[BUG] WB causes random reboots

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Ringwraith #5

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Couldn't find anything on this, so here goes.
Playing WB causes my computer to restart. No bluescreen, no error message, just going along one moment and then looking at the bios inicialization screen the next. The only pattern I've been able to discern is that it happens during scene transitions. Entering towns or villages, initiating conversation, starting battle, etc.
My machine is an Athlon 2800 with a gig and a half of ram and a GF 6600, running XP all service packed and patched up. It's not overheating, and almost no other games cause this problem (I'm saying almost because Motorm4x does, but there it's completely random).
 
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/disautorestart.htm

Disable automatic restart and you'll likely receive a blue screen giving you some information to help us work with.

Random guess to toss out there would be some ram going bad.
 
I have that disabled, that's why I said no bluescreen. If it was RAM, there would be tons of other problems with the box, but there aren't. It's just these two games that cause this problem, everything else runs well and the system is generally pretty stable (the only instability I have at the moment comes from a hardware issue I know about, specifically loose wires that cause the C: drive to disconnect if you bump into the case; unsurprisingly, Windows doesn't react very favourably to that sort of thing, but it's unrelated to this).
 
You saying that you have no blue screen generally means that automatic restart is enabled, hence why I suggested it. I'm trying to help you; no need to get defensive on me. :razz:

You're coming in here with a computer filled with ~6 year old parts and a mystery on your hands. It's a problem that you've researched and found nobody else sharing, indicating it's probably a problem on your end. The possibilities and solutions are numerous and you gave a limited background on solutions that you've tried. Help me help you. I can offer help on the hardware side since I have some experience troubleshooting this stuff. :wink:

Have you tried reinstalling Warband? Possibly something was corrupted in installation.

You can try running memtest to see if there's a bad sector on one of your ram sticks. It could be that M&B is reserving a memory address that is using this bad sector and causing your crashes whereas other programs might not have something as critical using this bad sector and are able to recover from it.

Another likely possibility is your PSU is on the fritz. What brand is the PSU and what wattage? Check to see what your PSU says it's capable of running on its rails. You likely have a screen in your BIOS that will show what kind of fluctuation you are getting on your +12v rails and such. If you have a voltmeter, you can google the proper way to test to ensure you're getting proper amperage on the PSU rails.

Try replacing that IDE cable/ swapping the ATX power molex that is causing problems. A bad IDE cable can easily cause data corruption.
 
I'm not being defensive, just to the point. I appreciate your suggestions.

Harn said:
It's a problem that you've researched and found nobody else sharing, indicating it's probably a problem on your end.
The fact that it only affects two games out of dozens would suggest it's a problem with these games, IMO.

Have you tried reinstalling Warband? Possibly something was corrupted in installation.
I do a clean install with every new version, so yeah, several times already.

You can try running memtest to see if there's a bad sector on one of your ram sticks. It could be that M&B is reserving a memory address that is using this bad sector and causing your crashes whereas other programs might not have something as critical using this bad sector and are able to recover from it.
Will do tomorrow, but I doubt it.

Another likely possibility is your PSU is on the fritz. What brand is the  and what wattage? Check to see what your PSU says it's capable of running on its rails. You likely have a screen in your BIOS that will show what kind of fluctuation you are getting on your +12v rails and such. If you have a voltmeter, you can google the proper way to test to ensure you're getting proper amperage on the PSU rails.
No clue.

Try replacing that IDE cable/ swapping the ATX power molex that is causing problems. A bad IDE cable can easily cause data corruption.
I did that a while ago and it did help somewhat, but the problem still occasionally appears. But again, if it was data corruption in a cable, I'd guess it'd affect all data, no? Then how come only M&B and one other obscure game cause this kind of instability and everything else runs fine?

That said, haven't had the problem with the last two patches, so perhaps whatever was causing it went away. We'll see, will test it thoroughly in the upcoming days. :razz:
 
Without being able to get my hands on the system physically, all I can do is recommend blanket solutions and hope one of them hits the nail on the head for you. The memory test probably won't find anything, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Honestly, I'm thinking a possible problem with your power supply is adding up most in regards to random restarts, especially if the PSU is older and extra likely if it's not from a quality company. Systems starved for power can completely restart a computer with no indication of why it's restarted. If Motorm4x and WB are your most intensive games that you run, you could be finding your graphics card asking for more power at certain points and choking from lack of sufficient/clean power coming from your PSU.

Crack open the case and see if you can find the sticker on the side of the power supply (may need to unscrew the PSU from the case to turn it around and see it) and write down the brand name, model #, rated wattage, and the ratings for the rails (+12v, 5v, etc.). I can give some feedback based on those, especially the brand, rated wattage and +12v rail amperage.

Then you'll be looking in your BIOS and finding a menu screen to watch the rails, specifically the +12v one (powers graphics card), watch to see if these are severely fluctuating or performing lower than the advertised rating. Performance of a PSU will also decrease the hotter it gets, so checking these ratings would be best after running for some time. Maybe after a random reboot if you can remember to check right after one. Optionally, checking these after the computer has been shut down for the night or an hour or so might give you something to compare to.

