PC freezes during gameplay - multiple problems

Okay, it has come to light that many people with nVidia video cards are losing those cards due to this overheating issue. Overheating will cause a slow down or even the hitching that some of you are experiencing. Please read my FAQ again about the nVidia issue and install Rivatuner and max out your fan when playing StarCraft II. Lowering your videocard temps can reduce the hitching issues (if they are related to GFX).

 

Tbh, I believe this is a load of crap and a scape goat for the obvious crashing problems of SC2.

My specs/story:
AMD Phenom II x2 555 BE (Unlocked to 4 cores)
4GB OCZ AMD memory
nVidia Geforce GTX460
Gigabyte 790X mobo
Nexus 630Watt PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium (Also tried Ultimate)

Since I upgraded from a 8800GT to GTX460, Star Craft 2 crashes during games.(It also crashed before going to the loading screen in SP with the 8800GT, but it didnt bother me so much)

What I've did to solve the problem:
Changed back to 8800GT - Fixed! (So it must be videocard related ey?)
Put the GTX460 in my mom's PC, running on Windows XP, almost same specs - Working brilliantly!
Locked last 2 cores of my CPU, running everything default - Still crashing
Reinstalled OS - Still crashing
Different drivers - Still crashing

It's not faulty mem or HDD, because I tested these with memtest and HDAT2. Furthermore, the videocard does not crash in any other game. Also there is no overheating, GPU gets max. 60c, the 8800GT even got hotter then this.

Besides changing my videocard, I changed the settings of the game to Ultra, so last thing Im going to try is putting the settings lower, which is retarded as the game runs completely smooth until the sudden freeze.

I've been reading alot of these errors with SC2 , as well with nVidia cards as with ATi cards. Blizzard just did a lousy job at testing this game.

 

Did you install the newest nVidia drivers before installing your GTX 460? If not, what nVidia series driver are you currently running.

As for the over heating issues, they are NOT a scape goat, and there are people who have lost their cards to this issue. This issue was introduced during SC2 beta. It is still the opinion of many that these issues still exist.

Considering how many people have corrected the issue by installing Rivatuner alone and manually adjusting the fan, its a good bet it works on some peoples configurations.

Blame StarCraft II all you want, it does have its own set of issues, but most of the graphics issues related to nVidia have been related directly to this one issue.

I would also like to note, you might want to attempt to uninstall your drivers, swap cards, then reinstall the drivers. My personally experience with nV cards is, unless the chips are identical (and betweenhe 460 and 8800, they are no where close), then you will have some kind of driver configuration error when migrating between cards.

 

Frustrated

In all honesty I dont want to have to do all this crap - that's why I paid money for the game....because it is supposed to come complete not 90% finished and the last 10% DIY.

Not to mention I am a casual gamer, and dont understand half of what has been said here.

My PC specs are way over the minimum and I use a modest NVidia 8800 GT as a graphics card, not high end but still decent


I have:

Downloaded new graphics drivers
Put all my settings in game to lowest position
Read the FAQ that altered my FPS? to stop any potential overheating
Re-installed the game

NOTHING WORKS - almost exactly 5-6 mins in it freezes with red and green smudges and only a hard reset does anything.

I was really looking forward to this game and bought it fast. I should have learned by now that its best to wait 3 months until the complaints of others finally register loud enough for game developers to make the game run like it is supposed to.

If anyone from Blizzard is out there - FIX THIS DAMN BUG or give people their money back

<KS>

 

Yes I uninstalled and used driver sweeper. It is a scape goat for the simple fact, other games dont have these problems.(And SC2 is not very demanding at all) That a bug in the menu is causing this problem is SC2 problem, not nVidia's. These people dont get this problem with Crysis etc., so dont use this excuse.

SC2 is not an indie game, it's a multi million euro/dollar project and I expect it to be more or less bugless, or atleast not bugs that are this severe and obvious. Blizzard failed epic with the quality assurance here.

And yes I used the latest driver and with nVidia you can swap videocards as the drivers are universal.(Except for legacy cards) Please get your facts straight........ (And for argument sake, I did uninstall the previous driver first just to be 100% sure)

 

Try downloading HWMonitor and see if perhaps your GPU or CPU is overheating. Some people have reported that their CPU is overheating and causing lockups/slowdowns due to auto downclocking routines found in some processors to stop them from overheating.

If the CPU is overheating,you may need to apply a new layer of thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink/fan. Same can be said for the GPU as well.

 

UM...Kev, do you actually read ppl's posts?

I have already downloaded HW Monitor - no effect.

This is a BLIZZARD problem, caused by poor testing and game development.

I have dozens of high end games and no heat issues - this game just stinks. I give it 1 week then I will ask for a refund and suggest any friends and customers avoid this game like the plague.

 

Xev is just trying to help.

You probably have this:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/248105993

It looks like the tech support people tried to gather info but a couple pages in, they're just clueless.

I think the overheating thing got overblown because its a really nasty thing to buy a game and then have your graphics card fry, but I think it was just a few nvidia cards, bad nvidia driver and a bug in SCII. I don't think there's that many overheating cards, its just really frightening.

Yeah, this game was buggy even at the end of beta, it should never have been released. I also think even the Blizzard tech support guys don't really know what's up, they're just trying to keep people from getting too pissed, so they just hope that its an overheating card or something wrong with the ISP, etc..

It does really annoy me though that Blizzard is celebrating right now with their 350 million dollars even though they've without a doubt released a shoddy product. So much for "when its ready".

 

I am having this problem as well.

Running Vista.
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ GPU.
AMD Phenom 9600 Quad-Core Processor.
1 GB RAM.

My drivers are up to date.

I put in the extra lines in variables.txt, and even tried lower numbers.

I haven't had this problem with any other game, even graphically intense ones.

I have a little less RAM than suggested, but the game runs just fine while it runs, then after a seemingly random amount of time, the computer crashes entirely. Sometimes it crashes as soon as I start a match, other times I play a few matches before having any problems.

I ran SpeedFan to get my fans to run faster, and watched the GPU heat. It hung out around 60-63C for an entire test match and a while on the menu, and then without getting any hotter, my computer crashed again, so it doesn't seem to be overheating.

[Edit]: Reinstalling didn't help either.

 

so i've been having issues with my PC. I had it reformatted and SC was pausing like a mofo.... read on the forums, didnt really find a solution. Went to blizzard's website for tech support... Found that there is a "repair" tool that repairs SC (basically replacing missing files) so that it doesn't freeze, because essentially that's what causes a freeze, a missing file. So in the end, it's a software issue, not a hardware issue... all the poor guys who had to swap out the video cards for nothing will be kicking themselves when they realize that a simple tool, included with the game, can solve all of there problems.

 

That does not solve everyone's problems. Freezing can be one of two things, and most people don't know the difference between the two ("hitching" is pausing caused my your video/system, "lag" is caused by your network.) This is an old thread and the game has been patched a few times since. This is PC gaming and there can be various causes to any issue.

I am glad you found the resolution to your problem, but please do not bring an age old thread back from the dead when chances are the user found a resolution to their problem. One solution does not solve everyone's problem.

This thread will be closed now.