UT2k4 random freezes

[Speedo]

System spec first:
3200+ Winchester
A8N-SLI Deluxe, 1004 final bios
Leadtek PX6600GT TDH Extreme
Seasonic Tornardo 400W PSU
WD Raptor 74GB
1GB Geil Ultra RAM

Overclocked to 2.5GHz (250x10). Mem at Cas2, 1T, set to "DDR333".
Prime stable 24+
Memtest stable 24h+
3DMark03 stable 24h+
Prime + 3DMark03 24h+ stable

nForce 6.53
Foreware 71.84
DEP turned off in boot.ini
UT2k4 patched to 3355

UT2k4 is the only game I play and I recently made this sytem upgrade to get a boost in FPS. First I got the BSOD caused by DEP and the nVidia drivers. When the 71.84 came, that problem was solved. But a problem I still have is that I get random freezes while playing. When the nForce 6.53 drivers came, I was hoping that would solve the problems, but it didn't.

Sometimes I can play for over an hour until it freezes. It is not heat related, becuase it has freezed while the ambient temp was very low.

I'm going crazy over this! I have tried everything I can possibly think of. And everytime I think I have fixed it, it freezes on me again.

 

[Speedo]

bump

 

[imported_fatal]

Have you tried setting the memory & CPU back to default settings?

 

[airfoil]

Originally posted by: fatal
Have you tried setting the memory & CPU back to default settings?

:laugh:

I'd try that first!

 

[Donutz]

I am having the same problem after building a new computer and leaving everything at "stock" settings... I have a K8n-e deluxe athlon 64, 3200+ processor, 1024 ballistix ram, 550w true power, geforce4ti4800se...never had a prob before until I built this new system and it freezes up for several seconds or so then gets moving again!

 

[hemiram]

This kind of sounds like what happens when I try to OC my system. If I do it manually in BOIS, or do it with the preset 5%, 10%, etc, it will sit and play audio files and video clips all day. But if I play Far Cry, Zero Hour, or anything else that stresses it, it will, sooner or later, crash and reboot itself. It's gone almost an hour one time. My CPU is 73 degrees F at idle, and I have never seen it over 84F even at 10% OC running at 100% usage. There are 8 fans in the case and there is so much air going through the case that the outside of the case, is cold, like 60 degrees. Even the PS is under 85F at the heat sinks.

Other than the OC problem, the thing is solid a s a rock, never crashes unless it's loading a bad file, and all the benchmarks come back right on spec.

 

[Speedo]

Yes, I guess I'll have to set it back to default just to verify. But I have been overclocking since the days of Pentium-I, and I usually know when a system is stable. Something just isn't right here. It feels like a driver problem.

When I was using the older Forceware drivers, I was just messing around to get rid of the BSOD, so I'm not sure the freezes existed then. Maybe I'll try reverting to the 6x.xx drivers and see what happens, even though I don't have much hope.

Donutz: Yes, I have built many many systems over the years, and of course I have had to deal with some issues here and there, but this must be one of the worst. Honestly, I'm quite dissapointed by this product from Asus. Ironic since I choosed Asus for stability even though I'm not using the SLI feature. Never before have I experienced so many BSOD for various reasons.

What's worse is that I simultaniously built similar systems for two of my friends, and they are experiencing similar problems. In my system, UT freezes hard, and I can barely get to the desktop and restart the system, while on of my friends system is more like you describe; it pauses for a while (with sound stuttering/repeating) and after a while he can get back into the game again.

Donutz: To try to figure out the problem, could we see what we have in common? Which version/patch for UT are you using?

 

[Toley]

Can you play other games? Stress testing with 3Dmark05? I would just reinstall Windows and everything - drivers, etc. I have an SLI system too. It seems there are still some driver problems with certain games.

