1.2.8 - System Locks Hard

[docfu]

I had part of this conversation in another thread but anyway:

 

Ever since updating to 1.2.8 I'm getting system locks. Both screens freeze and all USB devices lock completely leaving me to hard reboot.

 

It always locks part way through a mission. Can be short(5 minutes) or long (over 1 hour).

 

On reboot, USB devices such as mouse and keyboard(both wireless) fail to register until windows 7 is completely rebooted.

 

The event viewer shows no errors up until the system is rebooted. Trying to shutdown the system via the power button fails unless it's a 7 second power cut-off.

 

I just ran the Heaven demo for 8 hours straight at maximum settings. The system is completely stable with all other applications besides DCS 1.2.8.

 

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this problem? Is anyone else having anything like this?

[HiJack]

I had simmilar but that was linked to my SAITEK X52 PRO stick. It does not support USB 3.0 and the only way to solve it was to disable xHCI in BIOS on USB settings.

[docfu]

The only thing I have on USB 3.0 is an external hard drive that I recently added to the system on USB 3.0 ports. This could very well be the cause of the lock-ups and would explain the keyboard not working after reboot. I will check it out.

 

What do the xHCI settings actually control?

[HiJack]

From the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Host_Controller_Interface

 

 

Following are the key goals of the xHCI architecture:

• Efficient operation – idle power and performance better than legacy USB host controller architectures.
  
• A device level programming model that is fully consistent with the existing USB software model
  
• Decouple the host controller interface presented to software from the underlying USB protocols
  
• Minimize host memory accesses, fully eliminating them when USB devices are idle
  
• Eliminate register writes and minimize register reads for normal data transfers
  
• Eliminate the “Companion Controller” model
  
• Enable hardware “fail-over” modes in system resource constrained situations so devices are still accessible, but perhaps at less optimal power/performance point
  
• Provide the ability for different markets to differentiate hardware capabilities, e.g. target host controller power, performance and cost trade-offs for specific markets
  
• Define an extensible architecture that provides an easy path for new USB specifications and technologies, such as higher bandwidth interfaces, optical transmission medium, etc., without requiring the definition of yet another USB host controller interface
  

[AtaliaA1]

The only thing I have on USB 3.0 is an external hard drive that I recently added to the system on USB 3.0 ports. This could very well be the cause of the lock-ups and would explain the keyboard not working after reboot. I will check it out.

 

What do the xHCI settings actually control?

 

DocFu is this the Beta? I see u are in DCS World non Beta area just want to be sure.

 

Also I keep 2 ver. of the software on me PC just in case of buggeee updates like this. 1.2.7 on SSD and Beta on the HDD. Helps keep u ingame till bugs are worked out.

[docfu]

Nope, this is stock 1.2.8.

 

I tried editing a few more BIOS settings, including turning off USB sleep mode and power save mode. I also pushed my system into overclock mode instead of running it at normal mode.

 

(Because this system had a problem where if the graphics card went to low power and then back to high power it'd cause crashes but I haven't had that problem in years. Still it never locked the system...)

 

Will try it this week and see how it runs.

[AtaliaA1]

Nope, this is stock 1.2.8.

 

I tried editing a few more BIOS settings, including turning off USB sleep mode and power save mode. I also pushed my system into overclock mode instead of running it at normal mode.

 

(Because this system had a problem where if the graphics card went to low power and then back to high power it'd cause crashes but I haven't had that problem in years. Still it never locked the system...)

 

Will try it this week and see how it runs.

 

The issue u describe sounds like a motherboard issue. More specific a controller on the MB. (slow death maybe?) or only in DCS?

[docfu]

The issue u describe sounds like a motherboard issue. More specific a controller on the MB. (slow death maybe?) or only in DCS?

 

So far I've only locked while playing DCS. Borderlands 2 / Starcraft 2 / anything else runs without any problems what-so-ever.

 

It's not a reboot-lock, it's a screen freeze/sound looping lock. Had it again tonight...

[SkateZilla]

The problem with running Heaven, or Any GFX Benchmark and saying you're stable is it only tests ONE thing, the GPU.

 

now, Run Heaven and Prime 95 at the same time and see what happens.

 

Locking up, is usually a Hardware issue.

 

Please Post System Specs (WINKEY+R, DXDIAG, SAVE ALL INFORMATION, ATTACH .TXT FILE)

 

Also note your Power Supply and Brand.

[docfu]

Here is the DX Diag.

 

Motherboard is an ASUS P8-Z68M-Pro with 16gb Corsiar memory (tested using memtest+, it's good.)

 

GPU is a Geforce 550Ti, PSU is a Corsair 650W.

DxDiag.txt

[SkateZilla]

where's your system swap file located?

[docfu]

where's your system swap file located?

 

Disabled at the moment, I figured with 16gb or ram I shouldn't need one.

 

Is this the mysterious memory leak that everyone's been talking about?

