2 replies to this topic

[AF Sting]

BLUF: Something about my Corsair Memory (2xCorsair Vengeance 8GB CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9) does not like MWO (or vice versa).

Situation: I suffered with crashes and instability in MWO for several months on one of my computer systems. That system ran other graphic intensive games fine (AION, Wargame, Planetside, WoT, etc) and MWO ran well on two other computers, but there was something about MWO that made this particular system glitchy and prone to crashes. If I ran the MWO repair tool, it would go through and fix errors and then find new ones right away. Every patch update required a complete reinstall just to get the game to run. I ruled out heat first (CPU never has crossed 45C and the VCores have never topped 50C – ASUS Thermal radar showed no hotspots on any of the 10 heat sensors on the board) and could find nothing to indicate the OS (Win 7 HP 64bit) was the issue.

At first I was convinced it was something to do with the graphics, but after running through several cards (Radeon 7750 and 7850, GeoForce 650ti and 8800GT) and trying different drivers (including betas), I concluded it was not the graphics engine. I then suspected the motherboard (ASUS Sabertooth 990FX) as the game ran fine on my other two platforms (ASUS F2A85-M PRO and ASUS P8Z77-V LX). I then read some posts on the MWO forum where people suspected their SSD, so I uninstalled mine (SAMSUNG 840 250GB 2.5 SATA III) but that proved a non-player and the instability continued. I ran Memtest, burned-in the videocard with Furmarks, monitored heat patterns and toture tested the system with Prime95. I reseated everything, tried swapping in new power supplies (XION 1000W, Dream Power 650W and Thermaltake SP-1000M). I then removed the MB completely (still believing it was the problem) and ran it on my bench on the off chance that the case (Thermaltake Chaser MK-I Full Tower) was grounding the board (I once had a rogue screw produce bizarre results like this).

I was not convinced, but felt a bad motherboard seemed like the most likely problem. I was about to send it off, but decided to test the memory. I swapped what was installed (Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9) with another set (Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M2A1600C10). All the issues went away and the game ran well. I put the system back together and have not had issues since (it has been over 2 weeks and probably 100+ matches with zero crashes). I placed the suspect memory into another computer and, sure enough, MWO became very unstable on that machine. The same results came from my Intel based system when I installed the memory in it (for full disclosure, that system has other heat-related issues so that results are not as conclusive).

Conclusion: The memory was the issue. I do not know if there is something specific to the design of that memory configuration, or if one of the modules is bad and MWO simply brings out the defect. Perhaps MWO just stresses system memory in a way that other programs do not.

Recommendation: If you are experiencing FREAD errors, blue screens, random crashes to desktop or just unstable activity in MWO, you may want to consider swapping your memory if you are able.

Follow-On Actions: I am RMA’ing the memory and will post whether the new set (hopefully same model) has the same issue.

System Specs (when error occurred):
MB: ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+
CPU: AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core 4GHz AM3+ 16MB, 125W
OS: Win 7 HP 64bit SP-1 fully up-to-date
CPU Cooler: Corsair CW-9060002-WW Hydro H70
Ram: Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 2x8GB
VC: XFX Radeon HD 7850 Core Edition FX785ACNL4 2GB GDDR5, PCI-Express 3.0(x16), 2x Dual-link DVI-I, 2x Mini DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, DirectX 11, CrossFireX, Dual-Slot
HDD: Samsung 840 Series MZ-7TD250BW 250GB Solid State Drive, SATA III and WD Black 2TB 3.5", SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB Cache
Case : Thermaltake VN300M1W2N Chaser MK-I Full Tower

[sokitumi]

let me get this straight now... in order to run MWO without crashing you:

• swapped 4 vid cards
  
• swapped your ssd (clean os install too?)
  
• reinstalled x amount of video drivers
  
• rebuilt the entire rig suspecting your mobo
  
• tried 3 PSU's?!
  
• + how many hours of reinstalls

No offense bro, but that's crazy. Like straight up wtf crazy.
In the grand scheme of things it's probably not the harware that's the problem tbh.

[Tarl Cabot]

Not really. That he had the patience to try everything he did, kudos but I would have started with the memory swap either 1st or 2nd. , dependent on what the error logs showed.

EQ would do the same thing to some systems with ram being the issue. One person played EQ more than the other, more intensive games but any issues with other games only showed up every once in a while. Took a tech shop testing it to show they were faulty as any normal tests a lay person could do would generate good tests. Now if he had changed the timings/voltage, that may have fixed it.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 09 June 2013 - 02:40 PM.