System locks up with sound in a rapid loop when playing an intensive game
Hello everyone, I started experiencing a strange issue where one of my games (Just Cause 2) would crash at a very specific point. When I start the game and attempt to load my game, it will completely freeze my system just as the screen fades to black (and would start rendering the world at that point). My screens (both monitors) would briefly flicker once the system is frozen, and the audio would be rapidly looping. Sometimes the audio will change intensity for a little bit before stopping at one intensity, and other times it will cutoff after half a minute. Regardless, I have to press the reset button on my case in order to get anything to happen (and strangely enough, my CMOS settings are sometimes erased, no idea why). What's strange is that this is only game I have seen do this. I run other fairly intensive games which have no issues. What is also odd is that it seems that this issue started awhile ago, with no major hardware changes that could have triggered it. I only seem to crash the when the game is running at 1920x1080. Temperatures are fine. Processor cores never exceed 60 degrees Celsius, and graphics card temperatures never exceed 45 degrees Celsius directly before crashing. I've already tried updating my graphics card drivers (currently running Geforce 314.22), and I also tried removing my Realtek audio drivers (now using basic windows hd audio), with no change. If it matters, a driver update program reports that my Intel ICH10 chipset drivers are out of date, but I'm running ones from 2009 and I can't find a newer version. I have already tried booting in diagnostic mode, that didn't change anything either. I remember a bugcheck being caught a long time ago, although bugchecks for this particular issue are either no longer occurring or not being caught anymore. I do have driver verifier enabled for non-microsoft drivers, and there do not seem to be any bugchecks there. What other troubleshooting steps can I take?
March 28th, 2013 12:52pm

Bump... Any logs or system information I can provide that might help?
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March 30th, 2013 11:26am

TPG1994 Please provide us with your Event Viewer administrative logs by following these steps: Click Start Menu Type eventvwr into Search programs and files (do not hit enter) Right click eventvwr.exe and click Run as administrator Expand Custom Views Click Administrative Events Right click Administrative Events Save all Events in Custom View As... Save them in a folder where you will remember which folder and save as Errors.evtx Go to where you saved Errors.evtx Right click Errors.evtx -> send to -> compressed (zipped) folder Upload the .zip file here (if you can) to skydrive or a file sharing service Wanikiya & Dyami -Team-ZigZag. www.ZigZag3143.com email Admin@zigzag3143.com
March 30th, 2013 12:54pm

Hi ZigZag, You will find the Errors.evtx file zipped as Errors.zip in this SkyDrive folder: http://sdrv.ms/14F5694 You will also find a Bugcheck.zip file in the same folder. For whatever reason, my system decided to catch a bugcheck this time (so I've included the associated dump file if it helps at all). Referring to the Errors.evtx file, I'm assuming the bug check occurred right around when the WHEA errors started popping up. The bug check was an error code 0x124, with parameters 0x0, 0xFFFFFA8005B648F8, 0x0, and 0x0. Looking at the MSDN page for bug checks... this doesn't sound too good. Hardware related? I hope not. I'm hoping it's a driver issue and/or software issue.
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March 30th, 2013 8:48pm

Hi ZigZag, You will find the Errors.evtx file zipped as Errors.zip in this SkyDrive folder: http://sdrv.ms/14F5694 You will also find a Bugcheck.zip file in the same folder. For whatever reason, my system decided to catch a bugcheck this time (so I've included the associated dump file if it helps at all). Referring to the Errors.evtx file, I'm assuming the bug check occurred right around when the WHEA errors started popping up. The bug check was an error code 0x124, with parameters 0x0, 0xFFFFFA8005B648F8, 0x0, and 0x0. Looking at the MSDN page for bug checks... this doesn't sound too good. Hardware related? I hope not. I'm hoping it's a driver issue and/or software issue. Something else I would like to add about how strange this issue is: As I said, the crash only seems to happen when the game is in 1920 by 1080 resolution (full screen or windowed). However, if I lower the resolution once I'm on the main menu, say to 1280 by 720, load a save (so my character is in the world), then up the resolution to 1920 by 1080, I can play just fine.
March 31st, 2013 3:44am

