Black Screen Crash issue

[Kroll]

Hi Everyone,
Like other folks, I have recently begun experiencing the black screen/crash with DDO.

It started for me about 1-2 weeks ago. Was infrequent at first, happening about ever 2-3 hours but it has since become more frequent - I'm barely in game for 5 minutes before it occurs now.
As far as "where" it happens there doesn't appear to be much of a pattern. It happens in all zones, city zones, wilderness zones and in quests. I can be in the thick of action or just standing there at the AH. Same result - black screen crash that I can't recover from (need to reboot the system).

My system specs below:
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26 GHz
Windows Vista Home Premium, 64 bit (service pack 2)
Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS w/1024MB DDR3 vid ram (DirectX version 11.0)
Using GeForce display driver v 195.62
4 gig RAM

At this point the game has become unplayable and it's too bad cuz I'm a monthly subscribing VIP. If I can't get a resolution in the next couple days I expect to be cancelling my account - no point in paying if I can't play right?

If anyone can assist I would really appreciate it.
I downloaded and installed RivaTuner so if you need me to run some tests I can.
Thanks in advance.

[Missing_Minds]

Your 9800 will use dx 10 max, but that is besides the point.

How old is your 9800? That honestly sounds like a dying card to me. And if it is, Riva won't help you at all.

If you can slap it a known working nvida card, you can see if it is game or hardware.

Could even be RAM. I know I had sticks go bad without warning. Similar symptoms also.

[Kroll]

I should also point out, this is a laptop.
The 9800 isn't that old - I bought the machine a little over a year ago and it has performed quite well with pretty much all games.

Haven't really determined if RAM is the issue or not but I'm assuming that if I have bad RAM the system wouldn't recognize it correct? All of the diagnostics still show 4 gigs.

[Missing_Minds]

I should also point out, this is a laptop.
The 9800 isn't that old - I bought the machine a little over a year ago and it has performed quite well with pretty much all games.

Haven't really determined if RAM is the issue or not but I'm assuming that if I have bad RAM the system wouldn't recognize it correct? All of the diagnostics still show 4 gigs.

The system diags wouldn't show you squat about your RAMs behavior. Use this to test it.
http://www.memtest.org/

As for your 9800 not being old... Given that the 9800 runs hot to begin with and laptops have noctorious bad cooling, I'm pretty certain it is fried.
Using Riva, look at what your idle temps are and then what the temps are under DDO actively for as long as you can. My guess is you'll find your idle in the 60C range and game play jumps to 80C. If so, given that you've been playing games under those conditions for a year, the sucker is fried.

Do a search on "nvidia defect, black screen" You are going to find you are not alone. Welcome to hardware defects, hope your laptop is still under warranty. If not, ouch... my condolences.

It started for me about 1-2 weeks ago. Was infrequent at first, happening about ever 2-3 hours but it has since become more frequent - I'm barely in game for 5 minutes before it occurs now.

Your line here indicates hardware failure or successively worse file corruption of game files. I'm more prone to believe the first. I went through the same description, and it was my GPU.

[Kroll]

idle core temp is around 40 C.
while in game it jumped up to about 50 pretty quickly then slowly inched up to around 60 and held around there (+/1 1-2 degrees) for a long while.
Running a test right now - about 15 minutes in the highest coretemp I got was 65 degrees.

I'm not convinced the vid card is fried however I will look into it further.

Any other suggestions on what I can look at?
Thanks for the help btw.

[RottinBob]

I haven't even seen anyone ask you if the card runs fine in other games? How about other games running period? I agree with Missing_Minds on checking your memory. But... if you aren't getting BSOD's or random computer shutdowns or similar behavior, I wouldn't chalk it up to a hardware issue just yet. Another thing you could try, it may or may not work, is getting rid of your pagefile, restarting, set the pagefile size and restart one more time to clear out your pagefile.

Either way, test the usual suspects. If you ran other games fine, the video card should be alright, but I still would also run a memory test to clear your ram. Hell, you may just need a hd defrag.

[Missing_Minds]

idle core temp is around 40 C.
while in game it jumped up to about 50 pretty quickly then slowly inched up to around 60 and held around there (+/1 1-2 degrees) for a long while.
Running a test right now - about 15 minutes in the highest coretemp I got was 65 degrees.

When my card fried, I idled about 40C. But as soon a it it about... 45/48C BLECH, dead. It all depends on which part of the chip goes really. I'm still hoping for you that it is not a gpu burnout.

Either way, test the usual suspects. If you ran other games fine, the video card should be alright, but I still would also run a memory test to clear your ram. Hell, you may just need a hd defrag.

A defrag won't do a thing at all for his case. But a chkdsk might. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

[Kroll]

I used the Vista Memory Diagnostics tool to run a mem test last night - let it run overnight so I haven't seen the results yet - I'm at work now.

Had some difficulty getting memtest to work properly. I copied the iso file to a cd and booted off the CD but it didn't recognize it and just went straight into Windows (any thoughts on what I did wrong?).

Assuming there is nothing wrong with the memory, I am going to test out some other games.
Would it help if I ran 3DMark or some other benchmarking tool instead of a game? Seems like a tool would push the GPU a bit more than a game but I could be totally off.
Thanks again for all your help guys.

[Missing_Minds]

I used the Vista Memory Diagnostics tool to run a mem test last night - let it run overnight so I haven't seen the results yet - I'm at work now.

