COD4 HARD Lockups

[EN4CER]

I've been having issues with COD4 locking up. It locks up randomly. I've
proved it's not an overheating issue by playing Crysis on full graphics in a
high resolution for two hours. So it's definitely not a heat issue. Joe has
informed me that driver lock ups will be recognized and will keep the OS
from kernel panic or hard system locks. My only other guess is SoundMAX
(on-board high definition 7.1 sound). It's given me numerous problems in
several games. I've killed all background processes. I have not killed
PunkBusterA and B because I play professionally on CEVO and CAL. Also,
Crysis uses PunkBuster.

Just for grins I checked my CPU/GPU/MOBO temps and they all appear well
within operational ranges. I have no add-ins except for my graphics card:
EVGA GeForce GTX 280. I'm on the i7 processor with the P6T Deluxe
motherboard. I use a SATA Hard Drive (I was thinking about firmware updates,
but I doubt it's a hard drive issue since Crysis runs for hours). I'm using
a Sony CD/DVD RW ROM. My OS is Vista 64 Ultimate. I'm using a USB
mouse/keyboard and DELL Flat Panel (DVI).

I've returned the BIOS to it's default settings (I've only changed fan speed
and heat monitoring options) and have stressed tested the system for
hardware failure. Nothing. I've even flashed the RAM and put an OHM meter on
the power supply to make sure there's no fluctuation. I did have cold
cathodes installed but I removed them when the problem started showing up
just to make sure.

I was about to update my BIOS but the ASUS update procedure is somewhat
flaky and my bios version says it is MUCH higher than their public release?!
Any guesses on that? I will be re-installing the game although I'm extremely
doubtful that it has anything to do with the game files/registry since the
OS should recognize problems and boot me out of the game. The lockup is
ALWAYS accompanied by a looping sound although there are never any graphical
errors (dots, smears, lines, blurs, odd colors, etc.). I have attempted
running in lower resolutions just for grins. Also, I used the 64bit
installer from Direct2Drive (which did give me issues at first). I am pretty
much out of ideas. I'll remove and re-install my drivers tonight for the
GTX280 as well as possibly update (downgrade?!) my MOBO/BIOS.

Any input is welcome. I am very experienced so feel free to throw tough
troubleshooting procedures at me. If I don't know how to do it I will Google
it and find out.

 

[Joe]

I've been having issues with COD4 locking up. It locks up randomly.
I've proved it's not an overheating issue by playing Crysis on full
graphics in a high resolution for two hours. So it's definitely not a
heat issue. Joe has informed me that driver lock ups will be
recognized and will keep the OS from kernel panic or hard system
locks. My only other guess is SoundMAX (on-board high definition 7.1
sound). It's given me numerous problems in several games. I've killed
all background processes. I have not killed PunkBusterA and B because
I play professionally on CEVO and CAL. Also, Crysis uses PunkBuster.

I got to here and just tuned out dude, sorry, I don't think I can help
you, too much ego.

OK, I'll give it one more shot.

Just for grins I checked my CPU/GPU/MOBO temps and they all appear
well within operational ranges.

Just because the chips aren't overheating doesn't mean they aren't
failing, but I doubt that's the case here.

I have no add-ins except for my
graphics card: EVGA GeForce GTX 280. I'm on the i7 processor with the
P6T Deluxe motherboard. I use a SATA Hard Drive (I was thinking about
firmware updates, but I doubt it's a hard drive issue since Crysis
runs for hours). I'm using a Sony CD/DVD RW ROM. My OS is Vista 64
Ultimate. I'm using a USB mouse/keyboard and DELL Flat Panel (DVI).

I've never upgraded the firmware on a hard drive, is that even possible?
Do Hard Drives even have firmware? I thought the hard drive controller
was on the motherboard, not the hard drive itself.

I've returned the BIOS to it's default settings (I've only changed fan
speed and heat monitoring options) and have stressed tested the system (--snip--)

tough troubleshooting procedures at me. If I don't know how to do it I
will Google it and find out.

You've done everything, and you're still at a loss, and so far you've
done just about everything I'd do in your situation. Did you run
DXWebSetup.exe, just for giggles? Could just be a bug in CoD. I know
Half-Life 2 or any Source game sometimes crashes on my system where no
other games do the same thing. I usually just wait for a patch assuming
others are getting unexplained crashes.

