DayZ breaking computer?

[I3reeze 1]

Hey all.

I've recently re-downloaded the DayZ mod for Arma2. I have everything downloaded and installed correctly and as far as I know, my game is completely up to date. I'm running the mod through withSIX and I have it set to open through Steam and to close withSIX after connecting to the server.

My graphics card is a Radeon HD 6850. If the RAM or anything else is important to this particular post i'd be happy to find it if anyone finds it useful.

My Problem:

I load into a server (closing Steam and withSIX in the process) and start playing. My issue is that the screen, at random times, stops showing the game.

I'm going to describe this as best I can. The game usually stops running within 10 minutes of starting up. My screen gets a freezing screen of colors running down the screen; I'm going to create it in Paint because I can't take a decent picture of it and I obviously can't screen-cap it because I have to just hard reset the computer when this happens. I just hold down the power button because I completely lose control of the game. I still hear sound and I can still hear my friend in Skype talking to me and I can continue communicating with him. The game does not kick me out, but rather my screen no longer agrees with what my tower is trying to tell it.

Important Note:

I played for over an hour last night with my friend with no problems. I run the game on the highest specs possible and I get no lag or anything of the sort. We managed to find a chopper and just as I was landing, my screen gets goes to it's "Confusion State." My friend was telling me through skype we'd landed so I just did a hard reset and he texted me that It took off and did a nose dive.

The point of this is to specify that I can run the game on best performance for an hour and it works fine but it rarely lets me play for more than 10 minutes without going to it's "Confusion Screen" One last note, the confusion screen changes colors depending on what colors are on the screen the moment before freezing. It could be mixtures of greens or mixtures of oranges or mixtures of greys. Look at the picture I attach.

Sorry I couldn't get a decent actual picture but this is what the screen looks like all the way across:

Edit: This same problem is starting to happen to games it's never happened to me on like League of Legends. Hence the "Breaking Computer" part. Forgot to put this in.

Thank you to any who reply.

Edited December 24, 2012 by I3reeze

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Sorry to hear you're having issues. Well done on giving us loads of details though. There's lot's of people here with much better technical know-how than me so if you hold tight I'm sure someone will be able to get you up and running. One last thing that may help is your PC specs.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Fraggle

[Axxassin 49]

Hmm ive seen this problem before.. its a rare thing. You see.. your coputer is becoming self aware and its slowly taking control, sadly there is nothing you can do to save your PC, the only thing you can do is destroy it before it infects other systems and begins the robot uprising...

[syndicatefaction 118]

Hmm ive seen this problem before.. its a rare thing. You see.. your coputer is becoming self aware and its slowly taking control, sadly there is nothing you can do to save your PC, the only thing you can do is destroy it before it infects other systems and begins the robot uprising...

Humorous, but hardly useful info for this guy with the problem...

I'm no guru, but i have been dealing with pc's for many years, and this sounds like a graphical issue with your card. When is the last time you cleaned out the dust from the components? Also if that doesn't fix it, i might investigate whether or not your card is beginning to fail.

[A Lumberjack 32]

^^ This

@op

Hardware/Software problems like these are a pain in the ass to figure out. Could be any number of different possibilities as to what is causing the issue. It could be corrupt windows files, faulty video card, too much dust causing heat issues, the ram is failing, the hard drives could need a defrag, a conflicting software or maybe just bad luck.

In cases like these I generally do a reformat and install a fresh copy of windows. If the problem persists then most likely it's a hardware issue. Even then I can't see dayz damaging your video card as Dayz is a CPU hog.

[mick17 93]

I definitely think your GPU is dying. I would try what Syndicate said and clean it out with compressed air. If that doesn't work; you probably will have to get a new GPU.

[finkone 320]

Get a nice little widget to tell you your GPU temp - dust that bad boy off (you'd be surprised how much dust can get on that thing.) I think it'll most likely be a temperature thing...

Either way - there is a way to stress test your GPU to see if thats the problem in this case...

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

Sometimes GPUs will run at a very high damaging temperature - and cause irreversible damage to the GPU unit... ;(

Just to get a rough idea, I run under heavy load at temps of around 50C - I have had a day or 2 that I've gamed for a long period of time... and have had to let her cool down and figure out what was sapping her so bad. I burnt up a crappy Radeon 7600' 2G on the Arma engine already.

Edited December 24, 2012 by FinKone

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

^^that's a good call. If you're having the issue after you've been playing for a bit then it could definately be overheating. Before you try anything else just get some compressed air and clean out the dust from inside your rig. Make sure the fans are clean and and all of the vents too. I had a similar issue once (different symptoms though) and a quick clean fixed everything.

P.S - dont be tempted to use a hoover, it'll end in tears.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Fraggle

[I3reeze 1]

Okay so I'm going to try cleaning out the computer tomorrow with compressed air. As for the rest of it, it sounds either expensive or greek. I took classes a while ago but I don't remember what a whole lot of these things due such as GPU. I'll research and try to figure it out and thanks for the imput thus far!

Okay so I ran the 1920x1080 Benchmark test on FurMark and after the 15 minutes was up, it shows me that it maxed at 87C. I have so little knowledge with this, however, that I don't even know if this is something to be worried about.

I used the Fullscreen and 8X antialiasing options on the test.

Edited December 24, 2012 by I3reeze

[I3reeze 1]

Okay, so.

I've just completed my second GPU stress test via FurMark after having cleaned out the inside of my computer. The results were the same with a max temp of 87 degrees C and the same frames went through.

So this leaves me with the option of a failing GPU?

Also, all my settings for this test were the same as before.

I was able to play DayZ for about 10 minutes earlier before once again returning to the "Confusion Screen"

Thanks again

[OrLoK 16186]

Obvious, thing, all your drivers up to date?

