Battlefield 3 Blue Screen of Death?

[yangwangbrock]

Hi,

I recently got 2 Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) while playing BF3. What happened was that while I was playing a game, all of sudden the screen turns blue and there is a message saying I had a hardware error. And there is this looping sound playing until you reset the computer.

I am playing at the maximum setting on one 24' screen @ 1920 x 1200. This only happens for BF3 and none of my other graphics demanding game had such problem.

I am certain that there is nothing wrong with my hardware (did a thorough check on every part), and no part is overheating (CF, CPU, Memory all within normal temperature range). Anyone here has the same problem and how did you deal with it?

Sometimes it doesn't happen at all even after hours of gaming, sometimes it happens after half an hour.

Thanks.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

It's likely your overclock even though it's intermittent. Up the vcore and vdimm a little and see if it goes away completely.

 

[yangwangbrock]

It's likely your overclock even though it's intermittent. Up the vcore and vdimm a little and see if it goes away completely.

Hi Wriglevillain

I am not OCing for my GPU at all. Both cards are running at its default speed. The only OC I did was for the CPU, but with the cooler I have (Noctua NH-14d) it is very very stable.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I said for your CPU dude. Possibly memory. "vcore and vdimm" (cpu and memory voltage).

And apparently it's not as stable as you think. But the only way to be sure is to up your voltages or better yet remove the overclock for a time and game for a few days. If you do still blue screen you have something else going on, possibly failing hardware. I can tell you right now it's not BF3. Game has issues and bugs sure but BSODs is not one of them. BF3 is crashing at times because it's probably the most stressful thing you do to your machine for a longer periods of time.

Also you could check out the code next time and compare it here but this is just a general guide for clues really (notice many are just "increase vcore").

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140238

 

[cadaveca]

I second Wrigleyvillian. IT's probably the OC. never had PF3 crash into a BSOD unless it was OC.


Now, do you know the BSOD code? might help pinpoint the cause...check "Reliability Monitor".

 

[catnipkiller]

I had problems with the new drivers causing my system to bsod only in bf3. Have you rolled back to see if this is the problem?

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Also do not forget your RAM is in this equation and very well could be it. Like I said you can and should also up the memory voltage a tick or two. Memtest 86+ bootable disk is good for memory stability testing but nothing beats hours of "real world" testing such playing BF3.

FWIW, BC2 was also very stressful on the hardware apparently and uncovered many an unstable overclock for me that I thought otherwise (though granted I'm not stability testing for 24 hours with IBT like some maniacs...but that too is not real world).

GPU drivers could be another possibility but less likely.

 

[cadaveca]

Memtest 86 bootable disk is good for memory stability testing

I do not agree. Memtest wil lsay memory is good on average about 30-50 MHz higher than it actually is.


It's a usefull tool to get close, but by no means is it anything near showing true stability.

Of course, I've spetn the past two months or so running Memtest nearly 8-hours a day, and clocknig ram for reviews, so I'm 100% confident on this.

I use memtest, then SuperPi, then various other apps...and BF3 is the final test. I'l ltry to get into a 1000-ticket server, and get a good hour-long round in...THAT is a good stability test.

 

[brandonwh64]

I do not agree. Memtest wil lsay memory is good on average about 30-50 MHz higher than it actually is.


It's a usefull tool to get close, but by no means is it anything near showing true stability.

Of course, I've spetn the past two months or so running Memtest nearly 8-hours a day, and clocknig ram for reviews, so I'm 100% confident on this.

I use memtest, then SuperPi, then various other apps...and BF3 is the final test. I'l ltry to get into a 1000-ticket server, and get a good hour-long round in...THAT is a good stability test.

What would be a good memory stability test dave

 

[cadaveca]

As I posted above. What memtest is good for...is that if it errors, you can pretty much guarantee your ram or memory controller is not stable(since it can pass and still not be stable). Learning to recognize how it fails seems crucial to tuning sticks, but there is no easy way for me to explain, as i like to adjust timings to produce errors differently, and the relationship between how things error is what guides me in regaining stability.

I'm near the point now that it seems voltage even means little to me, as i am starting to learn how to tweak timings so that voltage is not so much important.