A multimeter can give us some nice information (can probably find a cheap one at Radio Shack for ~$10-15), but the BIOS might be enough to work with. There might still be a program out there to watch this stuff while in Windows. I haven't looked for one in years though and I'm feeling lazy after writing this. :razz:
 
I get this exact same problem, only I have an entirely different system.

I have 2 HD3870's running on a Silverstone DA650 PSU and only get the crashes when I have crossfire enabled. When it's disabled the crashes disappear entirely.

At first I thought my PSU wasn't able to handle the load anymore (it's 2 years old or so)

But the thing is; I've run Furmark continuously for 15 minutes with no crash, I've done a full 3dmark06 bench with no crashes. And get this: when I'd get the crash playing multiplayer, I'd start the game back up and get the crash again while still in the menu screen. It would crash before I even joined a game!


The crash occurs in singleplayer and multiplayer, and will occur on the campaign map as well as in a zone.


*edit* Event viewer merely tells me there was an unexpected shutdown after it has booted back up. It refers to an unexpected shutdown (in this case 12:00:34pm) but there's no other error or event just prior to the shutdown\

2u6h8cl.jpg
 
Could the problem possibly be your video card drivers? Does updating/reinstalling them solve the problem? Have you tried enabling/disabling "Load textures on demand" in the Launcher configure options?
 
Da-V-Man said:
Could the problem possibly be your video card drivers? Does updating/reinstalling them solve the problem? Have you tried enabling/disabling "Load textures on demand" in the Launcher configure options?

I've done a fresh format and installed the latest drivers to no avail. Although drivers seem a likely culprit because the problem only began a month ago or so.

But I don't want to have to go back to older drivers, that would make me sad. I run the game without 'load textures on demand' so I'll have a go at enabling it. Thanks

 
Harn said:
If Motorm4x and WB are your most intensive games that you run...
Nowhere near.

Archonsod said:
Open eventviewer and check the system log just before the restarts. Should give you a clue as to why it's resetting.
Will do next time I have one.

Da-V-Man said:
Could the problem possibly be your video card drivers? Does updating/reinstalling them solve the problem? Have you tried enabling/disabling "Load textures on demand" in the Launcher configure options?
Does nothing. Disabled "load textures on demand" and haven't had a restart since, but since they were infrequent to begin with I don't have a clue if that fixed it or if I'm just being lucky.
 
I went from disabled to enabled load textures on demand, it seemed to last a little longer before the crash but it still crashed.
 
Laszlo said:
*edit* Event viewer merely tells me there was an unexpected shutdown after it has booted back up. It refers to an unexpected shutdown (in this case 12:00:34pm) but there's no other error or event just prior to the shutdown\
I notice nine seconds before it's complaining about power. You sure the PSU can handle the strain.
 
I ran a search on "restart computer" after Warband restarted my computer for like the tenth time, and found this thread.  It feels good to know others have the same exact problem.

I have games and programs that use way more memory and power.  Mount and Blade 1 runs fine too.  To be safe of course, Ive checked event viewer, updated graphics drivers, plenty of ram, ran memtest86, temps ok, cleaned out the case and opened it up, Ive got a big fan on it atm, power supply stable and enough to spare, etc. 

I still dont see anything to tell me about the crash- even though its set up to tell me, it just immediately restarts the pc in the middle of a battle, switching scenes, moving on the map, or clicking buttons ingame.

My computer is about 2-3 years behind the latest and greatest hardware, but I understand that Warband should be ok with that.  Thing is- it wasnt doing this until I updated to 1.104 from 1.102.  I have 1.105 now and its still restarting.  Ive tried completely reinstalling the game to no avail.
 
My solution is to buy new hardware.  OR test your current hardware physically by removing ram and leaving in a single stick in. Also if your not sure it's your GPU your systems are old enough to have an on board card slot try that and run the game. There is many cases where one game will work and other's not. Honestly I have build computers for years now and I had to replace parts all the time on mine. They just go bad over time. It's the will of the PC company's.
 
Daron said:
I still dont see anything to tell me about the crash- even though its set up to tell me, it just immediately restarts the pc in the middle of a battle, switching scenes, moving on the map, or clicking buttons ingame.

My computer is about 2-3 years behind the latest and greatest hardware, but I understand that Warband should be ok with that.  Thing is- it wasnt doing this until I updated to 1.104 from 1.102.  I have 1.105 now and its still restarting.  Ive tried completely reinstalling the game to no avail.

+1
The crashes in menus and campaign maps are what makes me suspicious about this one.
 
I've had another one yesterday and looked through the logs, couldn't find anything interesting happening prior to it. No power warning, no nothing. Will continue testing.
 
This seems to be happening for me at the moment the pc resets.

Faulting application mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x0016b681.

Faulting application mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x001976ff.

This shows up when I get back into windows.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae6261, parameter3 b4117900, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae630a, parameter3 b62558fc, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae6261, parameter3 b58b4900, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae630a, parameter3 b4a768fc, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae6261, parameter3 b4c87900, parameter4 00000000.

