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I hate software updates . . .
I got Left 4 Dead late last year – let's say I've had it for about a year. During that time, I think I had one crash, and that was my fault; I left the wrong thing running in the background. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I downloaded the Left 4 Dead 2 demo. When I started it for the first time, it recommended that I update my GeForce drivers. Okay, "new game, new drivers"; that's how 3D games have always done things. This was fine until the middle of last week.
Sometime last week, Left 4 Dead crashed abruptly – we're not talking "stutter" here, or even a BSOD. The game just stopped hard and left me with a black screen; in fact, my monitor displayed its "looking for video signal/no signal" message, which it normally only shows when my PC is off or the monitor isn't plugged in. With this, I got looping sound; a sample of the last sound I heard in-game before the crash, over and over again. To resolve this crash, I had to use the power button.
When the PC came back up again, all was fine. No corruption, no problems . . . I ran diagnostics on the hardware, checked the integrity of Vista, even scanned for viruses. Nada. My system scored high on the "no issues at all" scale. Well, that's good. Maybe it was a fluke.
No such luck. Since then, both Left 4 Dead and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo have crashed repeatedly. Sometimes, it's once in a night; other times, it's five times in an hour. It's always the same crash: instant blackness and a sound loop, forcing me to cycle power. Afterward, Windows recovers as if nothing had happened.
It's fairly clear that this is linked in part to the GeForce drivers. They're the main delineator here: I crashed once – only to desktop, I should add – with the 181.xx through 186.xx drivers I had used for most of my fun times with Left 4 Dead. I've crashed lots of times, rather badly at that, with the 191.07 driver.
The obvious thing would be a driver rollback, right? Oh, if only it were so simple. I did that. It didn't solve the problem.
So I checked the Event Viewer for other possible causes. The only errors it had were all WMI errors, code 10. But when I ran diagnostics on WMI, it was fine – the repository was in good shape and all the WMI components were present and healthy. In fact, this computer has loads of code 10 errors logged, and I rather doubt that's the cause. I think it logs a code 10 whenever the system halts unexpectedly for any reason at all.
My conclusion is that some other recent change in the environment is somehow conflicting with the GeForce drivers. Windows does like its updates, and there have been a dozen or more of those between when I downloaded 191.07 and when the crashes got bad. There have also been updates for my AV software (McAfee), Java, and probably six or eight other things. This complicates the sleuthing.
Anyway, I'm ranting on the off chance that somebody who knows me has a bright idea. The relevant bits of my system are as follows:
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q-EMy sound and ethernet are on the motherboard; I don't have separate devices for those. All drivers are up to date, according to pcpitstop.com. (Of course, this might be the problem.) As for Left 4 Dead and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, I run them at maximum detail with multicore rendering turned on, in my monitor's native resolution (1680×1050).
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 9300
Memory: 4GB OCZ DDR2-1066 Reaper
Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320NS
Video Card: ASUS EN9800GT Hybrid Power
Display: Samsung 2253BW
OS: MS Windows Vista Home Premium x64, SP2
Any constructive input would be appreciated. By "constructive," I mean, "Please avoid, 'Check for viruses and malware,' 'Scan for Windows integrity,' 'Verify hardware function,' and, 'Try a driver rollback.'" I've done all that twice, and no joy. It's clearly something a little more subtle, like a specific security update for Vista SP2 and the 191.07 driver fighting over some bit of paged pool memory.
And please, no "Get a Mac!" or "Use Linux!" Vista is working like a champ for everything else. I lay this one squarely at the feet of nVidia.
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Thanks for the tip, though . . . it was worth a shot.
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Also, are you leaving McAfee running while playing L4D? With Vista I often had problems with the antivirus deciding to do something in the background and the whole kit locking up as a result. This was especially true if I was doing something online.
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Having said that, you should be able to have a simple script shut down the AV service(s) before you game and turn it back on when you're done, so that you can modify your start icon to point to this wrapper script.