It does sound gfx related and may indeed be physical.Hows the airflow around the PC? Is it wedged in a corner/cupboard etc? Dusty?

Do you have a different/older gx card you can slot in and test to see if the same thing happens?

Rgds

LoK

[finkone 320]

Depending on what video card you've got, that could be a harmful temp. I've heard some cards max at 70C, while others 110C...

So now that you know the temp of your card, might be time to do a little footwork and see whats a correct operating temperature of your unit. Often when a card gets to hot it just blanks the screen to take a break - sometimes these features fail thats why I've recommended the current path. I haven't ever seen one display a odd color'd screen like the one you've got though.

If its not the temp of the card, which it doesn't really sound like it off hand, it is either as stated above - a driver issue (these things can become corrupted) or a RAM issue. Some people have had luck doing a COMPLETE DRIVER uninstall, and reinstall, then update (if needed). Uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers for your video card are rather easy - you should be able to locate a nice tutorial. Make sure you've got the correct ones downloaded before messing around, and do a complete UNINSTALL first... the "repair" options sometimes don't do their damn job.

Edited December 24, 2012 by FinKone

[I3reeze 1]

Woah. That's huge. Okay thank you FinKone.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/10/22/ati-radeon-hd-6850-review/9

According to this, the maximum heat is supposed to be 50 degrees C. It looks like this game test was done during a different game but the temperature difference shouldn't be this major. What do you suggest I do?

[ast65 11]

you could also try deleting all launch parameters in target line (if you have some)

[-Daemon- 14]

I am not familiar with the 6850; but a driver update can help. What fan speed is your GPU running at? I think it's apparent that the heat is causing the issue, if the ideal temp is almost forty degrees less than your readouts.

[I3reeze 1]

All of my drivers are up to date and I don't know what you mean by "launch parameters in the target line" :\

I've been watching my GPU temp with TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.6 and the temps my computer is freezing at is above 70 degrees C. However the most recent freeze happened while I had the side cover of my computer off to hopefully allow more cool air in, not to mention it's chilly down here right now.

The first one I recorded was at 12:35 PM here where the compuer froze at a GPU temp of 76C. The second one, which I did just now with the side cover removed, froze at 72C. So I don't think it's so much a temperature thing.

I was considering overclocking the fan (if that's a thing) and/or overclocking the GPU itself. Which I have never done before and I don't know how far I can push it.

Should I stick with the idea that it's a temperature problem or move on to try to overclock?

[SmokeyFTM 55]

If your not sure on overclocking i wouldnt try it, if its a temp problem overclocking anything will raise the temperature and if the gfx card gets damaged by heat it cant be undone. I had a similar problem my PSU had dust inside dust like 3 inches thick, had to remove the fan guard and clean it all out, make sure to have a good look around the computer for dust

[SmokeyFTM 55]

^^that's a good call. If you're having the issue after you've been playing for a bit then it could definately be overheating. Before you try anything else just get some compressed air and clean out the dust from inside your rig. Make sure the fans are clean and and all of the vents too. I had a similar issue once (different symptoms though) and a quick clean fixed everything.

P.S - dont be tempted to use a hoover, it'll end in tears.

Hmmm why not? (innocently whistles as i unplug the hoover)

[I3reeze 1]

Okay but what about overclocking the fan? Is that possible?

[SmokeyFTM 55]

not sure, i downloaded speedfan, its free and it gives you an option to auto adjust fan speeds according to temp

[I3reeze 1]

Okay so it's about 90 degrees C. I don't really know why it's getting that hot but it was when I was performing a stress test. That's nearing 200 degrees F which is ridiculous. Speed fan has the "fire" symbol next to the GPU. I tried finding "Performance" in Catalyst Control Center and I can't get anything. I have no presets or anything. Running out of ideas.

[disorder 344]

Here you go. Remember furmark is very intensive and gets your chip very hot, so you need to override cooling on your gfx card. Easy enough if you follow this guide>

First. obviously make sure you have latest amd graphics drivers

download msi afterburner

turn on the user controlled fan icon, in the fan section. The one with the big cog.

If you can't see the fan section. you need to change the theme to full in Settings > user interface

Finally on the fan tab in settings, make sure fan override (user controlled) is on.

edit the graph so that than fan goes to 100% at 70degrees. You can move the markers around by dragging them. if you create a new marker by accident select it and hit delete. your line should like this http://www.datanc.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/msi-afterburner-fan-settings.jpg

There is also a yellow dotted line, a minimum fan level (sometimes 10-20%). Make sure the minimum idle speed is at this temp, it might be a 30-40degree idle temp, you want the lower end of that for idling.

The end result should be, slow quiet fan while doing windows stuff + loud cooling fan when you are running games.

Edited December 26, 2012 by disorder

[ayser 8]

Use MSI after burner to change the speed fan. You definitely have a problem with the stability of your graphic card... Might want to look into a cheap one, possible a GTX 470 (Go for about $150 I believe)

[I3reeze 1]

All right. Gonna try running DayZ with this coolant going. I think I installed a bunch of crap which wasn't necessary but that's neither here nor their.. I'll figure it out and delete it later (hopefully)

Thanks for this bit of info guys

[I3reeze 1]

Okay so I'm running DayZ now after completely uninstalling my graphics driver and reinstalling and updating. I'm watching the GPU temp and it's staying at a much more reasonable temperature of around 50-60 degrees C. And as expected, the GPU is working at 100%. I'm just assuming that's because the Arma2 game is very large and is loading the map constantly. So could the problem simply be that it's too powerful for the Radeon HD 6850? This seems odd because I know people who are running the game with my same system. The temperature is no longer the problem; I think I've ruled that out by keeping a steady decent temperature (I think) and the game still crashes, Lost another chopper :*(