Computer freezes, graphics card messes up.

[Nekoteko]

Hey, tech.
Whenever I play FFXIV, this happens AT LEAST once a day:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...i/IMG_1084.jpg

Entire screen is like that, whole computer freezes, audio randomly stops and starts. Can't do anything but force shut down. Does anybody know what could be causing this and how to fix it maybe?

Windows 7 64-Bit (Updated)
Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s)
RAM 6GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT320

[sruon]

Seeing this kind of artifacted screen would indicate /generally/ a problem caused by the graphic card itself, be it overheating or faulty card.

[Nekoteko]

Is there a way to actually test if it's faulty or not? Cause that only occurs when I play this game and it's definitely not overheating.

[Rammses]

I get some minor artifacts followed by a full crash every single time I start FFXIV (and log in character), the first time I load the game after I've started my computer. After I've restarted from the crash, the game runs perfectly fine. I can keep it running for 3 days even. Then if I shut down, start the computer after a while, it will crash again within 5 minutes. This has happened for about 20 days without fault (and it has never crashed after the first restart), and only with FFXIV. I have no idea what it is, seems bizarre.

[Cooleko]

there are GPU testing tools, evga has one if you are using an evga card

[Nekoteko]

So I did the NVIDIA update from 10/25 and it seemed to help at first: artifacts stopped, if anything I would just receive this error:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...okoi/Error.png

But now my computer has started freezing again. Just without artifacts this time.
Thinking that error might have a lot to do with it ^

Any thoughts at all? T_T Thanks guys.

[sruon]

I'd say faulty card. My old GTX295 would work fine for hours in most game then crash every 3 minutes with exact same error in FFXIV, never got around to finding the problem but I think the memory modules were faulty.


Test it in another computer if possible, try reinstalling Windows if you have enough faith to put up with a reinstallation or try another graphic card.

http://www.google.fr/#sclient=psy&hl...d7eac6e8e2bd79 < Take a look

[Nekoteko]

Alright. I'll try testing it in my friend's computer and see how that goes first. Helpful link too... thanks a lot.

EDIT:
Question, what's your GPU Utilization % around? And is that important to this issue at all? I just noticed it cause it jumped from 1-5% to 99% when I loaded XIV.

[sruon]

I have a GTX470 so usage hovers around 50% to 99%, any card below GTX460 probably have 99% usage anywhere in the world.

[Nekoteko]

Ffffyeaaah, I come with good news this time, lol:

Just posting this in case anybody was wondering/having a hopeless case like I did. lol
Finally got around to calling HP Tech Support. They did some small changes to my registry in regedit and it's helped.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...m_timeout.mspx

[aru]

Do you know specifically what they changed?
Did they just increase the delay time or did they change the limittime or limitcount?

Could you hop back into regedit and post the settings?
This is HUGE if it works!

[Nekoteko]

Don't know enough to specifically tell you the details of what he did, but here's a SS of what I've now:

Regedit > Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > GraphicsDrivers
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...nokoi/reg1.png

He added the two I boxed in red, right-clicked and modified their binary data to this:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...nokoi/reg2.png
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...nokoi/reg3.png

[aru]

Awesome. Thanks a lot.
Usually when most people have computer problems and post about them they never come back if they find a solution. Thanks for being the exception.

Hope this works!

[aru]

Well... Didn't fix it. Did local leves and solo'ed leves today and dicked around for about 6 hours without any trouble. Joined a party and crashed 3 times in 10 minutes. I give up. I think I'll just try to go for a new video card during the black friday/cyber monday sales. If that doesn't work I'm done with the game, can't deal with trying to figure this shit out anymore.

[Nekoteko]

This is one of the most frustrating and seemingly unsolvable problems I've ever come across with comps. :S
Sorry, it didn't work for you, aru. Changing video card has more often than not helped people though. Good luck.