OK
- Click on the Game in the Task bar to bring the game window back to normal, try the game now.

4. Finally, this can also happen from general memory issues. If your system ram has a minor fault it may be storing information incorrectly which can result in game crashes such as error #132's and other odd things happening such as falling through the world.

Doing a scan of the computer's physical memory can help you identify RAM problems which could cause this issue. We are tentatively recommending users try memory scan utilities such as the Windows Memory Diagnostic, available directly from Microsoft:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

We recommend the extended test suite, which takes the longest time to run but is the most thorough test suite available with this tool. Advanced users may wish to try using only one stick of ram in their system to see if this helps prevent the problem from happening. This can let you know if there may be a problem with a stick of ram.

If you have Windows Vista, this already has a Memory (RAM) Diagnostic Tool that you can use. Using this tool will require a reboot so please save any documents you have open.

If the memory test comes back with no errors, In order to troubleshoot this issue further for you, we will need to collect some diagnostic information about your computer and your game error and log files. Please email to wowtech@blizzard.com your dxdiag.txt, msinfo.txt, and your World of Warcraft error and log files to your reply for further diagnosis.

To obtain the systems diagnostic files, follow the instructions below:

For Windows Vista:

Important! - Please reboot your system prior to creating the dxdiag and msinfo files.

To obtain the DXDIAG file:

1. Press the Windows Key (the key with the Windows logo on your keyboard) + R (at the same time).
2. Type in DXDIAG and press Enter or click 'OK', this will open the DirectX diagnostic tool.
3. Click on the 'Save All Information' Button (save this file to your Windows desktop and name it dxdiag).

To obtain the MSINFO file:

1. Press the Windows Key (the key with the Windows logo on your keyboard) + R (at the same time).
2. Type in MSINFO32 and press Enter or click 'OK'. This will open the MSINFO diagnostic panel.
3. Click "File" in the top left, then click "Export" - this will prompt you to choose a location to save the file.
4. When the "Export As" window appears, choose the Desktop to save your file.
5. Click "Save"

For Windows XP/2000:

Important Note: Please reboot your system prior to creating the dxdiag and msinfo files.

1. Click on Start.
2. Click on Run.
3. Type in DXDIAG and press Enter or click OK, this will open the DirectX diagnostic tool. Run the DirectDraw, Direct3D and DirectSound tests found under the Display and Sound tabs before creating the dxdiag.txt file.
4. Click on the Save All Information Button (save this file to your windows desktop and name it dxdiag).
5. Click on the More Help tab and open the Microsoft system information tool (MSInfo).
6. Click on File and choose Export (save this file to your windows desktop as a text file and name it MSInfo). Please make sure to save this file as a .txt file and NOT as a .nfo file.

*Special MSinfo Instructions for Windows 2000 users:

1. Create your dxdiag.txt file as explained above
2. Now choose the More Help tab
3. Click the MSInfo button
4. Important! - Be sure to highlight the System Information in the top left
5. Go to the Action menu, choose All Tasks, Save As Text File
6. Save the file to your Desktop and name the file msinfo.txt.

To obtain your World of Warcraft Error files, follow the instructions below:

1. Open the My Computer Icon
2. Open the Hard Disk with the (C label on the end (Or whichever Hard Disk the game was installed on).
3. Open the Program Files folder
4. Open the World of Warcraft folder
5. There should now be a list of files and folders, look for the "Errors" folder.
6. Open this folder and you will find your Error files.
7. Make sure you attach the .txt version of these Error files.

To obtain your World of Warcraft Log files, follow the instructions below:

1. Open the My Computer Icon
2. Open the Hard Disk with the (C label on the end (Or whichever Hard Disk the game was installed on).
3. Open the Program Files folder
4. Open the World of Warcraft folder
5. There should now be a list of files and folders, look for the "Logs" folder.
6. Open this folder and you will find your Log files.

Now attach the msinfo.txt, dxdiag.txt, your game error .txt files and your game log files to your reply email.

Some email programs limit the amount of attachments you can send. If possible please archive the files you are sending in Zip format. This will compile all of the files into a single archive which can make it easier to email.



Christopher T
Technical Support
www.blizzard.com




Customer satisfaction is a top priority here at Blizzard Entertainment, and we would like your feedback on the level of service you have received. Please feel free to provide such feedback at the following web address: http://us.blizzard.com/support...t=maverickbp@gmail.com

-----Original Message-----
From: maverickbp@gmail.com
To: web.support@blizzard.com
Sent: 11/25/2007 8:47:35 PM
Subject: Support - World of Warcraft - Crashes, Error Messages and Lockups

Name: Robert
Email: maverickbp@gmail.com
Region: United States

Account Information -----------------------
Account Name: maverickbp
Character Name: mavshunter
Realm: Bleeding Hollow

System Information ------------------------
System IP:
System ISP:
System Cpu Model: PC AMD Athlon 64
System Cpu Speed: 2000+
System Operating System: Windows XP Service Pack 2
System Ram: 1024+MB
System Sound Card: SB Audigy 2
System Video Card: nVidia GeForce 7800

 

[invidia]

Originally posted by: MaverickBP

Originally posted by: Zbox

IMO they with resiliance runied PVP

this could not be more true. resilience completely wrecked wow pvp. it is flat out horrible.

I understand what Resilence is and have heard that it ruined pvp before. Can someone fill in a guy who's taken a long leave of absence in on why it ruined pvp?

No......... resilience made it so you can't one shot someone in pvp. Not fun if you didn't stand a chance because some idiot 3-minute mage crits you for 10.9k damage.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: invidia

Originally posted by: MaverickBP

Originally posted by: Zbox

IMO they with resiliance runied PVP

this could not be more true. resilience completely wrecked wow pvp. it is flat out horrible.

I understand what Resilence is and have heard that it ruined pvp before. Can someone fill in a guy who's taken a long leave of absence in on why it ruined pvp?

No......... resilience made it so you can't one shot someone in pvp. Not fun if you didn't stand a chance because some idiot 3-minute mage crits you for 10.9k damage.

Of course there is something to be said for speccing and gearing so once every 5 minutes you can give someone WTFBBQPWNGE, and then the next 4:59 you have to run around like hell or be annihilated by everyone that is kinda self balancing. But that concept is so far above the average WoW player it's like delving into quark theory.

 

[MaverickBP]

Ok update. I didn't get the chance to do the fresh install yet but that will come. I updated my sound card drivers as blizz tech support instructed to no avail. I realized the memory issue earlier that made the computer not post may of been my error. Either way I tried to put the sticks but in the appropriate slots and the system posted. When the sticks were in the wrong slots the system said I had 1gig but msinfo on the dxdiag tool only showed 512 . However after I put them back in their appropriate slots it shows 1gig. Now here's some more confusing test results. When I run microsofts memory tester I get errors galore on dimm 0 but none on dimm 1 no matter what stick is in what slot. However when I ran memtest everything passed with 0 errors after a couple hours of running. Everything showed no errors...but memtest stated my memory was 166mhz or ddr333.... I have 2 sticks of corsair value pc3200 ddr400 in their and the bios is setup to use them appropriately.

Also I checked my motherboard box and the motherboard asus sent back to me and the serials don't match. Which means "more than likely" they replaced my other motherboard and didn't just send it back to me.