PC Auto Restarts While Playing DDO

[axel15810]

Just to update -

Got the new 16GB RAM, installed it. Playing with capped frame rate at 60 and settings at medium. And I still got an auto reboot today about 3 hours into a DDO session and stream

This is beyond frustrating.

The extra RAM seems pretty helpful in terms of multitasking, etc. I pushed it last night with multiple applications to see what it could do, seems like it will make video editing for youtube much faster. But in terms of solving my DDO auto reboot issue...it did not unfortunately.

I'll look into uninstalling/reinstalling drivers, and also look into running a temperature/component monitoring program as was suggested next time I play and keep an eye on it. If that yields nothing guess I'll start looking at new graphics cards and hope that fixes it.

[DYWYPI]

It would make logical sense to monitor the voltages or temperature, using something like HWiNFO as mentioned above. Buying the additional RAM was a likely a sensible investment anyway.

Since you are reporting the crashes are nearly exclusively occurring when running DDO. The Graphics card could also be overburdened and sending erroneous feedback. That is causing the PC to reset to protect components (when there might not be a major component issue). There might be software glitches in the mix.

If we assume the card is capable enough. It wouldn't logically make a lot of sense forking out money on graphics card if it weren't a component failure or fault.

So far you are mostly just swapping parts - semi randomly - until the entire machine is no longer really the same one anyway. If it's the motherboard or CPU at fault then essentially that would be the result - a complete body transplant.

Axel, personally I would recommend you trying the Bleeping Computer forums before potentially wasting more money on replacement cards. At worst they won't have a good answer either. However, if you get the right person responding with sufficient experience they might be able better determine what's likely happening.

Anyway, if you do choose to post on the Bleeping Computer forums and get a good response I'd be interesting in hearing the feedback of the outcome. :-)

[axel15810]

It would make logical sense to monitor the voltages or temperature, using something like HWiNFO as mentioned above. Buying the additional RAM was a likely a sensible investment anyway.

Since you are reporting the crashes are nearly exclusively occurring when running DDO. The Graphics card could also be overburdened and sending erroneous feedback. That is causing the PC to reset to protect components (when there might not be a major component issue). There might be software glitches in the mix.

If we assume the card is capable enough. It wouldn't logically make a lot of sense forking out money on graphics card if it weren't a component failure or fault.

So far you are mostly just swapping parts - semi randomly - until the entire machine is no longer really the same one anyway. If it's the motherboard or CPU at fault then essentially that would be the result - a complete body transplant.

Axel, personally I would recommend you trying the Bleeping Computer forums before potentially wasting more money on replacement cards. At worst they won't have a good answer either. However, if you get the right person responding with sufficient experience they might be able better determine what's likely happening.

Anyway, if you do choose to post on the Bleeping Computer forums and get a good response I'd be interesting in hearing the feedback of the outcome. :-)

The RAM upgrade I'm pretty pumped about for any future youtube vids. Can't believe I never did it before...the countless hours I've spent editing youtube videos on laggy software would have been much faster. I know I was hitting my 8gb prior RAM cap regularly.

I'll monitor the temperature and go from there. I did download HWiNFO last night.

My graphics card is an AMD Radeon R9 285 2GB. An older card but seems like it would be well beyond DDO recommended specs so I wouldn't think it is overburdened by an old game like DDO running in medium settings, though I admittedly know little about graphics cards.

I'll reach out elsewhere before spending money on anything else, thanks for the suggestion on that forum. If temperature is the issue, guess I'll need to look into getting some extra cooling somehow. I did open my PC while running to check and all fans appear to be spinning fine.

[Mindos]

I'll monitor the temperature and go from there. I did download HWiNFO last night.

My graphics card is an AMD Radeon R9 285 2GB. An older card but seems like it would be well beyond DDO recommended specs so I wouldn't think it is overburdened by an old game like DDO running in medium settings, though I admittedly know little about graphics cards.

I'll reach out elsewhere before spending money on anything else, thanks for the suggestion on that forum. If temperature is the issue, guess I'll need to look into getting some extra cooling somehow. I did open my PC while running to check and all fans appear to be spinning fine.

Sometimes on older equipment, the Thermal Interface Material can "dry" out and prevent contact between the heatsink and the, uh, hotness. All the fans and cooling and A/C in the world would make little difference as the part very quickly overheats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therma...rface_material
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_paste

Usually the computer will fail safe and just cut the power (not reboot). Unless you're a diehard do it your self-er, it's usually quicker/cheaper/safer just to buy a new card. Best of luck with your problem search!

[Arkat]

$10 says it's your video card getting too hot.

I think Mindos is spot-on with his thoughts.

[axel15810]

Just a little update on this.

A few weeks ago I edited and rendered a video. Then later that day, while the PC was not doing other than having 1 browser window open, it turned off on it's own and will not turn back on.

I looked inside, still nothing faulty I can spot. Checked all internal power supply connections again. I even added new thermal paste to the CPU since I had previously bought some and planned on doing that anyway.

But yeah nothing, won't turn on at all. Holding the power button won't give me any beeps either. So yeah, appears whatever was failing is finally dead.

I ran some heat monitoring programs prior to it dying and the only thing that was running hot while streaming/playing DDO was the CPU. Considering I've seemingly ruled out everything else, it's got to be either something failed on the motherboard or the CPU failed.

I am currently making due with a really old buggy laptop I bought 10 years ago while I weigh my options (and I've been out of town a lot the past month). It struggles to even run DDO and is not capable of doing editing or streaming so it's not sufficient.

I don't think I have the skill to swap a motherboard or CPU - or to figure out which one is the source of the problem. So I'm considering taking it to a shop. If I can get it fixed for a few hundred dollars it's probably worth it. Or I could just buy a new PC for ~$1000-$1200.

[axel15810]

Whelp, the epic saga of my old PC has ended. I took it in to a repair shop and they had a look and told me what I already knew basically. They said the motherboard is dead most likely, but could possibly be the CPU. They said $400 and a 3 week wait for parts to do a fix. At that price for a 6 year old PC with its specs it isn't worth it. I'm better off just buying a new rig, which I will do.

Now I just need to decide on 1) what new rig to get and 2) what to do with the dead PC.

I could strip the PSU, hard drive, RAM and GPU to keep for backups or to sell on ebay and throw the rest out. And I need to rescue the data on the 1tb harddrive.

Guess I could tinker and give a go at replacing the motherboard myself and if successful I'll have a 2nd PC.