Might just try running your game on another system, see if you have the
same problems, or check with Activision's tech support (call em if they
have phone support), and try not to mention the professional gamer thing,
Usually only Koreans treat their gamers as celeberties, and it's usually
for Starcraft gamers.

Good luck in the CEVO or CAL thing. Out of curiousity, what
mouse/keyboard do you use? I fell in love with the Logitech MX518 when
Logitech gave me a free one at E3-2005, but it's getting old, was
thinking of upgrading.

 

[EN4CER]

LOL Joe, you cut me deep . I mentioned the professional deal so that
there's the awareness I cannot go without it (PunkBuster). I try not to be
an ego driven person but from your comment I assume I am. What exactly makes
you assume I am egocentric? I guess I'll need to work on that after fixing
the crashes lol.

I have not ran DXWebSetup.exe, I'll try that when I go home (Before
reinstallation and BIOS/GTX updates).

I don't use a gaming keyboard. I use a modified DELL USB keyboard. I like
that the keys are much smaller so that my hand can reach more without having
to leave the WASD buttons (or ESDF on games that require more keys, like
TRIBES or Crysis). I never did see the need for bells and whistles. My mouse
is another story though >

Out of curiousity and for clarity, was the tune out because of the ego? I am
genuinely concerned about that. I like to be introspective and to work on
things that I consider my 'blind spots'. If my ego comes off to other people
then I definitely need to work on it since nobody likes 'that' guy.

 

[Joe]

LOL Joe, you cut me deep . I mentioned the professional deal so
that there's the awareness I cannot go without it (PunkBuster). I try
not to be an ego driven person but from your comment I assume I am.
What exactly makes you assume I am egocentric? I guess I'll need to
work on that after fixing the crashes lol.

I have not ran DXWebSetup.exe, I'll try that when I go home (Before
reinstallation and BIOS/GTX updates).

I don't use a gaming keyboard. I use a modified DELL USB keyboard. I
like that the keys are much smaller so that my hand can reach more
without having to leave the WASD buttons (or ESDF on games that
require more keys, like TRIBES or Crysis). I never did see the need
for bells and whistles. My mouse is another story though >

Out of curiousity and for clarity, was the tune out because of the
ego? I am genuinely concerned about that. I like to be introspective
and to work on things that I consider my 'blind spots'. If my ego
comes off to other people then I definitely need to work on it since
nobody likes 'that' guy.

Nothing wrong with ego, mine gets brused often when I'm talking what I
know, or think I know. I guess I am more tech-centric. I'm 38, so my
gaming relexes are nowhere near what they used to be. My G15 and MX518
were free, and I love the mouse enough to of bought a second one for
backup, and the G15 lcd I use more when I'm watching vids or making fraps
recordings. It's a neato thing, but rarely if ever used in the heat of
battle, too far to look.

(reading old post) Guess it was mostly jelousy, I hate that growing up
gaming was pretty much what all the idiots did, now it's pushing so hard
at mainstream that there are reality shows based on gaming. It's now cool
to game, and I hate it. Well hate is a strong word. I like that I can
meet people online and chat about gaming, or easily jump into online
games, though I prefer co-op games to competitive. (L4D, MMOs, Rock
Band/GH)

Whee. - Joe

 

[EN4CER]

Thanks for the reply. I ended up solving the problem by using windows
default drivers for my on-board sound and flashing the motherboard to the
latest BIOS revision released from ASUS. It hasn't showed up in a day, so
it's not 'officially' fixed since I've seen it go nearly 2 days without
incident.

I understand completely how you feel about the mainstream gaming. I myself
started with a C64. I remember hiding game manuals in school because it just
wasn't 'cool' to game even though the games were awesome. What REALLY
solidified me as a gamer for life was how my father, my brother and I bonded
growing up: DOOM, Duke Nukem and Blood cooperatively on hard settings. We
even played the expansion packs. For me, that was the pinnacle of
cooperative play (That and Halo 1 on legendary, but it's XBox, so meh). I
haven't played L4D but I've heard it's good. When the price drops again I'll
be looking into it.

 

[Joe]

Thanks for the reply. I ended up solving the problem by using windows
default drivers for my on-board sound and flashing the motherboard to
the latest BIOS revision released from ASUS. It hasn't showed up in a
day, so it's not 'officially' fixed since I've seen it go nearly 2
days without incident.

