SC2 Graphical errors + hard freeze

[yh125d]

e7200 @ stock
8800GT
4gb
XP 64b
etc

Brother buys SC2 and installs. About 5s after he gets to the actual gameplay screen on any map or tutorial it freezes and has red graphical artifacts all over. Completely unresponsive to ctrl alt del, alt f4, etc, and needs to be hard reset. I ran driver cleaner in safe mode, reinstalled new drivers, no change. Reinstalled OS with win 7 64 bit and all new drivers, no change. Runs all the cinematics/menus fine, as well as all other games. I already ruled out any heat issues

I checked here and blizzards forums and found a little bit regarding graphical errors but nothing seemed to apply here really. Any ideas/known issues?

Bad picture, after ~20s it starts to flash black across the screen as well
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o130/yh125d/IMAG0041.jpg

 

[Fenixgoon]

download rivatuner and find out what temperatures the video card is getting to. honestly those sound like classic symptoms of overheating, though i find it rather odd that SC2 would be the game to do it.

 

[yh125d]

It's not heat related

 

[skace]

How are you certain it's not heat related?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Update your drivers. Check your temps. The menu's in Starcraft 2 are supposed to have an issue where they are basically like running a stress test on your GPU. Not sure if that problem still exists, but it was there. Sounds like overheating to me also.

 

[beginner99]

Update your drivers. Check your temps. The menu's in Starcraft 2 are supposed to have an issue where they are basically like running a stress test on your GPU. Not sure if that problem still exists, but it was there. Sounds like overheating to me also.

this unless it was patched. Temps where higher than under furmark load.

Do other games work?

 

[yh125d]

.........


Again, heat is NOT an issue in any way, I have ruled it out. Drivers are up to date. Menus and other games work fine. RTMFOP?

 

[skace]

About 5s after he gets to the actual gameplay screen on any map or tutorial it freezes and has red graphical artifacts all over. Completely unresponsive to ctrl alt del, alt f4, etc, and needs to be hard reset.

.........
Again, heat is NOT an issue in any way, I have ruled it out. Drivers are up to date. Menus and other games work fine. RTMFOP?

How are you certain it's not heat related?

Heh. You are artifacting and crashing HARD. I'll tell you what that isn't: a software issue. So either it's heat, your motherboard and or video card are about to explode, or your power supply isn't up to the task. Enjoy.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Could be drivers anyways because I think nvidia have stopped supporting the 8800 series with their newer driver releases haven't they? Not sure since I'm on ATi now.

 

[AVP]

Same thing here, cannot play my copy of starcraft 2, at all, on my 8800gt.

setting max fps to 30 and lowering settings did prolong the inevitable crash though.

 

[Elcs]

.........


Again, heat is NOT an issue in any way, I have ruled it out. Drivers are up to date. Menus and other games work fine. RTMFOP?

You have an HD48XX card.

Check your VRM temps at crash.

 

[yh125d]

You have an HD48XX card.

Check your VRM temps at crash.

.........


Again, heat is NOT an issue in any way, I have ruled it out. Drivers are up to date. Menus and other games work fine. RTMFOP?

This is my brother's computer we're talking about here, with an 8800GT







And how do I know it's not heat? I checked. GPU and MEMIO both fine. NB fine. CPU fine. HD fine. Everything fine.

It's not PSU either. Silverstone 500w that recently ran a GTX 470.



I guess it may just be a specific GPU + starcraft problem like AVP said. Oh well.

 

[skace]

Take the 8800GT and put it in your system. If SC2 runs fine, the video card is fine. If SC2 doesn't run fine, the video card is bad.

 

[Cerb]

And how do I know it's not heat? I checked. GPU and MEMIO both fine. NB fine. CPU fine. HD fine. Everything fine.

You are contradicting yourself. If it hard locks after only a few seconds, you can't be sure that it's fine, even right then. GPUs can go up tens of degrees C in a second. Also, it could be damage over time, that is just now showing up.

Either way: there is something wrong with hardware, most likely the 8800GT.

