Silent Hunter III crashing computer

[Paulverisor64]

Last week I started a campaign in GWX. I didn't anticipate any trouble running the game because I have a couple 8800 graphics cards set up in a SLI configuration.

In my 1st load of the campaign I travelled several hundred kilometers before my computer locked up. Prior to the lock up I could observe an occasional froze frame.

I shrugged this off as a fluke and loaded the game up again. Once again several hundred kilometers accross the sea and the computer locked up once again.

I also noted an annoying crackling sound which I would hear when I would rotate around on the deck. It was always focussed in one area to the left.

I concluded that it would not hurt to re-format my computer to perhaps clean up the software linkages. I did this Sunday evening. I was very happy to get a 3D Mark 03 score of near 50,000.

I loaded the game up on Tuesday. I did observe a much more random sound crackling, and froze frame but I made it through the Kiel Canal without a glitch.

Tonight I was patroling once again. I was scanning the surface when to my dismay the computer locked up again. This time I received a message with the lockup. "The nv4 - display driver has stopped working normally".

What I am wondering is if anyone might be able to help me track this problem down. Perhaps someone else has encountered this issue. I am wondering whether this problem might be hardware or software related.

I have the latest graphics and mainboard drivers installed. There are no conflicts in the Device Manager. I have GWX 2.1 installed and very little else.

[Task Force]

Up date drivers. What version do you have...:-? Or you have a faulty Installation.

[nirwana]

i remember when i came close to danzig i repeatedly bombed out in 39. i decided to avoid the approximity of it during this 1st patrol i had no further prob.

[Schwuppes]

I had them same problem.... my devices stopped working properly. Turns out it was because my windows firewall was disabled... hence my PC was being messed with.

[u_tommy]

Do you play any other hard resource hitting 3d games?.... because it would be important to know if it was a problem in other games.

How much RAM do you have? and how is it managed?

Have you tried removing one of your gfx cards?.. and see how it runs. Does SH3 like dual gfx cards.. not all games support it.

Have you re-installed the game from scratch?

Food you thought...

I had them same problem.... my devices stopped working properly. Turns out it was because my windows firewall was disabled... hence my PC was being messed with.

lol - 1st time i've heard of the windows firewall doing any good...

Better off with a half decent router with hardware security features.

[Pisces]

A week or so ago I had my pc rebooting spontaneously while inside a convoy in bad weather a couple of times. I was just panning the bridge and periscope view. Opening the case I noticed the videocard fan was quite dusty. And my case has bad airflow anyway. On top of that the ambient temperature in my room was pretty high because of summer. After cleaning the fan and keeping the side lid of my pc case open SH3 hasn't crashed on me again. So I guess it was a temperature issue in 'my case'.

[Badger Finn]

definitly track down some older drivers first

I had this prob on my NVidea GeForce Go 7900GS a while back

also had frame stagger using the hi res option and experienced the dusty fan deal as well heat can be a biggy in frame drop and lock ups...

[Paulverisor64]

Thank you for giving me some ideas to check into. From what I am gathering it appears that there is a much greater likelyhood that I am experiencing a hardware issue and not a game specific issue.

I didn't really give you a proper rundown on my computer spec's.
Mainboard: EVGA Nforce 680i SLI 1333 Mhz DDR2 (onboard Realtek sound)
Processor: Intel Core Duo, 2.4 Ghz E6600
Ram: OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Dual Channel Memory
Graphics: (2) EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB
Power Supply: OCZ 700GXSSLI 700 Watt

Everything in my setup should be adaquate for it's job. However my suspicion is that I either have a lack of power from my power supply or all of the components are heating up the insides of my Antec Sonata too much.

I really haven't done any serious gaming since I purchased my 2nd graphics card. The 1st card by itself worked like a champ when I played Battlefield 2 several months ago. My desire to get a SLI setup was because I wanted to get optimal speed and performance in playing the Silent Hunter III game. I was extremely pleased with an increase from 30,000 to 50,000 3DMark03 score.

I've read on the internet several accounts of where someone's SLI setup resulted in computer lockups. I also read of another account of onboard sound creating the error message that I mentioned above.

I would like to know if there would be some way that I could check some numbers against what I should be seeing with the heat registered in BIOS or perhaps there is a way to look at power consumption levels within the computer.

Tonight I will remove and clean the fan of my 2nd graphics card.

[nirwana]

Disable smart fan of the gfxcards with "smart doctor" as well. Since i let it run at full throttle at any time i have rarely any problems even to resume a game being saved in a convoy with burning/exploding ships submerged in bad wheather.

[Tobus]

onboard realtek sound sucks donkeyballs. I used that in my previous rig and had numerous problems with games (not in SH3 though). This is because:

a. the soundchip draws its "power" from cpu-cycles, thus slowing down the pc alltogether and deteriorating performance.
b. the soundchip almost always claims memory from your RAM on set adresses. If a program/game can't deal with that, problems will arise eventually!

The problems encountered can be various: crackling, popping, fading or at worst stability issues. I had them ALWAYS with Medieval 2 Total War, sometimes with IL2 (+32 planes meant crackling + sharp performance drop). After disabling this (via BIOS and mainboard-jumper) and installing a dedicated soundcard, all problems were gone.

[Paulverisor64]

Well, for a while things seemed to be going good. Today I was able to get to my patrol destination at AN18. I was actually starting to enjoy things and out of the random blue my computer froze up again.

Since my last post I've cleaned out the bottom graphics card fan, disabled the Smart Fan in the BIOS, tried a more up to date Nvidia graphics driver which failed almost immediately, rolled back to the previous driver version, and inserted the airflow tube which I removed months ago.

Even though I had a half way decent leg that I travelled I don't feel the airflow tube (which comes with the Antec Sonata 2) helped very much. The MCP temperatures have elevated above 80C whereas they were near 70C prior to this.

Any recommendation on a sound card? I also have heard that onboard sound is a system hog.

I don't have a whole lot of money to work with. I'm hoping that if I need to buy something that it will heal the problem. Right now I'm looking at these options: 1) a more powerful power supply
2) a larger computer case
3) a new sound card

Until I can figure out which fix makes the most sense I might opt to try disabling the SLI or remove the 2nd graphics card, which I wouldn't want to make a permanent solution. There is an even more up to date Nvidia graphics driver out there (I believe 179 dot whatever), but I'm not sure if this would cure the problem I have.

Is there a way I could read power consumption on my computer to see whether I am overloading my 700 watt power supply?

[Paulverisor64]

I've been searching the internet to find other people who have been encountering the situation that I presently have. There appear to be numerous instances of the computer freeze/sound loop/NV4 error message, but I haven't seen a clear cut solution to the problem.

Yesterday I opted to spend $30 on a Creative Audigy card. My personal opinion is that this will not solve the problem, but the price is right and it is something I would use even if it didn't represent the answer.

Today I will remove the heat duct that has been elevating my graphic card temperatures and install the new sound card (hopefully it fits). I will pre-plot a course and see how long it takes for the computer freeze.

I did notice another Silent Hunter player who has identical symptoms to my own computer freeze. I hope to compare system spec's to see if there are any similarities.

[Paulverisor64]

I think I may have solved the computer freeze issue!

I'll go over what I did yesterday to arrive at this point.
1) Installed new sound card and tried patroling: Result computer freeze within 30 minutes.
2) Downloaded Prime 95 and tested for errors: Result no errors
3) Downloaded Mem test 86+ and tested for errors: Result no errors

Then; based on a recommendation given to a OCZ customer on the OCZ forum. I also read bug fix log for what the BIOS upgrade did.

4) Flashed BIOS to current level and patroled in Silent Hunter overnight: Result no computer freeze up!

Right now I am elated. I must say however that the BIOS flash was the last thing I wanted to do. In fact the individual that listened to the OCZ moderator's advice ended up frying the CMOS battery and not being able to get on their computer. I guess I looked at the risk/reward aspect and just got lucky. I will continue this post if my situation changes but for the moment I'll be happy to resume the campaign.