I understand completely how you feel about the mainstream gaming. I
myself started with a C64. I remember hiding game manuals in school
because it just wasn't 'cool' to game even though the games were
awesome. What REALLY solidified me as a gamer for life was how my
father, my brother and I bonded growing up: DOOM, Duke Nukem and Blood
cooperatively on hard settings. We even played the expansion packs.
For me, that was the pinnacle of cooperative play (That and Halo 1 on
legendary, but it's XBox, so meh). I haven't played L4D but I've heard
it's good. When the price drops again I'll be looking into it.

Had few friends growing up into gaming, it wasn't until after college
that games like doom came into existence, and back then there wasn't a
good lan system in the dorms. Didn't really get into social gaming until
my first job at Electronic Arts (dream job). Had a SNES which killed a
lot of time back then, first system was a refurbished 2600, was a huge
Atari user til my first 386.

L4D, worth every penny, I can't get into the Verses mode, just too many
kids there, but co-op is a lot of fun. can scare the crud outta you when
you open a door and a flood of zombies comes pooring out. Valve really
knows how to take something and polish it to perfection. Not since Day of
Defeat have I been so into a valve game.

 

[EN4CER]

I thought I had resolved the problem with a BIOS flash to the latest version
and disabling soundMAX (un-installing the drivers) but the problem reared
it's head again after several days of play. My problem persists regardless
of PB server or not. Make sure to get the latest version from
evenbalance.com (this is important that you get it from here as the
autoupdater is flaky). I was reading that CoD4 has problems with
Dual-Channel RAM in 3 stick configurations. That's the ONLY thing I haven't
tried. I refuse to gimp my system for a videogame. So I play until it locks
up. When it does I'm basically finished for the night. I've gone for a week
without lockups before.

It does it to me even on ProMod Live servers (which can't use PB due to
being modded). Also make sure to try /pb_sleep 500 in the console. I've done
more research on this problem than you can possibly imagine. We're not the
only ones. It seems to follow the ASUS crowd around, which is pretty
coincidental. I have the identical problem with Battlefield games. I
troubleshoot problems for a living but this has got me completely stumped.

I have gotten probably 20 e-mails from people reading this thread and asking
if I ever did have a final solution. The answer is no. Again, I never did
try removing one stick of RAM and making sure that the remaining 2 were in
separate channels. Also, make sure to have something plugged into your
microphone port. I don't even want to buy MW:2 in November because of this
issue. I'm literally embarrassed that I can't figure this out.

 

[EN4CER]

So I wanted to let everyone know that the problem is still not resolved. I
thought I had it. Alas, I do not. I've ran several integrations of memory
testing as well as check comfits. I've tried everything including gimping my
system down to a single stick of RAM and trying again (I read that COD can
have problems with multiple channels of RAM, knowing it wouldn't work I
tried in desperation). I've tried a new graphics card and a new hard drive.
I read somewhere that nTune has conflicts with PB and that it can cause
random freezes lockups. So I'm off to try another crazy fix after work. I've
been gaming (which means simultaneously troubleshooting) for over a decade
and have never had so much difficulty nailing down a problem.

Also, I've gotten probably 20 e-mails from people having the exact same
problem as me and asking if there was a solution. So far, no.

 

[Joe]

So I wanted to let everyone know that the problem is still not
resolved. I thought I had it. Alas, I do not. I've ran several
integrations of memory testing as well as check comfits. I've tried
everything including gimping my system down to a single stick of RAM
and trying again (I read that COD can have problems with multiple
channels of RAM, knowing it wouldn't work I tried in desperation).
I've tried a new graphics card and a new hard drive. I read somewhere
that nTune has conflicts with PB and that it can cause random freezes
lockups. So I'm off to try another crazy fix after work. I've been
gaming (which means simultaneously troubleshooting) for over a decade
and have never had so much difficulty nailing down a problem.

Also, I've gotten probably 20 e-mails from people having the exact
same problem as me and asking if there was a solution. So far, no.

If it's only happening in CoD4, is it the game then? I mean games ship
with known issues all the time, last I checked the "Legacy Database" for
Madden has about 5000 "open bugs", that's 5000 unresolved problems in one
of the longest running game franchises ever.

Could just be SOL, I'd tell you to work with Infinity Ward, but if you
only have 20 people with this problem vs the 100,000 people playing at
any given moment you might be hard pressed to convince them to write a
patch for .0002% of their online customers.

I've been gaming for 30 years, roughly since my Atari 2600, and I know a
bug when I see one.