People with poor video cooling have had their video cards killed running SC2. It's not just one little GPU and this game. SC2 appears to be a great video card stress-tester.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Looks like heat related to me as well.

My 4830 can drop 14C in just under a second after stopping furmark. Unless you run dual monitors and see it, you wont.

 

[AVP]

I don't believe that it is temperature related.

I have an 8800gt with accelero s1 and a 120m fan on it. Temps on load are in the 60s, 30 degrees cooler than with the stock cooler. Every game runs fine, bfbc2, global agenda, etc.

Have tried this: frameratecapglue=30 frameratecap=30

Also found a registry fix on the forums whereby I increase the time that the video card has to report to windows that it is working, where normally if the videocard could not relay the message in time it would shutdown...battle.net forums down so I cannot find it.

Nothing works. I played on my brother's laptop and was let down anyways.

 

[yh125d]

You are contradicting yourself. If it hard locks after only a few seconds, you can't be sure that it's fine, even right then. GPUs can go up tens of degrees C in a second. Also, it could be damage over time, that is just now showing up.

Either way: there is something wrong with hardware, most likely the 8800GT.

People with poor video cooling have had their video cards killed running SC2. It's not just one little GPU and this game. SC2 appears to be a great video card stress-tester.

He does have dual monitors, I checked it as it was happening, and it has a scythe musashi cooling it. Once again, it IS NOT HEAT! Being told multiple times that its probably what I've had to say multiple times it isn't - not so helpful.

And SC2 wasn't killing cards because it was a stressful game, it was because of a software bug.


I'll try tomorrow putting my 4890 in to confirm its a problem with 8800gts in general. Thanks ago

 

[skace]

Even though you've said it multiple times, there is still a real good chance that you are 100% wrong. It could be a component that doesn't even have a sensor on it, you realize that right? The fact is, your symptoms are caused by hardware overheating. Not bad code in SC2. If the application was crashing, that would be another story.

And AvP, I had an Accelero on both of my 8800GTs in my last computer, it caused my motherboard to overheat. The video card wasn't a problem because the heat sinks were doing their job, but all the heat buildup between the card and the motherboard was absolutely killing the thing. The system was fine in a lot of various scenarios and games as well, but every once in awhile I'd find something that would cook it. Motherboards from that generation had a terrible oversight on proper heatsinks for north and south bridge chips.

yh states he has checked that, but I really don't think he should be so quick to rule it out. The problem is he doesn't realize how absolutely ridiculous it is to think it's some code inside Starcraft 2, like there is an if-then-else statement that causes 8800GTs to artifact and the entire computer to grind to a halt.

My new system has a massive GTX295 and I bought this motherboard to go with it:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3527#ov
Can you spot why? I'll give you a hint, check out the huge heatsink under where the video card usually sits. A lot of motherboard designers realized this critical flaw and have remedied it.

Also keep in mind that some sensors report incorrect numbers and some sensors flat out don't work. You would need to check the motherboard and video card manuf website and the tool you are using to ensure compatibility and accurate read outs.

I'm not guaranteeing it is a heat issue, I'm just showing how faulty your logic is that you are absolutely sure it isn't a heat issue. You think you've ruled something out but you've barely scratched the surface. If it isn't heat, I'd blame power next.

 

[EarthwormJim]

I had the same EXACT issue with my 8800gt. Stable in every single game I own except SC2, even at stock speeds. Was also not heat related, the GPU never got above 60c.

It turns out the issue was with 3d portraits, disable 3d portraits and see if that helps.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

SC2 killed cards not because of a software bug, it was the battlecruiser in the menu (now gone!) that absolutely stressed cards to the max. It was poor cooling on the cards that killed the cards. There was no bug. It was just more intense than furmark.

Also, you might want to just disable 3d prts. They are a know issue with some cards.

 

[yh125d]

Yep, gave him my 4890 and it runs like a charm. Whaddaya know, it wasn't heat after all...






-_-




thanks AVP/jim

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Wait, is my sarcasm meter broken?

Was it just the card?

 

[yh125d]

Yes, apparently its just one of the 8800GTs that won't run SC2