I got this stuff in event viewer.  Nothing actually pops up, besides when reloading windows "Your system recovered from a serious error...".  I dont understand how just pushing a button in a menu of Warband with 200 frames per second, system all running smoothly can just crash the whole pc.

One thing I have tried is just sitting still.  If I just wait on the world map, paused or unpaused, nothing happens.  I have left Warband running both ways (padlock on spacebar) for overnight, and it wouldnt crash.  Also I have waited in busy scenes, and even once in a battle where the last guy got stuck, and my army was running into a wall trying to get him, I left the pc for an hour and was ok.  But all I have to do is click on a button, or enter a scene/battle/conversation and the computer reset.

I can get about 30 minutes of vigorous playtime with up to 400 man battles, constant scene switching and menu checking etc, but then I have to save and exit, then restart the game.  If I dont I risk the pc rebooting.  It seems to be happening after a certain period of game time, and it doesnt really matter what you are doing, if you input an action, it crashes.

Dont know if that is really anything helpful.
 
Daron said:
This seems to be happening for me at the moment the pc resets.

Faulting application mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x0016b681.

Faulting application mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module mb_warband.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x001976ff.

This shows up when I get back into windows.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae6261, parameter3 b4117900, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae630a, parameter3 b62558fc, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae6261, parameter3 b58b4900, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae630a, parameter3 b4a768fc, parameter4 00000000.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bfae6261, parameter3 b4c87900, parameter4 00000000.

I got this stuff in event viewer.  Nothing actually pops up, besides when reloading windows "Your system recovered from a serious error...".  I dont understand how just pushing a button in a menu of Warband with 200 frames per second, system all running smoothly can just crash the whole pc.

One thing I have tried is just sitting still.  If I just wait on the world map, paused or unpaused, nothing happens.  I have left Warband running both ways (padlock on spacebar) for overnight, and it wouldnt crash.  Also I have waited in busy scenes, and even once in a battle where the last guy got stuck, and my army was running into a wall trying to get him, I left the pc for an hour and was ok.  But all I have to do is click on a button, or enter a scene/battle/conversation and the computer reset.

I can get about 30 minutes of vigorous playtime with up to 400 man battles, constant scene switching and menu checking etc, but then I have to save and exit, then restart the game.  If I dont I risk the pc rebooting.  It seems to be happening after a certain period of game time, and it doesnt really matter what you are doing, if you input an action, it crashes.

Dont know if that is really anything helpful.

Well the next thing I suggest to try is to check for viruses and malware. That's often another big cause of these types of errors when bad RAM has been ruled out.

Not sure what anti virus you're using now, but a very nice (and free) anti virus program with good detection results is Avira anti virus. It has a small footprint in terms of memory usage. The only downside is it has a pop up window that comes up once a day, but Google might be able to help with that. :cool:
http://www.free-av.com/en/download/index.html

Another program to use is Spybot S&D. This will track down spyware that companies potentially sneak in to your computer and cause problems.
http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

There's another program, HijackThis, but it requires a bit more feedback than I would feel safe giving you. There are forums out there that have people with experience and guides for giving feedback on what files are safe or potentially bad. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum22.html appears to have helpful people that would give you feedback on the log files generated by HijackThis. It's a bit more involved so I saved this solution for last if the other two don't clear things up.

Trojan viruses and spyware/malware often conflict with legitimate programs and cause errors and crashes in computers, so bear with me on this. I've seen this happen with other games before. Thanks for working through this. :wink:
 
I didnt believe it was virus related, but I did go ahead and try what you said.  Spybot S&D I already had, so I ran it first.  I usually find a new bot about every dang time I visit the internet, BUT I did find 1 trojan with it after I ran it as you suggested.  No idea when that got there, but thats got to be the first time Ive found a virus on this computer since I built it.

Afterwards I downloaded and updated Avira.  It found no viruses or anything at all, so I just removed it after that.  I dont know if it was the virus that was rebooting Warband, or if the things I updated after I ran Spybot fixed the restarts, but...

FINALLY, I have resolved this issue for myself.

I downloaded an update to DirectX.  When I went to their site I downloaded this:

The Microsoft DirectX® End-User Runtime provides updates to 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX — the core Windows® technology that drives high-speed multimedia and games on the PC.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en#AdditionalInfo

I also found new updates to my graphics card driver I missed on their website.  That also could have fixed it.  There was also new stuff on windows update.  I doubt it was windows update related though.  Anyway so I restarted computer.  Reloaded Warband.  I played for several hours, marshalling the lords around the map, pitching battles and taking castles with no issues.  Its good to be back in Calradia!

Well anyway, if you guys try this stuff, it may fix the reboots.  Yes- I thought I had already been updated too, but one patch may make a difference.  Ive been thinking the whole time it was software related, and it was.  Just not Talesworld's fault.

So go back and try to find as many fixes to your software as you can.  My computer is older than both of yours.  Shouldnt need new hardware.
 
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