 

[ribbon13]

Have you tried the Omega drivers?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Toley
Can you play other games? Stress testing with 3Dmark05? I would just reinstall Windows and everything - drivers, etc. I have an SLI system too. It seems there are still some driver problems with certain games.

Hes not running SLI though, its a single 6600GT.

It would help if you told us what the BSOD was as well.

 

[Appledrop]

Originally posted by: Speedo
Yes, I guess I'll have to set it back to default just to verify. But I have been overclocking since the days of Pentium-I, and I usually know when a system is stable. Something just isn't right here. It feels like a driver problem.

When I was using the older Forceware drivers, I was just messing around to get rid of the BSOD, so I'm not sure the freezes existed then. Maybe I'll try reverting to the 6x.xx drivers and see what happens, even though I don't have much hope.

Donutz: Yes, I have built many many systems over the years, and of course I have had to deal with some issues here and there, but this must be one of the worst. Honestly, I'm quite dissapointed by this product from Asus. Ironic since I choosed Asus for stability even though I'm not using the SLI feature. Never before have I experienced so many BSOD for various reasons.

What's worse is that I simultaniously built similar systems for two of my friends, and they are experiencing similar problems. In my system, UT freezes hard, and I can barely get to the desktop and restart the system, while on of my friends system is more like you describe; it pauses for a while (with sound stuttering/repeating) and after a while he can get back into the game again.

Donutz: To try to figure out the problem, could we see what we have in common? Which version/patch for UT are you using?

if your friends are using nforce3s then that could be a fast writes issue - see if using rivatuner to turn off fastwrites (doesnt work in bios i think) helps them with that stutter issue.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Common issues with UT2k4:

Not defragging enough-can cause stuttering and, in some cases, freezes.

Viruses & Spyware-I had a serious issue with this while playing UT2k4, I had to run AV & AS constantly.

Overclocking can make your system unstable-for some reason UT2k4 hated alot of the overclocked system setups.

Viruses & Spyware-did I mention this one?

Power consumption-your new system is going to eat more power so it may be your PSU crapping out, especially if you can play normally after a reboot.

Viruses & Spyware-I may not have emphasized this enough.

You may also want to run disk cleanup, clear out your internet history, and go into safe mode & run your AV, AS, & defrag occasionally...and make sure you unplug your Ethernet cable when doing this.

 

[Speedo]

First of all, thanks for all the comments.

Toley: As I said, I have/play no other games. Yes, it's also stable in 3DMark05, but I can't setup a continues 24h loop there.

ribbon13: Omega drivers? Nope... which drivers are they based on? What are the difference compared to the nVidia "original" drivers? Btw, thought Omega drivers were only for ATI cards...

Acanthus: I don't get any BSODs anymore. But before they were caused by a "known issue with UT2k4 and DEP" as I've learned. The BSOD showed the message "IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL". But this is not a problem with the latest Forceware drivers OR DEP turned off.

Azzy64: Actually my friends systems are based on the same mobo (one is non-deluxe though and 6600 non GT). Gone thru hell with one of those systems, since we flashed it to the 1006 bios, and couldn't go back to 1004 while keeping the overclock, no matter how much we resetted CMOS etc.

Pr0d1gy: Unfortunately it's not just stutter, but freezes. I can barely get into the desktop and restart the system if I'm really patient. It's like there's some endless loop going on in UT, sucking upp all CPU resources. The system is really clean, and all partitions are defragged. Since the install, I haven't even done any web browsing, except Anandtech, just to keep the system clean while searching for the problem. I also have a ghost clone I made just when all the drivers and stuff were installed which I have reverted to everytime I had to hard-reset.


Since I made the original post, I have found out one more thing. These "Extreme" edition cards are overclocked by default to 550/1.12. Now, just for testing, I used the forceware coolbits and enabled the overclocking pannel on mine and my friends system (which have identical mobo/gfx card). The interesting thing I found out is that the test the nVidia drivers make before they approve the setting, accepted quite a bit of o/c on my friends card. On my card however, I couldn't up the memory clock even one notch. Even worse, when underclocking one step, and going back to default (1.12GHz), I even got the message that I had to "back up and try again". I also think I read somewhere that there were some faulty 6600GT cards flouting around, although I only saw them mention AGP flavours. Anyway, I have tried swapping gfx card with my friend and are going to see what happens.

What's so annoying is that it takes such a long time to verify if a change I make fixes the problem or not. I have to sit down and play for hours... I have no way to reproduce the problem instantly.

 

[MaxisOne]

Heres a copy of my Issues and attemps to fix and I have the Exact same problem ...

Well .. Since Fs 2K4 I have been constanty upgrading my System Switching Between ATI and Nvidia Cards and AMD and intel Cpus.. Well ... I recently managed to upgrade again to an Evga 6800Ultra from an X800 pro and i must say im not happy with the card's performance at all

System Specs
AMD athlon 64 3500
1 gig Corsair Value Select @ 2.5-3-3-8
MSI-K8N-NEO2 Platinum
Fresh format and reinstall

I play only 2 Games .. Fs2K4 and UT2K4

With my x800pro I could lock Fs2k4 @ 30 Fps and Flying into Heathrow/JFK in Thunderstorms my lowest frames would be in the mid to upper teens

With the 6800U my lowest Frame was 10 !!! .. I havent seen 10 since my 9800 Pro days ... and getting to that was rare indeed.

The Clouds and water effects that are Rendered do not look as realistic as the x800 pro and as soon as the 6800U has to render a cumulous cloud the frames drop to the low 20's to high teens.. This was never a problem with the x800pro . I usually take my screenshots with the FPS counter on for reference and i have gotten comments about the excellent frames that my system usually generates..

For Unreal Tournament... I wont even get into that ... Im getting lower frames + a 10 second freeze that occurs randomly and lost some close games because of that.

Now before you all start suggesting stuff ill let you know what ive tried to get this thing working properly

1. Reformatted the System--- I Still Havent Gotten all my AC installed again (painful)
2 .Adjusted Fast Writes (works with X800pro ... Lost 2000 aquamarks with it turned off on the 6800U) My thought on this is that Its there to be used .. not turned off to get it to work properly.
3. Adjusted AGP aperture size.
4. Updated Graphics and Nforce 3 Drivers (Numerous times)
5. Adjusted PCI latencies
6 .Purchased a New Power Supply
7 .Turned off The Hidden Neo 2 Platinum ATI./NVIDIA Speedup option (That option casued my system to hang with the 6800U EVERYTIME... No probs with the X800pro)
8. Run the System Un optimized and without Dynamic Overclocking enabled (which works with the x800pro)
9. Updated Motherboard Bios to the latest 1.5
10. Changed AGP Voltages..
11. Checked and verified temps to make sure that they are within operating range
12. Ensure that all game settings and graphics settings were identical.
13. Verified that the Video Card is not sharing IRQ with the Sound Card or any other MAJOR .. device.
With all that I still the freezing and sub par performance and this card is not even the default EVGA Ultra with the regular 400/1000 clocks.. its the Special EVGA version that has a mild overclock similar to the BFG models that Neweeg sells with the clocks default @ 425/1100

Now with the above specs the best aquamark score i got was approx 69500 and 3dmark 05 score was 5xxx which is about right for my specs so i know the card is working at its potential.. It just seems like its not playing nice with my setup.. As a result I think im going to cut my losses.. sell the card at a loss and make up the money and get an x800xt or xtpe.. because honestly the past three weeks have been grief with this card.

Yes i know that some may comment that they have no problems with their card but I didnt spend 30 minutes for someone to tell me that.. What i do want to know is if there is some setting that i am missing that i did not try? Im going to be trying for one final weekend and if it still wont play nice then its off to the Anand tech forums for sale for around 380.00

So any suggestions ?

 

[Speedo]

MaxisOne: Well, you obviously don't have the same hardware as me. But the common thing is the nForce4 chipset?

I would like to know, what Forceware driver version are you using? In my case, bad performance does not seem to be an issue, just the freezes. I get very nice framerates in UT2K4.

 

[Jon855]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
Have you tried the Omega drivers?

They have good drivers support, freq updated.

 

[JackBurton]

Speedo, have you tried disabling you anti-virus software to see if that is your cause?

 

[MaxisOne]

What are yout UT2K4 Settings ???Maybe im expecting too much ?? In any case Im using the lastest Nforce 3 chipset and Latest Forceware Drivers .. 71.84 or something like that i believe.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Speedo, have you tried disabling you anti-virus software to see if that is your cause?

^^^Excellent point, I had to disable my firewall to get UT2k4 to run properly. Then I subsequently caught a couple of nasty viruses while playing...lol Of course I was on Service Pack 1 XP with a cable line so I might as well have put a huge target on my forehead for viruses to shoot at.

Since you say your comp is clean & the other guy said he has a new power supply, the only suggestions I could make are overheating or overclocking.

HERE'S A GREAT QUESTION FOR BOTH OF YOU: How does it play offline in single player with ALOT of bots? If it does this well then your connection could be a big problem. Of course it shouldn't cause freezing, but it would be something to check out. If it takes awhile for it to happen I would play the single player for a few hours & see what happens...it's worth a shot.

 

[Speedo]

MaxisOne: I guess its not appropriate to list ALL my UT2k4 settings here, but if you refer to graphic settings they are at high or normal. Res is 1024x768x32. Framerate is very good.

To answer the question about antivirus and firewall: I have no antivirus installed, and the windows firewall is disabled. I'm behind a NAT, which do run both antivirus and firewall. That server is also running the UT2k4 server I'm usually playing on (That is, on the same gigabit LAN).

Also, before I got this system, I have played UT2k4 A LOT on my old setup (barton@2.3GHz & Radeon 9800Pro) so I know pretty much how it should behave.

Tonight I reverted back to the 6.93 Forceware drivers, and have played for about an hour without freeze. Right now I'm hoping that the problem lies in the 71.84 drivers, but I have to play a lot more to know for sure. If the problem persists, the only thing left is to clock down to default speed and test, eventhough I havent seen ANY signs of instability outside UT2k4...

 

[Speedo]

Ok, one more session of gaming without a freeze. But it doesn't mean I'm there yet...
One more thing I did besides going back to older Forcewaredrivers was to lower texture and character details from "higher" to "high". Dunno if that has anything to do with it though...

 

[Speedo]

Damned... last nigth I got the freeze again.

I don't understand what the heck is going on. And my friend with similar setup has the same problem. I'm really starting to get frustrated.

Unfortunately I'm running out of ideas of what to test. The only thing I can think of right now is to go back to the older 3339 patch in UT2k4.

One thing I have in this system which I didn't have in the old, is some new codec packs; fddshow and realplayer/quicktime alternative. But I really don't think this could affect UT.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Since it happens after playing for extended periods of time, it could be an overheating issue. I know some of the 6600gt cards have problems staying cool with their stock cooling fans. That Leadtek is a killer card, so I would look into some cooling solutions.

 

[Speedo]

It's definitely not a heat problem. Sometimes it happens after a short time. And it doesn't matter if I the computer is in a hot or cold room. Also I have exchanged the cooler to a VF700. I have even swapped the GFX card with my friends computer. Everything points to a non-hardware related issue.

Either its a setting in UT2k4, a driver issue or possibly a motherboard bios issue.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

It's tough to say man. Have you tried a Spyware cleaner yet? Run a virus check? Have you updated Windows lately? Have you tried the Atari Community Forum where they have a massive thread full of tweaks & fixes for UT2k4? It would be a better place to look than here...if they can't help you nobody can.