Vista - COH crashes/xSODs

First off, thanks for reading...this is my first ever online post (yeah yeah, im a noob, etc, I get it) but I'll do my best...

I put this thread in 'games' because I didn't know where else to put it. I'm a moderately tech savvy guy who just put together a beast of a rig... (it got a 5.9 performance score) and everything was working great. Notice the 'was'...that's why I'm here, lol.

*I have no idea how much information ya'll will need, so I'm gonna try to put as much as I can. Forgive me if its too much.*

In short, while playing Company of Heroes my system randomly locks up, loops the last sound (usually gunfire) and the monitor goes completely white, olive/green, or blue. This usually happens after about an hour of playing. I read up on the problem, and found out that many people were having the same trouble I was. I've tried turning off DX10 and changing all of the visuals to 'high' (no ultra) which apparently has cured many other peoples' COH crashes...but it hasn't cured mine. To make matters worse, my system just crashed for the first time outside of COH today, while I was watching YouTube. Once again, an audio loop, and a WSOD.

People have said that installing DX9 is the way to go, but that seems silly to me...and whats the deal with all these new Colors of Death? Is Microsoft trying to be a bit more colorful these days, or do they mean something?

Now, I wasn't really concerned about the crashes until it happened when I was surfing the web---these crashes had never happened during my marathon sessons of Farcry2, or outside of COH...until today.

Disclaimer: I'm a noob. I get it. However, even noobs need love too, even when they live in Silicon Valley! My rig:

CASE: Coolermaster HAF
POWER SUPPLY: Ultra X3 1000w fully modular
OPTICAL: LG Super Multi Blu
MULTICARD READER: Generic Floppy/SD Card Combo
FAN CONTROLLER: Scythe Kaze Master
MONITOR: Samsung T260HD

CPU: Intel i7 920 @ 2.6 (no OC)
CPU COOLER: Coolermaster V8
MOBO: Asus P6T Deluxe
GPU: EVGA Geforce 260 Core 216 OC (factory overclock)
RAM: Corsair 6GB 1333Mz DDR3 Tri-Channel (3x2GB)
HARDDRIVES: (2) Western Digital 500GB [32MB] 7200 Caviar Blacks in RAID 0
(1) Western Digital 1TB [32MG] 7200 Caviar Black
SOUND: Onboard (no additional soundcard)
OS: Vista Ultimate 64 SP1

My overall system temperature hovers around 23-26 degrees (c) depending on my level of gaming. My CPU temp hovers around 35, with a range of 30-55 (c), and I've never seen it over that save for the first few days when we failed to have the CPU cooler screwed down tight enough. MOBO temps stay around 35, with a range of 30-50 (c). [Temps read from PC Probe II).

(I built it myself with the help of two of my buddies...it was my first build, one of many for them.)

My major apps are few: Company of Heroes, Farcry2 (has never crashed), itunes, etc...I just finished building the thing a couple of weeks ago.

I'm fairly sure (99%) that I have updated all the drivers for my videocard, monitor, devices, and have installed all of the Windows 64 updates. What I HAVENT done yet is install the two BIOS updates from Asus.

Obviously, the BIOS updates will be tops on my list, probably sometime tomorrow. (I'm having a buddy over to help, I'm honestly a bit scared to do it myself). And I'll make sure that all my drivers/updates are up to date as well. (Side note: is there a program that can help me fetch all of my driver updates at once, or at least make it moron-proof?) Lol, yeah, I know, noob.

However, here's the point: I wanted to see if there was anybody out there that was having the same problem as me, and could shed a bit of light on this stupid situation. Anything that I'm missing, haven't thought of, etc? I would also appreciate any random advice you could give me...new and better programs, software, hardware, whatever floats to your mind, etc.

Thanks in advance for your help,

GO SHARKS!

I installed the BIOS, updated my gtx260 drivers, and the crash still happened again. (I have every available update for the game, and am running it on DX9, with 'high' settings). This time it took about two hours of playing COH, and JUST when my hopes were raised that the problem was solved, the GSOD with the accompanying audio loop popped up. Once again, I could not control/alt/delete, and had to hard shut down. Strangely enough, COH would crash in about an hour before my updates. Could the problem be that I'm running it on DX9 instead of DX10? I have DX10 installed. Once again, I'm a noob.

I went to the 'problems/reports/solutions' folder, and lo and behold, there were no 'problems' with COH. In fact, it wasnt even listed once. Thats nice.

What I DID find, however, was a problem with FarCry2. This may not help (because it was pre-BIOS updates and a different game) but it was the SAME exact loop xSOD that I keep getting with COH. I just copy/pasted as much as I could of it for you below:

Description
A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: FarCry2.exe
Application Version: 0.1.0.1
Application Timestamp: 4942e3f6
Hang Signature: d561
Hang Type: 2048
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Hang Signature 1: 733c2cc5bd93d5915757eda66dc635ad
Additional Hang Signature 2: 9610
Additional Hang Signature 3: 3ff4596104d308ee985f9136cb173ec6
Additional Hang Signature 4: d561
Additional Hang Signature 5: 733c2cc5bd93d5915757eda66dc635ad
Additional Hang Signature 6: 9610
Additional Hang Signature 7: 3ff4596104d308ee985f9136cb173ec6

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 413740200


I also checked out the 'reliability and performance' program on vista...It at least shows my history of crashes, but I can't find any relevant information...which sucks, because I found a huuuuuge list of code the other day that pertained directly to my COH problem, and have since forgotten where I found it.