I'm gonna be spending some time writing some ram tweaking guides in April/May, as I recover from my surgery.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Brandon this one:

http://www.memtest.org/

It's nice too because it's an iso you make into a bootable CD so I often use it for my first few boots on a new OC whether I need to actually test RAM specifically because who wants to see their Windows install blue screen if you can avoid it?

 

[yangwangbrock]

So eh if it is my CPU, why is is that I have never encountered any bsod with other demanding games (crysis, witcher 2, etc)?

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

That is a valid question that is hard to answer exactly but I guess it comes down to how much a particular game stresses all cores and the system overall. Like I said I thought I had a stable OC too until I played BC2.

 

[TheMailMan78]

So eh if it is my CPU, why is is that I have never encountered any bsod with other demanding games (crysis, witcher 2, etc)?

Whats the error in the event viewer say?

Also use this and post up the results.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html


Edit: Also what ATI drivers are you using?

 

[yangwangbrock]

Whats the error in the event viewer say?

Also use this and post up the results.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html


Edit: Also what ATI drivers are you using?

Thanks everyone. I will post the error code next time it happens.

Mainman I am using 12.1 and the most recent CAP for my crossfire.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Thanks everyone. I will post the error code next time it happens.

Mainman I am using 12.1 and the most recent CAP for my crossfire.

Ok you can use that program NOW to find out what the last BSOD is unless you trashed the memory dumps.

Second I am willing to bet its your drivers that are the issue. Do a clean install of 11.9 including the south bridge drivers.......AFTER you get us the error results. But until then hold off on any advice. Just get us the errors.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I had 12.1 quirks and issues but never a BSOD, FWIW. I would rule out the overclock as the issue before screwing around with different Cat version.

 

[RoutedScripter]

Sound Loop = definitely memory


It might as well be the

Some games like COD4 were able to make this.
And on a very old and casual nforce 4 board ( DDR1 ) system, COD2 freezed on punkbuster servers, but a BIOS update magically fixed the bug and it worked afterwards !

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Yeah...and pretty easy to up the vdimm .02 volts or so.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Sound Loop = definitely memory

No its not for F#$K sake. I got loops using 12.1 drivers and BSOD in BF3.

I had 12.1 quirks and issues but never a BSOD, FWIW. I would rule out the overclock as the issue before screwing around with different Cat version.

I did. LOTS. Anyways lets not do ANYTHING until we even know what the error is.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

All right all right well he's got a few specific potentials here. It can be fixed, that's for sure.

 

[brandonwh64]

Brandon this one:

http://www.memtest.org/

It's nice too because it's an iso you make into a bootable CD so I often use it for my first few boots on a new OC whether I need to actually test RAM specifically because who wants to see their Windows install blue screen if you can avoid it?

This is the one I was thinking of, but dave seemed like there was another way to properly diagnose memory.

 

[erocker]

Onboard Realtek drivers. Try disabling the AMD sound device through the control panel to see if it helps.

 

[cadaveca]

but dave seemed like there was another way to properly diagnose memory.

There is no single test that is infalliable. It takes different tests and different workloads to test ram properly.


Memtest's author has stated that it takes 9 hours of test 7 alone to fully test just that specific workload. Test 8 takes an exponential amount of time longer to test.

A first pass of memtest will take me about 25 minutes on the X79 paltform. The second pass takes about 45 minutes. Clearly, as teh second pass takes longer, it is testing differently, and each subsequent pass is a bit different as well. Anyone can download the ISO and run two passes ot confirm, or check with the apps author to confirm the 9 hour statement.

So, unless you are running memtest for DAYS straight, no, it is not a good indicator of stability, at all.

To shorten the testing time, I use multiple apps, and over a length of time(ie YEARS taht I've been overclocking), my testing method has proven to be near perfect, but that's for my uses, such as gaming and reviews. It works for me, but another user, who uses their system differently, may need to test a bit differntly...I cannot say 100% that my testing will work for them, but for a person who primarily games, it works well.

 

[yangwangbrock]

So it happened again, but not in BF3, instead it happened when I was playing ME3. Here is the error message:

Stop:0x00000124 (0x 00000000000000, 0xFFFFFA800DE93028, 0x00000000BE200000, 0x 000000000005110A)

now WTF does that mean?