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Seems (seem ! nobody know for sure) that the 191.07 driver -may- mess up with some motherboard... But your ASUS P5Q-E does not seem to have the nf200 chipset reported to be affected.
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=110045 for example
It can be many others things,however.
Here are a few ideas you may not have tried yet:
-You say there is a multicore rendering option in game ?
perhaps start by turning it off.
it seem to me the most likely source of problem.
-Or/and try to run the game on a single core.
(alt-ctrl-del / task manager / process / right-click, set affinity.)
And possibly, forcing Mcafee on another proc
-check if your sound card did not got installed twice. Sound impossible, but i saw it happen once, and it produced freeze and sound loop.
It could be a power supply or overheat problem, but i really doubt it, given that you report everything is working fine.
Still, if you have the time, you may perhaps try downloading a benchmark program and stress-testing the stability of your Graphic card under heavy load. Just in case the l4d2 demo is asking too much from your system and push it pass its limit. Wich is unlikely, your hardware is recent enough.
Hope this may help, or if not, that nvidia will answer fast with a solution.
Celjabba
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I tried this to no effect. The game played worse and still crashed just as quickly.
Or/and try to run the game on a single core. (alt-ctrl-del / task manager / process / right-click, set affinity.)
Ditto.
check if your sound card did not got installed twice. Sound impossible, but i saw it happen once, and it produced freeze and sound loop.
Just once . . . there are three DxDiag tabs because it's an onboard device with three separate output formats, but all that's just one "card."
It could be a power supply or overheat problem
The power supply is only a year old, and delivers 650W continuous, which should be more than enough for this hardware. The box itself is nearly empty – very spacious, with just about no card or cable clutter – and has five fans.
Still, if you have the time, you may perhaps try downloading a benchmark program and stress-testing the stability of your Graphic card under heavy load. Just in case the l4d2 demo is asking too much from your system and push it pass its limit. Wich is unlikely, your hardware is recent enough.
I might do that. The thing that bugs me is this: Left 4 Dead ran flawlessly at the highest settings since late last year. We're talking 11 months of regular play on the exact same hardware. Suddenly, just over two weeks ago, it starts crashing. I think the L4D2 demo release is a red herring, to be honest . . . whatever its demands are, the original L4D should still be okay.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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The system restore should clean up that sort of problem however, even in XP.
I'd suggest three things:
1) See if you can get an explicit manifest of all the files touched by the driver update. Uninstall your current drivers, reboot in safe mode, hunt down any files on that list and manually delete them wherever they may be, reboot in normal mode, and then reinstall with last-known-good.
(Actually, if you just did a rollback, instead of a complete uninstall, try that anyways even without the deleting)
2) Stalk the nVidia website looking for beta driver updates or new stable driver updates - if it is a driver issue, a new version may correct it. When you find one, unintstall the old drivers, reboot, clean up manually anything you find left over, install the new ones, hope.
3) Entertain the possibility that it actually is hardware beginning to go bad. A couple of bits in the RAM on your video card may have barfed. There are some utilities that test motherboard RAM, I'm not sure if there's an equivalent utility for video RAM though.
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It was hardware in the end. As a last-ditch measure before reinstalling Windows (ugh), I opened the box and blasted a powerful flashlight in there. I immediately noticed that the GPU fan wasn't turning. Uh-oh.
I fired up RealTemp to gauge the consequences. The GPU was idling (idling!) at 80-85°C and running at upwards of 90-105°C under load. As it happens, my card is rated to 105°C, and everything I could find on it said it locked up at or slightly below that temperature. Problem diagnosed.
I replaced the card with a brand-new one, and took the opportunity to seriously clean all the other fans and sinks. Now it idles at 41-43°C and has yet to pass 61°C under load. And all my games run perfectly. Flawlessly.
I paid for the replacement card up front. Whether I get a reimbursement depends on what the factory finds. If I let the card die of dust, well, that's my fault. If the bearings were crap, that's their fault. I gather they're honest about this. Either way, they'll refurbish it and send it back, whereupon I can put it in another PC, Craig's List it, decided to mess with SLI, or whatever.
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