Anyways, I'm gonna keep trolling and keep plugging away at this thing...any help would be most appreciated.

Best,

SJ

Quick question:

Could 32 bit sound be causing my Ultimate 64 rig to crash during games? I was poking around in MSCONFIG and I saw that my SOUNDMAX integrated sound was 32 bit. Thinking that one of my buddies installed it wrong I downloaded the driver from Asus, only to find that my MSCONFIG still says 32 bit. Apparently there have been a few people online that have had similar problems. Am I just barking up the wrong tree, or could a 32 bit program as important to gaming as sound be causing my freezes?

Thanks,

SJ

PS: just ran MEMTEST for 2.5 hours and it said that my memory passed without error

well im not too sure what to say but my Pc keeps crashing ever so often.
it seems to crash when i start Battlefeild 2 or Online Fps Combat Arms.
My resolution for both these game i have tried are 800X600 - 1240 X ..
Basically what happens is my computer will freeze and my screen becomes
all pixelated/discoloured.. i was wondering if neone elese had similar
problems..
Ive ran all the updates i possibe could - reformatted - complete
reformat - scaned for viruses numerous times - turned down the
resolution to my PC both in game and on the desktop, nad nothing seems
to work. It will also happen 2 min.. after start up so overheatin isnt
the issue .....
Please Someone help me lolz..
HP Pavillion Elite m9425f PC
1000 Gb Hard drive
6 Gb Ram
Nvidia GeForce 9500 GS Graphics card
Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core(tm) 2 Quad Processor Q8200
Thanks Jay


--
jaysmiter
------------------------------------------------------------------------
jaysmiter's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/jaysmiter.htm
View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-v...es/1100196.htm

http://forums.techarena.in

Hey all,

If you've been reading the gaming forums lately, I'm sure you've seen a few of my posts...I'm having crashing problems with Ultimate64. I've updated my video driver, sound driver, chipset driver, BIOS, windows, ran MEMTEST (passed), and almost sacrificed a small goat to the computer gods...all in the wish that my computer would just WORK.

I've been having freeze (with audio loop/BSOD) problems in Company of Heroes (a million times), FarCry2 (once) and browsing on the internet (once). Every time it's the same: a random complete system freeze out of nowhere. Every once in a while my system will just randomly restart too.

I've got an error code here, and was wondering if anybody knew a solution. I'm figuring that whatever shut down FarCry2 is shutting down my other apps (no error codes found for them). PLEASE HELP...for the goat's sake!!


Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: FarCry2.exe
Application Version: 0.1.0.1
Application Timestamp: 4942e3f6
Hang Signature: d561
Hang Type: 2048
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Hang Signature 1: 733c2cc5bd93d5915757eda66dc635ad
Additional Hang Signature 2: 9610
Additional Hang Signature 3: 3ff4596104d308ee985f9136cb173ec6
Additional Hang Signature 4: d561
Additional Hang Signature 5: 733c2cc5bd93d5915757eda66dc635ad
Additional Hang Signature 6: 9610
Additional Hang Signature 7: 3ff4596104d308ee985f9136cb173ec6

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 413740200

If I recall this is a homebuilt system isn't it? That you are having
problems with numerous applications indicates to me either you have some
kind of system virus -you might try and download a couple of the freebie
virus checkers (I've used esasct and it found a previously undetected
trojan) and try running them from inside of safe-mode to see if something
has corrupted windows that your existing one didn't detect.....or you may
have a hw problem. Since its not memory, you might check the power-supply
and heat. What size p/s do you run? have you installed a freebie mobo heat
reporter and checked to see if the system is dying due to heat buildup?

Also you haven't mentioned, did you overclock the system or video? For
purposes of testing I would go with absolute defaults for the video card and
the mobo/bios. No overclocking.

Just some ideas
Mark


"American197" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:5221f6a7034c5adb8e70dcdaeae3afa1@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Hey Mark, thanks for your thoughts. A few answers to your questions...

Yeah, it's my first build. I'm a bit green, as you can tell.

As for a virus, well, I would be amazed if I got one so soon. I've had fully updated Norton AV on here, and the rig has only been up for about 12 days...However, I'm willing to try anything.

I would be shocked if it was heat. I'm running a HAF case, and a V8 cpu cooler, with temps that never go above 55* even while gaming. I use PCPROBE II for my temps.

Hardware...well, you might be right. I've been reading some bad things about my Asus MOBO...

My PS is a ultra 1000w, so I should be good on power...However, I plan on testing that tomorrow.

I personally have not overclocked anything, but my GPU is factory overclocked...perhaps this is a problem? Maybe it needs more power? Cooling?

Thanks for your time,

Sal

Before you install BIOS updates, it's a really good idea to find out what
the BIOS update "fixes".
You may find that the update is uneeded, or will possibly fix a problem you
are having.



"American197" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:1cb5145b65a03b28efde8ef4bcb667d0@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Fortunately, I think the problem may have been solved...I RMAed my power supply as well as turned up my GPU fan to 100% and have been crash free for a few days now! I'm cautiously optimistic....

American, can you confirm you are still crash free? I have exactly the same
problem. My GPU is nVidia 9500GT "silent" so might be overheating problems
for me too.

"American197" wrote: