So.. I built a new pc for christmas and it have ALWAYS been BSODing when playing MMORPGs and some Single player RTS games with decent graphics like Black & White 2. It hasn't been a problem for me but now I'd like to play some MMOs again. It  actually was the reason why I quitted mmorpgs. I remember that last mmorpg was Warhammer and I was ok with singleplayer but whenever I went to PvP battlegrounds I got BSOD. Not instantly and not always but very often after few minutes. Now few days ago I decided to try Atlantica Online. I beated the tutorial but then in first fight in non-tutorial place. BSOD. I have always been wanting to fix this problem so if any of you wants/can help me please. I don't remember any bsod codes now but later I will post more of them.

And for few months now I played CoD: WaW, CoD 4, CS:S, TF2, Oblivion and many other singleplayer RPGs without any problems. Maybe one or two bsods in oblivion etc, but nothing as serious as in mmorpgs. My specs are:

Ati 4870hd

Intel E8500

MSI P45 Neo 2 Motherboard

500 or 550w Power thingy

if you need to know something more. ask me. I really want help. I've had this problem for so long and it would be nice to play some MMORPGs.

Quick lesson in tech support. Every time you have a problem that occurs when gaming, pretty much the first thing you should be doing is making sure your drivers are correct for the equipment you have and up to date.

Also a common concern is heat. Is the computer getting proper ventilation? Is it overheating?

Originally posted by terrant

Quick lesson in tech support. Every time you have a problem that occurs when gaming, pretty much the first thing you should be doing is making sure your drivers are correct for the equipment you have and up to date.

 

Also a common concern is heat. Is the computer getting proper ventilation? Is it overheating?

It's not overheating. if I remember right some of BSODs had something to do with drivers and time, they didn't respond or something can't remember. But I'm sure that my graphics card drivers are right and that they are updated. But my bios and motherboard drivers aren't updated because the update system for MSI motherboard sucks. I downloaded some files that was .somethingthatican'tremember and they didn't tell anywhere where should I put them. So they are just old, but I think the driver bsod was with my ATI drivers and they are right. Atleast im 99% sure they are right. Is there any way to check the drivers or something? :S

Also thank you for your support. I really need help with this. :)

I found the old reports in control panel! They are in finnish but I can try to translate them to you if needed, and also I have got 2different bsods. Other is (crappy translate) "Graphics Card Error" and other "unexpected shutting"

I really have no idea if these matters or not:

Graphics Card Error:

BCCode: 117
BCP1: 879DB488
BCP2: 8DE184B2
BCP3: 00000000
BCP4: 00000000
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Unexpected Shutting

BCCode: 116
BCP1: 84E58338
BCP2: 8DE184B2
BCP3: 00000000
BCP4: 00000002
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1
 

What temperature is your graphic card and cpu running at?

Originally posted by rello

What temperature is your graphic card and cpu running at?

around 60c. Maybe 70 at bad times. But isn't these atis always very hot.

Going to sleep now. New solutions welcome,  I answer all questions when I wake up.

What version of CCC are you using? What is your CPU temperature under load?

overheating is usually the case, its always worth to open case and check fans, and just generally clean your pcu case, if you have aftermarket cooler, some of them just loves to gather dust as fast as they can

there should be some explanaition how to update bios, on msi website, as for drivers, new ones come out every month more or less, so if you got it  at xmass, and if it was prebuild or even if you build it yourself.. which i doubt , it still will have old drivers, probably ones that came with graphic card, which can be quite old by now

your psu is lacking... 500/550 is on the edge for your config,

i dunno if you have anything overclocked once again  60-70 temeperatures are fine if you using sli/xfire, but  i doubt if it should be there with single card, tho im not using 4870 so i dont know, check if there is no mini heating fans on mainboard, between psu and gpu , some cards have silent fans for passive cooled gpu cads,

but if you plug that fan it heavily messes up cooling air between pcu and gpu, i  had done.. without reading sticker.. i was just like , more fans cant be bad.. well it gave me like extra 10celcius on every part ...

simple solliution would be bringing yours pc to tech support, and asking them to update drivers,bios , check for errors and stuff, saying that pc crashes and such.. thats what warrancy is for

i have crashes myself now and then , sometimes even few  a day, depending if game is new.. like new ghostbusters crashes my pc 5 mins after i start it.. so yeh..

but in general  it shouldnt be that offten

I'd actually like to see what you get from running memtest86+
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Burn it to a cd or use the usb version and let it do 1 or 2 passes and see if it has any errors then hit esc and report back :)

Originally posted by Smikis

overheating is usually the case, its always worth to open case and check fans, and just generally clean your pcu case, if you have aftermarket cooler, some of them just loves to gather dust as fast as they can

there should be some explanaition how to update bios, on msi website, as for drivers, new ones come out every month more or less, so if you got it  at xmass, and if it was prebuild or even if you build it yourself.. which i doubt , it still will have old drivers, probably ones that came with graphic card, which can be quite old by now

I actually built it myself. I updated my garphics card drivers few days ago and now I'm on MSI websites and installed all the important drivers.  Also for BIOS update there is chance for live update. is it recommended?

You have any more information on your crashdumps?

Are you crashing when putting the computer under load and using the network?

Originally posted by Orphes

You have any more information on your crashdumps?

Are you crashing when putting the computer under load and using the network?

all information I have is the tickets or whatever they are that the pc has sent to microsoft. If you understand them I can copy paste them here.

And all I know about my bsods are that they happen mostly on MMORPGs with decent graphics and RTS games with good graphics. No problems with close quarter games like CS:S , CoDs, and not even with Crysis.

Also singleplayer RPG games like Oblivion, Fable, Fallout3 seems to work without bsods.

I use a MSI MB ( the P6N SLI Platinum with an E8400, had many headaches getting it to work ). I tried  MSI Live to update my MB and some times it worked and sometimes it would not. Your best bet is to download the newest Bios update to a formatted (bootable) floppy or cd/dvd. Make sure you save a copy of your current bios settings before installing any bios updates. Also, make sure that which ever drive you are going to install the update from is set to be the first drive that boots from the bios.

Disclaimer: updating your bios can be risky, and can destroy your MB. Do it at your own risk.

The MSI forums have helped me many times with problems I had, check them out forum-en.msi.com/index.php

Originally posted by jdkskip

I use a MSI MB ( the P6N SLI Platinum with an E8400, had many headaches getting it to work ). I tried  MSI Live to update my MB and some times it worked and sometimes it would not. Your best bet is to download the newest Bios update to a formatted (bootable) floppy or cd/dvd. Make sure you save a copy of your current bios settings before installing any bios updates. Also, make sure that which ever drive you are going to install the update from is set to be the first drive that boots from the bios.

Disclaimer: updating your bios can be risky, and can destroy your MB. Do it at your own risk.

The MSI forums have helped me many times with problems I had, check them out forum-en.msi.com/index.php

 

 

 

 

I won't do it until I can confirm that the problem is bios. Because I get some kind of  "Graphics Card Error" BSODs so I doubt it's bios?

Bios is possible, any general instability can be a bios issue. There's a lot of possibilities with that type of error. It could be bad RAM or too tight of timings which is one of the easier things to test. Could be heat, bad GPU or PSU as well.

I've never had a failed BIOS update, I'd recommend updating it but you can check your bios version at bootup and see what the newest bios version is at MSI's site and see if the release notes address your issue at all.

edit: looked up your mobo bios releases and they all include memory compatibility fixes so a bios update could very well fix the problem.

Originally posted by noquarter

Bios is possible, any general instability can be a bios issue. There's a lot of possibilities with that type of error. It could be bad RAM or too tight of timings which is one of the easier things to test. Could be heat, bad GPU or PSU as well.

I've never had a failed BIOS update, I'd recommend updating it but you can check your bios version at bootup and see what the newest bios version is at MSI's site and see if the release notes address your issue at all.

edit: looked up your mobo bios releases and they all include memory compatibility fixes so a bios update could very well fix the problem.

Have any experiences of live updates? I have never updated bios before and it doesn't sound easy. I'm very good at ruining things on my computer. so.. would the live update be better choice?

EDIT: Live update doesn't support windows vista :(((

File that is 749kt and so hard to install. I really have no idea how to update bios :S any links to guides or something?

Originally posted by Jazqa

Originally posted by Orphes

You have any more information on your crashdumps?

Are you crashing when putting the computer under load and using the network?

all information I have is the tickets or whatever they are that the pc has sent to microsoft. If you understand them I can copy paste them here.

And all I know about my bsods are that they happen mostly on MMORPGs with decent graphics and RTS games with good graphics. No problems with close quarter games like CS:S , CoDs, and not even with Crysis.

Also singleplayer RPG games like Oblivion, Fable, Fallout3 seems to work without bsods.

Are you online while playing those RTS games?

He's basically asking to find out if it's your network driver. Since you're not having trouble in CS:S, though, I'm guessing it's not.

And please, PLEASE - update your motherboard BIOS. That's the very FIRST thing anyone should do when their computer is up and running. Using the LIveUpdate is fine. If you don't feel comfortable using the LiveUpdate, update it manually.

Download CoreTemp and watch your CPU heat during all this stuff. If it gets above 70C (depending on the CPU you have - the smaller the dye size, the less heat it should output), that's bad. If it gets into the 80s or 90s, it's shutting down due to heat.

Also, do what the person on the first page recommended and download MemTest86+, put that on a jump drive/disc, and let that run for a good 6 hours. If it finds errors, it's your memory and you either need to change your settings in the Motherboard's BIOS or get new memory (depending on how you have it setup). If you just stuck the memory in there and hoped it would, I would try VERY SLOWLY upping the voltage to the memory until MemTest86+ doesn't return any errors for 6+ hours.

If MemTest86+ passes, your CPU heat output is fine, and your drivers are all updated - it could be a physical fault in the motherboard (very unlikely), Windows doing something strange (slightly more likely), or something you're doing but you're not mentioning (the most likely).

Originally posted by Jazqa

Originally posted by noquarter

Bios is possible, any general instability can be a bios issue. There's a lot of possibilities with that type of error. It could be bad RAM or too tight of timings which is one of the easier things to test. Could be heat, bad GPU or PSU as well.

I've never had a failed BIOS update, I'd recommend updating it but you can check your bios version at bootup and see what the newest bios version is at MSI's site and see if the release notes address your issue at all.

edit: looked up your mobo bios releases and they all include memory compatibility fixes so a bios update could very well fix the problem.

 

Have any experiences of live updates? I have never updated bios before and it doesn't sound easy. I'm very good at ruining things on my computer. so.. would the live update be better choice?

 

EDIT: Live update doesn't support windows vista :(((

File that is 749kt and so hard to install. I really have no idea how to update bios :S any links to guides or something?

It does support Vista. Their ONLINE version does not, but if you download LIveUpdate 3.XXX, you'll be fine.  Updating it manually is pretty simple - they have instructions where you download it, you don't need a guide.

Originally posted by Egamst3k

Originally posted by Jazqa

Originally posted by noquarter

Bios is possible, any general instability can be a bios issue. There's a lot of possibilities with that type of error. It could be bad RAM or too tight of timings which is one of the easier things to test. Could be heat, bad GPU or PSU as well.

I've never had a failed BIOS update, I'd recommend updating it but you can check your bios version at bootup and see what the newest bios version is at MSI's site and see if the release notes address your issue at all.

edit: looked up your mobo bios releases and they all include memory compatibility fixes so a bios update could very well fix the problem.

 

Have any experiences of live updates? I have never updated bios before and it doesn't sound easy. I'm very good at ruining things on my computer. so.. would the live update be better choice?

 

EDIT: Live update doesn't support windows vista :(((

File that is 749kt and so hard to install. I really have no idea how to update bios :S any links to guides or something?

 

It does support Vista. Their ONLINE version does not, but if you download LIveUpdate 3.XXX, you'll be fine.  Updating it manually is pretty simple - they have instructions where you download it, you don't need a guide.