Stop 0x124 - what it means and what to try Synopsis: A "stop 0x124" is fundamentally different to many other types of bluescreens because it stems from a hardware complaint. Stop 0x124 minidumps contain very little practical information, and it is therefore necessary to approach the problem as a case of hardware in an unknown state of distress. Generic "Stop 0x124" Troubleshooting Strategy: 1) Ensure that none of the hardware components are overclocked. Hardware that is driven beyond its design specifications - by overclocking - can malfunction in unpredictable ways. 2) Ensure that the machine is adequately cooled. If there is any doubt, open up the side of the PC case (be mindful of any relevant warranty conditions!) and point a mains fan squarely at the motherboard. That will rule out most (lack of) cooling issues. 3) Update all hardware-related drivers: video, sound, RAID (if any), NIC... anything that interacts with a piece of hardware. It is good practice to run the latest drivers anyway. 4) Update the motherboard BIOS according to the manufacturer's instructions. Their website should provide detailed instructions as to the brand and model-specific procedure. 5) Rarely, bugs in the OS may cause "false positive" 0x124 events where the hardware wasn't complaining but Windows thought otherwise (because of the bug). At the time of writing, Windows 7 is not known to suffer from any such defects, but it is nevertheless important to always keep Windows itself updated. 6) Attempt to (stress) test those hardware components which can be put through their paces artificially. The most obvious examples are the RAM and HDD(s). For the RAM, use the in-built memory diagnostics (run MDSCHED) or the 3rd-party memtest86 utility to run many hours worth of testing. For hard drives, check whether CHKDSK /R finds any problems on the drive(s), notably "bad sectors". Unreliable RAM, in particular, is deadly as far as software is concerned, and anything other than a 100% clear memory test result is cause for concern. Unfortunately, even a 100% clear result from the diagnostics utilities does not guarantee that the RAM is free from defects - only that none were encountered during the test passes. 7) As the last of the non-invasive troubleshooting steps, perform a "vanilla" re-installation of Windows: just the OS itself without any additional applications, games, utilities, updates, or new drivers - NOTHING AT ALL that is not sourced from the Windows 7 disc. Should that fail to mitigate the 0x124 problem, jump to the next steps. Otherwise, if you run the "vanilla" installation long enough to convince yourself that not a single 0x124 crash has occurred, start installing updates and applications slowly, always pausing between successive additions long enough to get a feel for whether the machine is still free from 0x124 crashes. Should the crashing resume, obviously the very last software addition(s) may be somehow linked to the root cause. If stop 0x124 errors persist despite the steps above, and the hardware is under warranty, consider returning it and requesting a replacement which does not suffer periodic MCE events. Be aware that attempting the subsequent hardware troubleshooting steps may, in some cases, void your warranty: 8) Clean and carefully remove any dust from the inside of the machine. Re-seat all connectors and memory modules. Use a can of compressed air to clean out the RAM DIMM sockets as much as possible. 9) If all else fails, start removing items of hardware one-by-one in the hope that the culprit is something non-essential which can be removed. Obviously, this type of testing is a lot easier if you've got access to equivalent components in order to perform swaps. Should you find yourself in the situation of having performed all of the steps above without a resolution of the symptom, unfortunately the most likely reason is because the error message is literally correct - something is fundamentally wrong with the machine's hardware. Dyami & Wanikiya ...Team ZigZag.
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March 31st, 2013 11:35pm

TGP1994 Given the hardware BCC124 there is no sense in reading the event viewer logs.Wanikiya & Dyami -Team-ZigZag. www.ZigZag3143.com email Admin@zigzag3143.com
March 31st, 2013 11:36pm

have you try seek help the specfic game forum? game nowadays are expecting patches for bug-fixing. especially you mentioned you dont have problem with other games. usually you can submit/send in your save game for the game support/dev to attempt reproduce the problem, maybe it's due to corrupted savegame data.
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April 1st, 2013 12:57am

have you try seek help the specfic game forum? game nowadays are expecting patches for bug-fixing. especially you mentioned you dont have problem with other games. usually you can submit/send in your save game for the game support/dev to attempt reproduce the problem, maybe it's due to corrupted savegame data.
April 1st, 2013 7:53am

That's a good point - seeing as how this is the only game on my computer causing this issue, that would be the best route to take. I don't have much confidence in Eidos's community (since most tech support threads are either empty or have "me too" replies), but I posted a thread none the less. Fingers crossed.
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April 1st, 2013 11:50am

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