Edited May 9, 2014 by docfu

[LFCChameleon_Silk]

disabling swap file is a bad idea even on massive ram systems, windows was always designed to page some information when you take that away it can cause problems, having said that it could be an unrelated problem.

 

some programs such as adobe photoshop wont even work without a swapfile, they need to store all those undo's somewhere. If i could i would tear out anybodys eyeballs who thinks disabling pagefile is a good idea this is like A+ software 101.

 

I'm also on 16gb ram and DCS always uses 3999 mb or my ram. system hard locks are most definetly that overclock or some component being stressed to far, I don't care what your stability testing has found out, your wrong, put stock clocks on everything and if your hardware isn't already damaged and provided there is no registry or driver acting up the game should not hard lock ever... it really stinks of a RAM or VRAM issue.

 

are the ram identical pairs? have you overclocked your VRAM recently?

Edited May 9, 2014 by =LFC=Chameleon_Silk

[docfu]

Hasn't been a problem until now. I'll test that next. I had virtual memory disabled because I heard it wears out SSD's faster.

 

Tried disabling USB 3.0 completely and reset everything to stock clocks. (Although I only overclocked it once yesterday, just to be sure.) Doesn't seem to affect temperature of the CPU or the graphics card.

 

Played APO-B-3.3 (The Su-25T mission, I play the same one every time to make sure i'm not changing any factors) and I locked again this evening after about 30-45 minutes.

[Wolf Rider]

well, it will if you don't have enough physical RAM... which is what the swap file was created for; to use instead of RAM, when RAM was super super expensive.

Mucking about with Page (swap) File settings worked for XP, along with quite a few other tweaks. Windows 7 does a good job without needing those tweaks

 

550Ti is a pretty old and small card now and the PSU is a bit low?

 

 

yep...

Heaven for Graphics and Audio system

Prime 95/ Linpack for CPU system and throughput

Memtest for RAM system

Edited May 10, 2014 by Wolf Rider

[docfu]

I think I might have figured it out:

 

nVidia released a bit of code that causes graphics cards to run/overclock based on temperature instead of just initial settings. I rolled my drivers back to 314.22, because I think I remember updating my drivers just before installing 1.2.8, kinda fuzzy there.

 

Anyway, maybe the latest nVidia drivers/550ti's don't get along well...

 

After rolling them back once I was able to finish the mission without it crashing. I will try it at least 3 more times this week(without modifying anything else on the system) to confirm this is the problem.

 

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/nvidia-freezes.html

 

***UPDATE***

 

Sure enough, after watching the framerate carefully I noticed the screen would black out for maybe just a 10th of a second but after that my frame rate would drop by 1/3rd, then about a minute later it would bump back up again.

 

With the older drivers, the computer would step down its framerate but keep moving. With the new drivers it'd just lock hard.

 

I checked nVidia's sites and the 550 ti is a real powerhog using almost double the power of a 750ti. I guess upgrading would save me double hassle as my 650W psu would then be enough again.

 

Thanks to everyone who wrote in. And no, my swap drive is still disabled. :)

Edited May 10, 2014 by docfu

[SkateZilla]

it sounds like your 550TI is Crashing and the driver is recovering instead of throwing you a blue screen, watch you card carefully, if it's doing that all the time, it usually means there's something wrong.

 

650W is more than enough for a 550TI.

[HiJack]

Glad you seem to have solved it. There are good power supplies and there are bad power supplies. Download HWMonitor and monitor your power supply also.

[docfu]

Just a really odd question on this:

 

Would running a standard 15-pin VGA monitor, as opposed to something DVI/HDMI for a second display cause the card to overheat?

 

I was just using an old 20" @ 1280x1024 for my SHKVL/Thrustmaster because I honestly didn't think it would put any additional load on the card(that is, aside from the normal load of running a second display...)

[jib]

I to have been getting these whole system locks with repeating sound loops about every 45 mins, I am running a Nvida 560 Ti 1GB.

I was thinking that the crash was caused because I only have 4GB of RAM. but somtimes when DCS crashes (and doesn't take down the whole system) it is only using about 1.6GB of RAM

But before I upgrade my RAM I will try playing with the graphics drivers agian

Edited May 23, 2014 by jib

[NineLine]

I to have been getting these whole system locks with repeating sound loops about every 45 mins, I am running a Nvida 560 Ti 1GB.

I was thinking that the crash was caused because I only have 4GB of RAM. but somtimes when DCS crashes (and doesn't take down the whole system) it is only using about 1.6GB of RAM

But before I upgrade I will try playing with the graphics drivers agian

 

 

4GB of ram certainly will be an issue as it is below minimum specs.

[AtaliaA1]

4GB of ram certainly will be an issue as it is below minimum specs.

 

Others do run with 4Gigs of Ram. I suspect issues with all of the other software running in the background and along with DCS. posted in his signature.