View Full Version : Requesting help with lock-up problem in EQ.
I have a problem with the newer of my two systems locking up while playing EQ.
Without warning, the graphics on the screen will freeze (permanently) and the last second or two of sound will be stuck in a loop. Prior to my upgrading from 512 MB of RAM to 1 GB of RAM, when this happened I would be unable to ctrl-alt-del out. The only way out was to hit the power button on the front of the machine. Now, since the upgrade, after locking up, I was able to get the grey box to come up with the applications that were running using ctrl-alt-del. The only one shown was Everquest. It said that my system had recovered from a critical error and that I should save everything and reboot. I tried several times to end the Everquest game that was running via the ctrl-alt-del box, but it never ended it. I was able to shift-alt-r and get mouse control, allowing me to minimize the black boxed screen that EQ had turned into. When I did so, the graphics looked horrible on my desktop. When I checked the display options in the desktop, I found that the resolution was at the lowest setting and the color was at the lowest setting also (4 bit). I play EQ with earphones on and after successfully minimizing EQ when it locked up this last time after the RAM upgrade, the sound stopped looping and I was able to hear the sounds of my fellow players in PoK running around, riding horses, etc. I don't know at what exact moment I got the sound unlooped. I suspect it was after the successful ctrl-alt-del, but I am not sure. So, I was still logged into the game, but the graphics on my machine were not operating properly. While in this condition, I posted a message about it at the EQ tech forums.
I have no IRQ conflicts. I have one of the best power supplies money can buy. I have the latest BIOS for my motherboard. I have the latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers (now called "hyperion"), and that is what is supposed to go with my motherboard according to the website for the motherboard manufacturer (some motherboards with Via components do not use the 4-in-1 drivers). I have the latest graphics card drivers and the latest sound card drivers. I have onboard sound on my motherboard. I get lockups with it activated in BIOS or deactivated in BIOS. I get lockups with my sound card physically removed from my system and with it in place. I had lock-ups with two strips of 256 MB of RAM (512 total) and after I upgraded to two strips of 512 MB (1 GB total). When this problem first appeared on my brand new system a year ago, I assumed the graphics card was defective and sent it in under warrantee to be replaced. The replacement card did not fix the problem.
Here is a link to a very long discussion about my problem on the EQ tech forums. Sadly, I think the EQ tech people have given up on me. I have not seen anything posted by anyone besides myself on that thread for a long time.
boards.station.sony.com/u...34961.html (http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/Forum3/HTML/034961.html)
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>
what OS? Also tried reinstalling DX8?
</p>
The OS is Windows XP (home edition).
I re-installed DX 8 (or is it 8.1?) a long, long time ago, but perhaps I should try it again. I can't recall if I did it before noticing this problem or not. Come to think of it, I might have re-installed DX 8 on my other computer, not this one. I think I will try that. Before I do that though, I want to see if a recent alteration I made has fixed the problem. I enabled AGP fast writes and increased the size of my AGP aperture. Hopefully this will either fix the problem or make it much worse. Sounds like an odd thing to say, doesn't it? My reasoning is that if it makes the problem much worse that decreasing the size of the AGP aperture might make it much better.
The link I gave (if you are willing to wade through it) has a lot more info. In fact, it has so much info that I did not dare copy and paste it here lest I scare people away from reading my post.
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>
One thing. I found that my System (Win XP Home as well) runs EQ BETTER, and with less Graphic stutters in 32 bit mode, and I'm using the same video card as you GeForce 3 Ti -500). You might also want to try going to 32-Bit mode in game as well.
<div style="text-align:center"><span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">Chilau SwiftFist</span>
<span style="color:white;font-family:verdana;">GrandMaster Monk of the 60th Order</span>
<span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">Legendary Chaos</span> (http://www.legendarychaos.net/) <span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">- The Nameless Server</span>
<span style="color:white;font-family:verdana;">View My Magelo Profile</span> (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=30466)</div></p>
Okay, I will try the 32 bit thing as well. Thanks <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>
32 Bit trick did not work. I still locked up.
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>
You may consider this a stupid question, but, have you scanned and made sure the new PC is virus free?
<div style="text-align:center"><span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">Chilau SwiftFist</span>
<span style="color:white;font-family:verdana;">GrandMaster Monk of the 60th Order</span>
<span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">Legendary Chaos</span> (http://www.legendarychaos.net/) <span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">- The Nameless Server</span>
<span style="color:white;font-family:verdana;">View My Magelo Profile</span> (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=30466)</div></p>
I had this problem when the machine was new out of the box. I have scanned for viruses probably 50 times or more since then, including about four times this last month. I have never detected a virus on this machine or on my old one. I am very careful about what I download and what e-mails I look at. If an e-mail is suspicious, I delete it without opening it and if it's important that's just too bad. My ISP is very good about stopping infected e-mails before they get to me as well.
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>
Next Question: How fast is the AGP port and GeForce3 running?
A friend of mine had lockup issues whenever he went over X2 (tried it a the max the port and card would support - X4 - and couldn't even get past the character select screen).
<div style="text-align:center"><span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">Chilau SwiftFist</span>
<span style="color:white;font-family:verdana;">GrandMaster Monk of the 60th Order</span>
<span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">Legendary Chaos</span> (http://www.legendarychaos.net/) <span style="color:yellow;font-family:verdana;">- The Nameless Server</span>
<span style="color:white;font-family:verdana;">View My Magelo Profile</span> (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=30466)</div></p>
along the virus line of inquiry - is the virus library close to up to date?
