WoW crashing -- video card related??

[slag]

I bought an ASUS GTX460 ENG DirectCU card a month ago and have played some games with it. Nothing too taxing, but 2-3 hours of gaming at a time.
My setup is a 2500k @ 4.5 ghz, 1.330 volts, 8 GB ram, 2 sticks are 1.5, 2 are 1.65, I run it at 1.62V, gigabyte p67-ud3 board, and a couple hard drives on the sata3 ports with a dvd burner on a sata2 port. I have not overclocked the video card. I'm also using a 212+ heatsink

I decided to go back and play WoW and have been having issues. At first, I levelled from 80 to 85 just fine. I think I crashed once. I then started having regular crashes about every 2-3 minutes after I fired up wow and started playing. Normally it was in zones with a lot of graphics, fires, alot of moving items, etc. Naturally I thought it was heat and set the fan on my GPU to run at 100% (loud). The crashing continued. GPU temps are around 46 C which I think is perfectly acceptable on this card. Still crashing. I underclocked my cpu to 4.2 ghz and it still crashed. I went back to stock cpu speeds and voltages and it still crashed. This is a hard lockup--stuttering sound coming from the speakers, the screen and pc completely locked up. Throughout all of this the cpu temps are very low--barely breaking a sweat. Case cooling is great, a lot of moving air, everything seems "happy", but crashing continues.

I put another fan on the side of the case (antec 300), which blows nearly right on the video card. Since doing this last night, I haven't had a crash, but it may just be a fluke. Idle temps are 28C but it still gets up to 45-46C under load. I clocked my cpu back up to 4.5 and its still running fine for about an hour last night. If it keeps crashing, next step will be to remove the two newer sticks of memory that are 1.65 volts and just use the other two @ 1.5 volts to see what happens, but for now, everything is pointing to the video card getting hot and dying on me. Any other suggestions? I also ran the repair utility inside WoW. I am also using the latest Nvidia drivers. Had crashes after I verified both of these things.

When it crashes and I restart Windows, there are no entries about the crash in the log, no WoW errors, nothing really to pinpoint why its crashing.

 

[1h4x4s3x]

I assume it's not only crashing in WoW, right?

 

[badb0y]

lIs it only in WoW or other games too? Of it's only WoW then try to update all the drivers and try again.

I remember fixing a problem like that by updating my soundcard drivers.

 

[nanaki333]

out of curiosity... what kind of PSU do you have in there?

and like badboy said, you have the most up to date drivers for everything? maybe rollback a video driver. i had issues with my 6970 xfire setup with their newer drivers and had to use the ones on the disc.

 

[Arkadrel]

From your testing, it does sound like its the video card.... but its not a heating issue.

I have not overclocked the video card.

So erhmm... yeah... guess its not oc of the card either to blame.

2 sticks are 1.5, 2 are 1.65, I run it at 1.62V

Not sure if above could cause any issues, but yeah... sounds odd haveing differnt memory types, that need differnt voltage mixed in together.

You could try removeing 1 pair and see if you still have issues.

 

[Ghiedo27]

8 GB ram, 2 sticks are 1.5, 2 are 1.65, I run it at 1.62V

Have you run memtest to make sure that this is really stable? My best guess is that either the extra fan is helping with overall case flow or it's keeping the video card's ram from overheating.

I'd go ahead and try playing with just the 1.5v memory installed to see what happens. If WoW still crashes I'd under clock the video card ram a tad to see if that helps. You might want some cheap ram heat sinks if that makes the difference.

 

[Seero]

First, you need to check whether your system have enough memory for the game. WoW uses lots of memory and cause lots of problems with 32 bit OS with a high-end video card due to its memory. If that is the problem, then download processexplorer and use it to locate programs you don't need, and disable it from startup. You may even need to disable services too. Your goal is to keep memory usage under 1.5Gb before WoW and make sure there are space for paging.

Second, disable paging files, reboot, download ccleaner and clean up your HDD as well as registry (registry is unrelated, but still good to clean it up) after backups. Once done, defrequent the HDD. Once done, re-enable paging file and set it 4 Gb instead of "system manage".

Third, if problem still exists, you need to memtest, or simply remove a stick of RAM and check.

You should not need to go to third step. Step 1 and 2 is always a good practices. Do not apply step 2 if you are on SSD.