 

Thanks. I will do the LiveUpdate later today/tomorrow.

Everyone will come here and tell you about overheating, voltaiges, drivers and clocks. In fact its rarely a cause.

Most often, it's simply faulty graphic card.  If BSOD is occuring infrequently in games, at random times, (sometimes during load, sometimes when idle -- sometimes twice in 10 minutes, sometimes once each 2-3 days), it is very probable that its damaged HW and if you're within warrancy you'll get a new one as a replacement.

Drivers / overheating / voltaiges BSODs are usually happening in much more predictable pattern. After awhile you can usually diagnose the exact situation that trigger them.

If the card is faulty, the crashes are quite random.

And last thing to note.

Damaged memory stick is almost always recognized at the computer startup with a bios beep. (or at least after each BSOD) Additionally BSOD caused by faulty memory are frequently causing extremly long spikes in games. If you get BSOD evet during a situation when you have high FPS with no spikes then I would bet my finger that it's damaged gpu.

Originally posted by Thillian

And last thing to note.

Damaged memory stick is almost always recognized at the computer startup with a bios beep. (or at least after each BSOD) Additionally BSOD caused by faulty memory are frequently causing extremly long spikes in games. If you get BSOD evet during a situation when you have high FPS with no spikes then I would bet my finger that it's damaged gpu.

Hey man!! You're answer is MAYBE the best so far. Listen now. It's not the Graphics card because I have had 2 of these 4870. Old one had the same bsod problem and I got new because it's cooler broke. Now I have new and still bsods.

But ALWAYS when I have launched my pc it has "beeped" 2 or 3 times instead of one, which I have never liked but I have thought it's normal. Maybe it isn't?! Should I take some of my RAM sticks away? I have 4x1gb sticks.

EDIT: I get BSODs even when high FPS but the game and sound freezes like 5seconds before BSOD. But could I have 2 damaged gpus twice?

MSI bios beeps once for every USB slot used at the startup. How many beeps do you hear and how many USB slots do you use?

Originally posted by Jazqa

Originally posted by Thillian

And last thing to note.

Damaged memory stick is almost always recognized at the computer startup with a bios beep. (or at least after each BSOD) Additionally BSOD caused by faulty memory are frequently causing extremly long spikes in games. If you get BSOD evet during a situation when you have high FPS with no spikes then I would bet my finger that it's damaged gpu.

 

Hey man!! You're answer is MAYBE the best so far. Listen now. It's not the Graphics card because I have had 2 of these 4870. Old one had the same bsod problem and I got new because it's cooler broke. Now I have new and still bsods.

But ALWAYS when I have launched my pc it has "beeped" 2 or 3 times instead of one, which I have never liked but I have thought it's normal. Maybe it isn't?! Should I take some of my RAM sticks away? I have 4x1gb sticks.

 

EDIT: I get BSODs even when high FPS but the game and sound freezes like 5seconds before BSOD. But could I have 2 damaged gpus twice?

POST will recognize damaged RAM, not undervolted RAM.

Damaged GPUs generally come with a lot of other stuff - veritcal/horizontal tearing, random freezing (without BSODs), bad color reproduction, significant overheating, etc.. Yes, BSODs can be a symptom of a bad GPU, but as you've tried it out with two different cards, I doubt it's the GPU.

Your computer beeping is a GOOD thing at POST. If you had read your manual, you'd know that beeping three times (or two times - it depends on the motherboard) means that the POST passed and everthing is OK. Generally if it beeps once, it means there's a problem (an oldies solution for when there weren't POST LEDs - which you should have; they all turn green after statup).

The possibility of having two damaged video cards is slim, but not entirely impossible (bad GPUs come in batches, if you bought two from the same batch, it could happen) - but it's very, very rare. Your sound freezing isn't so much a symptom as a biproduct.

Test your RAM with MemTest86+. Let it go for 4 hours. Check your IRQ channels and make sure nothing is causing havoc on the same channel.

If both look fine, then you can start thinking about damaged hardware. Motherboard and RAM are your most likely culprits if you do start thinking about damaged hardware and it's a fresh install of Windows.