Had some difficulty getting memtest to work properly. I copied the iso file to a cd and booted off the CD but it didn't recognize it and just went straight into Windows (any thoughts on what I did wrong?).

Assuming there is nothing wrong with the memory, I am going to test out some other games.
Would it help if I ran 3DMark or some other benchmarking tool instead of a game? Seems like a tool would push the GPU a bit more than a game but I could be totally off.
Thanks again for all your help guys.

Odd that memtest didn't work. I'm assuming you can burn the iso correctly. On a whim, what happens when you look at the contents of the CD in Windows?
I'm also assuming you told it to boot from CD, and not from hard drive.

I don't know if 3dMark or others would help you identify the issue or not, honestly. Those benchmarks run differently than the game itself. I do not see it as something that could hurt esp if you could leave it in a loop.

[Kroll]

Odd that memtest didn't work. I'm assuming you can burn the iso correctly. On a whim, what happens when you look at the contents of the CD in Windows?
I'm also assuming you told it to boot from CD, and not from hard drive.

I don't know if 3dMark or others would help you identify the issue or not, honestly. Those benchmarks run differently than the game itself. I do not see it as something that could hurt esp if you could leave it in a loop.

When I look at the CD I see only one file on it - the iso that was burned onto it.
The laptop boot order is CD/DVD first so yes it was set properly. The player even started whirring like it was trying to read it but failed to find anything to boot off.

[Missing_Minds]

When I look at the CD I see only one file on it - the iso that was burned onto it.

You didn't burn it properly then. Unlike .wav files and music cds, you can't just copy the iso onto the CD and expect it to work. The ISO is an image/ghost of the CD, you have to tell your program you have an ISO to burn to re create the CD.

[Kroll]

You didn't burn it properly then. Unlike .wav files and music cds, you can't just copy the iso onto the CD and expect it to work. The ISO is an image/ghost of the CD, you have to tell your program you have an ISO to burn to re create the CD.

You're right. I went back and burned the image properly.
Rebooted with the disc and it worked just fine.
No memory errors found.

I also did a full uninstall and reinstall of the game and that did nothing.
I also updated drivers and even rolled them back and that did nothing.

So as of now, the culprit is looking more and more like the vid card.
Any other thoughts from you guys before I pull the trigger on a new card?
Thanks bigtime for your help btw.

[Missing_Minds]

You're right. I went back and burned the image properly. Rebooted with the disc and it worked just fine. No memory errors found.
Excellent news.

I also did a full uninstall and reinstall of the game and that did nothing.
I also updated drivers and even rolled them back and that did nothing.
I didn't think that would, but it was worth a shot. Well... There is one more shot we can try there.

So as of now, the culprit is looking more and more like the vid card.
Any other thoughts from you guys before I pull the trigger on a new card?
Thanks bigtime for your help btw.

The one last shot, as you only rolled back your video drivers. Download the latest drivers for your card. Then go get this driver cleanup utility.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Uninstall your video drivers, reboot and load into safe mode. (when you see your bios screen, start pressing F8. You should be given an option to boot into safe mode then.) Run the above program to finish removing your video drivers. (so you'll probalby want to install the program before un installing the video drivers.)
reboot, and install the new drivers. Reboot and pray the game is stable.

After this... if I were to tackle other possible software issues that could cause it, would be .NET as maybe it got corrupted but I'd be wanting to work on the machine directly rather than forums because one wrong step could be a format/re install.

You know, I'm also missing the possible obvious. You have double checked your machine for virus, malware, and rootkits, yes? You recognize every single service and process running in your laptop? Now I'll grant you that a virus wouldn't have the "time frame" that you described for death above, but... one never knows for fact.

[Missing_Minds]

One last other random idea.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...2&postcount=16

[Kroll]

Ok...did a bit more searching online and I may have a fix in place!
http://www.fixya.com/support/t264309...y_in_gateway_p

This particular thread discusses the precise issue I'm having with my exact laptop.

I installed the Nvidia desktop drivers along with a modified INF file from laptopvideo2go

I also made the suggested control panel tweak and I was able to get about 25 minutes of stable playtime before I decided to log off last night (hey it was late :P )

I will play an extended session today and see what happens.
Stay tuned.

[Missing_Minds]

Interesting... It makes some logical sense, honestly.

Heck, I've watched my desktop clock speeds go up and down and I know there is correlicating frame rate drops with it.

Granted I probably should also update my drivers. Its been at least a year.

Here is hoping you have a solution.

[Kroll]

Update on this.
I played an extended session last night - about 1.5 - 2 hours.
I did have 2 crashes during that period but at least it's not happening every 5 minutes anymore (occured about 1 hour in and another 30 minutes after that).
I'm looking into a replacement vid card since that is looking more and more like the root cause.
I'll provide another update once I've had a chance to make some tweaks.

[Missing_Minds]

Given what you have stated, I'd really see if a few more tweeks couldn't help you become more stable. I'd rather not have you go spend money on a new GPU if you really don't need to do so.

[Kroll]

So my average session before crash is around 30 minutes now.
Not sure what else to tweak at this point but I have an inquiry into Turbine support.
I'm also about to get online with Gateway support to see what they can offer.

[Missing_Minds]

So my average session before crash is around 30 minutes now.
Not sure what else to tweak at this point but I have an inquiry into Turbine support.
I'm also about to get online with Gateway support to see what they can offer.

Turbine will ask for your DirectX log information, so if you didn't include that in your ticket, you'll want to amend it with that info.