BTW, please run everything on stock speed if you can't keep your PC stable. Debug on an overclocked PC is nothing but asking for troubles.

 

[slag]

Im using windows 7 64 bit and memory usage is fine. Nowhere close to using even 4GB of memory and I have 8GB. I disabled all my addons as well to see if one of them was causing the problem and it still crashed. I removed the Cache and WTF folders, let wow rebuild them, and it crashed. I have the latest audio drivers, video drivers, chipset drivers, usb 3 drivers, everything I can think of. I'm even running the latest BIOS for my board. I think I need to re-examine the video card and make sure nothing stupid happened like a ramsink fell off or one of my power connectors is loose. I'll post back tonight with my findings.
Thanks to all who offered advice. I'm taking every single reply seriously and will try the various suggestions as my situation warrants.

My PSU is a 750 watt coolermaster GX750. It only crashes in WoW, nothing else, even 12 hours of stress testing.

I do think that possibly the RAM is overheating as the stock heatsink is really held on with double sided tape. However, I'm hesitant to permanently affix anything to this card as it is still under warranty and I'd hate to lose that.

Memtest might be the next option for me, although the crashing only happens when playing WoW which leads me to believe its a graphical type issue. My HDD is defragmented already.

 

[hawtdawg]

If you are getting Fatal Exception 132, do this:

login to an alt character

in the chat box type in /console fixedFunction 1

exit the game, login to your main character and then do /console fixedFunction 0

exit the game again and log back in. You'll have to turn your graphical settings back up, but this will hopefully solve your problem. I was having this same issue yesterday and found a blue post with these instructions.

 

[slag]

If you are getting Fatal Exception 132, do this:

login to an alt character

in the chat box type in /console fixedFunction 1

exit the game, login to your main character and then do /console fixedFunction 0

exit the game again and log back in. You'll have to turn your graphical settings back up, but this will hopefully solve your problem. I was having this same issue yesterday and found a blue post with these instructions.

When it crashes and I restart Windows, there are no entries about the crash in the log, no WoW errors, nothing really to pinpoint why its crashing

 

[adamantinepiggy]

When it crashes and I restart Windows, there are no entries about the crash in the log, no WoW errors, nothing really to pinpoint why its crashing

WoW is more CPU intensive than most games. Are you sure your underlying system is stable (CPU/MB/RAM/PSU)? Like can you run Prime95 on it without any failures or reboots?

 

[Seero]

... I removed the Cache and WTF folders, let wow rebuild them, and it crashed...

What type of crash are you experiencing? If it is BSoDs or reboot, then it is not game related. If it is crash to desktop, then it is probably the game.

Assuming it is auto reboot or shutdown, which there probably won't be logs about it, then it is likely the PSU.

 

[slag]

What type of crash are you experiencing? If it is BSoDs or reboot, then it is not game related. If it is crash to desktop, then it is probably the game.

Assuming it is auto reboot or shutdown, which there probably won't be logs about it, then it is likely the PSU.

Hard lock, repeating stuttering sound, forcing a reset button press. No auto reboot, no shutdown, just hang, only in WoW.

 

[slag]

WoW is more CPU intensive than most games. Are you sure your underlying system is stable (CPU/MB/RAM/PSU)? Like can you run Prime95 on it without any failures or reboots?

Yes, I also put the system back to default clockspeed and voltage, waited a few minutes, fired up WoW, and still got the hang to occur after about 10 minutes. I don't believe it is my subsystem, unless it is the extra ram which I am ready to remove if I get another crash.

If thats the case, I'll just sell this ram and get some more 1.5 V ram.

 

[slag]

Between fixing the washing machine, refilling the hot tub and putting in a new circulation pump, I managed to play about 90 minutes with zero crashes. Looks like a cooling issue so far as the fan is blowing on the card. To me, that is a defective unit if it wont run with additional cooling at stock speeds.

 

[slag]

Last follow up unless there are questions..

No more crashes since adding the 3rd case fan blowing on the card. I might take the heatsink off and put some AS5 on there and review the ramsinks, but I put in about -6 more hours of play with zero crashes.

 

[Concillian]

n/m I can't read.

 

[rockyjohn]

Have you run memtest yet? It still sounds to me like memory issues that may only show up after playing for awhile and using a lot of memory - possible aggravated by temperature changes in the memory.

You should run memtest overnight - or at least 8 hours - and only consider it stable if you have zero errors.