Does any other app lock up? You mentioned a memory upgrade. Tried removing the new RAM? Maybe a bad stick. Also if 2@512 then swap sticks. Is video memory sharing off? It shouldn't matter but check DMA settings on vid card. How many internal devices in the comp? Maybe low power supply? Remove power from one of the internals.
Ok I think my brain is now empty from ideas.
</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=iju sth>ijusth</A> at: 2/19/03 3:54:42 pm
Regarding Ijusth's most recent post in this thread:
Every time I do a virus scan of my hard drive (about once a week), I first update the virus definitions.
This problem existed with the original two sticks of 256 MB RAM that came with the system. It existed with them for a year. Then, just recently, when I upgraded to two sticks of 512 MG (1 GB total), the problem still exists. Am I to believe that not only was one of the old sticks defective, but one of the new sticks that replaced it has the exact same problem? Prior to the RAM upgrade, I experimented with moving the two sticks to different slots (I have 3 slots for RAM). I also played EQ with a stick removed, locked up, removed that stick, played EQ, and locked up again.
I don't know about the video memory sharing thing. I'll have to check that.
As far as stuff in my computer system is concerned, I have a floppy drive, a dvd/cd player, my hard drive, a sound card, a video card, and that is all. To power this, I have a 550 Watt power supply by Enermax. It was the best power supply that I could find and cost about $150. I won't put the stats here, but the guys at the EQ tech forum who read them were impressed and assured me that my power supply was a very, very good one. I try to keep this particular machine very lean and mean and uncluttered with extras.
Please give me some more detail about the DMA thing. That's kind of vague. What, specifically, will my BIOS say if that is the case?
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=arg feld>Argfeld</A> at: 2/23/03 1:58:00 pm
Estral LC
02-23-2003, 11:19 PM
I had a similar issue, also with a Geforce 3 Ti500.
My fix was to turn off BIOS Shadowing and Video BIOS Shadowing in my BIOS.
Even if this doesn't fix your problem I certainly hope that yu do find a resolution. I can tell you've worked your butt off on this.
Good luck.
Estral
High Elven Cleric
Lucid Chimera</p>
I cannot find the word "shadowing" anywhere in my BIOS. Is that the actual wording that I would find there?
Please, people, don't use technical jargon to refer to what is in BIOS. I am not a computer expert. Use wording as close to the exact wording in the BIOS as possible. For example, on another thread, I was advised to make my memory timing less aggressive. I had no clue what he meant by that. It turns out that he meant for me to go to my BIOS, go to the part dealing with RAM, and make the RAM slower.
Just recently, I tried re-installing my DirectX 8.1. It did not fix the problem. Later, someone told me that if I had a defective DLL file, that re-installing DirectX 8.1 would not fix it because the good DLL files would not overwrite the bad ones. He said I had to delete the defective files first. I have no idea which DLL files are associated with DirectX or where to find them. I am also not sure if deleting them would be a good idea. Would it crash my system if I did that?
After re-installing DX 8.1 and discovering that it did not fix the problem, I turned down my video card settings in the BIOS from AGP 4X to AGP 2X. I hated to do that. I didn't pay $350 for that card just to turn it into a $100 card. So far, I have not tested it enough since doing this to see if the problem is fixed.
Argfeld
Level 62 Monk
Order of the Scattered Winds
Bertoxxulous
</p>
Estral LC
02-24-2003, 12:51 PM
While that may be technical jargon that's how you'll actually see it listed in the BIOS (if you have the ability to tweak it).
They'll be listed as "Video BIOS Shadow" or "Video BIOS Shadowing", likewise for the regular BIOS.
Estral
High Elven Cleric
Lucid Chimera</p>
dma=direct memory access
and sometimes it can be set in bios other times in device manager and it is a nuisance to adjust
</p>
My machine has identical problems and is also Windows XP home edition. I have tried A LOT to fix it. Will try to turn off shadowing and reduce AGP down to 2X if I have to.
[EDIT]
I have a GeForce 4 MX 420 (el cheapo GeForce 4), 1 GB of RAM, 2.53 mhz processor, Sound Blaster Live 5.1 (with environmental sounds OFF in game).
Phlix's magelo profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=400466)
http://home.hiwaay.net/~yodie/phlix_graffe_signature.gif</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=phl ixarcanist>Phlix Arcanist</A> at: 8/25/03 7:23 pm
Ithiss
08-26-2003, 07:37 AM
I had a very similar issue with a NEW machine a few years ago. After about a year of just dealing with it crashing (sometimes as often as every half hour) during EQ and nothing else I finally put a new video card in the machine. Its worked fine ever since.
Granted, buying a new video card to try to troubleshoot a problem is a bit spendy. You may want to try borrowing one from someone or swapping one in from a different machine.
Ithiss (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=120322&resize=true) - Scaled Transcendent of Misericordia (http://pub182.ezboard.com/bmisericordia18423)
Brell Serilis (http://www.brellrants.net/brell/)</p>
My CMOS doesn't even have a video shadowing or bios shadowing option and I can't find anything about changing my AGP speed.
I will swap my video card tonight and see what happens. I have a ATI card that I can use for testing in an old machine.
Phlix's magelo profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=400466)
http://home.hiwaay.net/~yodie/phlix_graffe_signature.gif</p>
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