Guild Wars craching to dekstop

Since I got this game, I've had problems with Guild Wars crashing. At random points, usually when I'm involved in fighting, my GW crashes. An error report message shows up, I send the required info, but the game keeps crashing. Next BWE I'll get a screenshot and post it. I doubt it's vid card because the game crashes even after I changed video cards. My current video card is Nvidia MSI 6600GT agp.

The GW FAQ does talk about problems with certain nvidia cards.. but the ones mentioned belong to the NVidia GeForce FX series.

And since you say that it still happens after you change video cards.. it might be helpful to add a bit more information about your computer. Does it meet the min. requirements, etc?

yes it meets minimum system reqs. Here are the specs:

Western Digital 80gn Hard Drive
Windows XP Home
Nvidia MSI 6600GT agp
ASUS a7n8x-vm/400
AMD Athlon 3000+
ASUS 52x CD-rom
Dell Keyboard
Logitech MX510 mouse
Audigy Cobra 5.1 sound card
Thermaltake heatsink

I really have no idea why it restarts. I've sent this in as a bug in-game as well.

Basic, annoying, question but, do you have the latest drivers?

I have the latest Omega drivers for it. Keep in mind I had this issue even after switching video cards. The previous video card was Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb agp.

Here is my guess and it centers around the one thing you didn't list here. Ram. My guess is you have at least two sticks of ram and they are either different model and or different manufacturer. Try going down to one stick at the next beta event and see if you get the crash. The timing may be off. Memory timing is very critical when you get up into the higher speeds. If this works and you are able to run on one stick you will need to buy a match. A match would be same manufacture same model number same size stick. Best would be to buy a matched pair. If you still want to try the sticks you have take them out of the blue memory slots (dual channel) and place them only in the black ones.

Some memory used in dual channel boards will not work properly when paired with other brands. Sometimes they do not even work well when paired even with same brand and model. Paired DDR RAM memory has been tested to work in dual channel slots.

well sounds like there people are having the same problem, check it out, maybe this will help
http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/show...hlight=crashes
(and sorry for linking to THGforums but this has some good info i think)

Netrol: You're correct I forgot to mention the memory. I have 2 sticks of 512mb OCZ System, exact models, bought both from same store, same exact thing.

Whosa Skylore: Thanks for the link, I'll check it out, hopefully someone there has found a solution to this problem.

Another thing to check may be over-heating of the processor, especially in graffically intensive games like GW. If there is a mobo utility available on your computer that monitors the temp level, it could be set to show temperature levels in a separate window while playing the game to see if it's getting too hot and kicking you back to desktop. Every processor/mobo/heatsink combo will have differing high-temperature tolerances. I had this problem in the past on another computer I had, and I remedied it by remounting the heat-sink & fan on the processor, using arctic silver as the conductive agent between the two, and it never crashed to desktop on me again. Just a thought...

I would check your audio drivers. Check in your sys properties and see if they are sharing and irq's with anything else. Also I have heard that the lastet drivers from Nvidia don't work well with the game. The 69... work better not the 71...

You may want to try them in the black slots. I have the same board you do and I have 4 sticks of memroy my geil sticks work fine in the blue slots. But the pair of Mushkin will only work in black slots. Geil was purchased as a matched set the Mushkin was not. currently I am only runnig the geil sticiks.

This is where I'd lay my money on too. Sounds like the random restarts are due to a CPU overheating problem. Unless the screen goes blank/beeps, then it would be the video card. Worth a check out. Does your motherboard have a temperature readout availabe... I distrust downloading programs so I go into BIOS check the temp, then when it restarts, check the temp again in BIOS on boot up (now take that temp and see how close it is to your shutdown temperature). If it's reasonably close, as in it may have cooled that much since the restart, there you go. First step to solving a problem is to know the problem, then look for the solution.

Lansing Kai Don

P.S. Well it appears I didn't read the question at all , I'd try uninstalling and reinstalling the game . Hopefully, you already tried this.

You know what.. I tried to get my younger brother into the last bwe... his system crashed with an error too. I was so busy playing my own char I told him to just forget it and I'll check it out later. I didn't ocurr to me that I wasn't going to be able to do anything until the next BWE. But he's like 20 miles away (which isnt too bad) but I didn't want to waste my playing time for his computer. LOL .. then again. I built it .. so ... next bwe I will have to go check it out .. it appears to me that there must be something either incompatible with the video card.. or .. maybe something with the SaTA drive.. is your HD SATA too?

I just wanted to add that he plays halflife 2 and DAOC and bf42 or something and it works just fine..... not sure why GW doesnt like something about it.

My complements to the poster with so many solutions. Some things to check that I have learned and been reminded of their importance by my fellow GuildWars brethren's postings on this site are:

- Dust bad! BLOW OUT THE DUST! Not just for heat dissipation. Dust carries a charge and accumulated can be a static "nuke" waiting to happen. Someone mentioned blowing out the dust once a month.

- Check the heatsink and fan on the video card--make sure the fan spins freely.

- Check the heatsink is properly seated on the processor.

Another item,considering the item list for your system: Power Supply

You may have maxed out your power supply or it may be delivering marginal performance for peak power delivery demands--the max output might be lower than the spec.

Any heat means higher resistance = higher demands of power by the processers throughout the system to get the information through the pipes.

You may be operating on a marginal peak power threshhold so I'd try to be sure I had more than enough power for processor demands.

Heat came up as a thought due to how GuildWars graphics use lighting. Sorry i don't have the link but I remember some articles about how GuildWars may have set a new standard in game lighting. This would be a new or more intense use of a graphics task for the video card, and might explain why it primarily crashes when you're involved in battle.

Heat was my initial guess as to why, and still is, but I get an error when the game crashes. Not a windows error, an error from Guild Wars, asking if I'd like to send them my info, and notes, etc. Other high intensity graphical games such as Planetside and CS:S tend to crash too, so it may be due to the Power Supply, I'll look into it. Thanks, any more help is appreciated.