 

[EN4CER]

No, it happens in most of my PunkBuster games and only occurs on punkbuster
enabled servers. Singleplayer and non-pb servers work without incident.
Battlefield 2142 and Battlefield 2 exhibit identical symptoms. So I'm
troubleshooting PB at this point. PB apparently has a million issues and
I've been sorting through them for the last couple of days via google. I'm
methodically trying one solution at a time. Once I have it fixed I will let
everyone know. PB claims that their software pushes hardware to the brink
and will bring out 'flaky' hardware (They actually used that word, flaky, on
their website).

I have to agree to disagree with them. Nvidia has RMA'd my card so I know it
is not the problem. They both perform beutifully. I enabled logging for PB
and also started playing with some of their less publicised settings. My log
ends with a crazy message. I'm going to let it lock up again and see if the
log ends with the same msg. I've googled reasons for the msg and literally
nothing but 2 german websites came up and a forum poster asking what it
meant (with no replies). LOL!

If the msg is consistent with the lockup I will open a ticket with
evenbalance. I wish windows would log the error so I could legitimately
point the finger at PB. TF2 PB servers work fine though. I've played in them
for several hours on several occassions. Since the lockup is so random I
can't 100% gaurantee that it doesn't exist in TF2 though.

I'm rambling.

 

[EN4CER]

So I've changed my SATA drivers and ran memtest over night, updated BIOS and
removed on-board sound drivers. I've enabled/disabled all of the devices
related to sound. I've rolled back to older video card drivers as well as
the beta ones. I've removed sticks of RAM and have re-installed the
application as well as Windows. I've changed my name to not include
non-standard character (I was using ^# for name coloring) and have manually
un-installed/re-installed punkbuster. I've searched for a software conflict
list for my programs and services and I don't have anything running that has
documented conflicts. I've played the game in safe-mode with networking and
have tried removing my router from the equation. I've checked server/pb logs
and I don't see anything that would indicate a problem. Of course the
windows logs don't record the event. I have a disabled a NIC port (since I
have dual) and have plugged a mic into my input jacks. I've ran the program
as administrator and every other little thing you can imagine.

Evo, are you using Direct2Drive's version of the game? I'm starting to get
suspicious of their code now. /sigh. I also wanted to ask if you purchased
your PC from CyberPower? Also, are you using Vista Ultimate? Are you using
32bit or 64?

 

[Joe]

So I've changed my SATA drivers and ran memtest over night, updated
BIOS and removed on-board sound drivers. I've enabled/disabled all of
the devices related to sound. I've rolled back to older video card
drivers as well as the beta ones. I've removed sticks of RAM and have
re-installed the application as well as Windows. I've changed my name
to not include non-standard character (I was using ^# for name
coloring) and have manually un-installed/re-installed punkbuster. I've
searched for a software conflict list for my programs and services and
I don't have anything running that has documented conflicts. I've
played the game in safe-mode with networking and have tried removing
my router from the equation. I've checked server/pb logs and I don't
see anything that would indicate a problem. Of course the windows logs
don't record the event. I have a disabled a NIC port (since I have
dual) and have plugged a mic into my input jacks. I've ran the program
as administrator and every other little thing you can imagine.

Evo, are you using Direct2Drive's version of the game? I'm starting to
get suspicious of their code now. /sigh. I also wanted to ask if you
purchased your PC from CyberPower? Also, are you using Vista Ultimate?
Are you using 32bit or 64?

Wow En4cer, great diagnostic skillz there. You in IT, or just really
passionate about gaming?

 

[EN4CER]

Not exactly IT. I am part of a high level support team for business critical
servers (same company I work for now) that used Linux RH in conjunction with
Oracle (Online transactional rather than data warehouse) to provide
reporting needed for telecoms and law enforcement. In that type of
environment you hit a lot of problems both in the hardware and software
(hell, sometimes even the protocol!!!). I'm not as good as some of the other
guys here but I consider my troubleshooting skills satisfactory.

Until now.

/cry

One thing I did notice that was very strange was that my COD4 processes are
32bit. WOW64 is having to emulate behind the scenes. The thing that makes
this situation stand out is that cod4 supports 64bit. I'm wondering if maybe
it hits a 32bit dll and freaks out. I was reading that there are several
32-64bit nuances that cause problems somewhat like what I'm having. ev0 is
running a 32bit environment though. He also has a nearly identical
motherboard/processor/RAM. I have a feeling it is one of those three
components or a combination of them that is causing problems. I just can't
prove it though. RAAAAAAR!!!