Farcry shuts down monitor and reboots pc

[AzhriaLilu]

I know I've seen this problem reported a number of times already, but having spent the last two days reading through the forums, I don't know if I have just missed seeing the answer, so am hoping you wonderful people could help a girl out.

There doesn't seem to be any regular pattern to this, but every so often, the game will just pack up, switch off the monitor and reboot the pc. This can happen 2 minutes after starting the game, 2 hours after starting the game, and many variations in between. It doesn't seem to matter where about in the game I am - and I'm not far lol because of all this rebooting!

The specs of my machine are:-

P4 560 with ht technology
1024mb DDR
500gig SATA HDD (250gb x 2, @ 7200rpm)
16x DVD, 8x DVDRW Multi (dual layer)
ATI Radeon X600XY 256mb pci express (with updated driver of Dec 2004)

I've installed patch 1.3, uninstalled and reinstalled, changed graphics driver settings, turned off and turned on firewalls/antivirus - all to no avail.

So any help you could give me would be much appreciated.

Azh

[AzhriaLilu]

I know I've seen this problem reported a number of times already, but having spent the last two days reading through the forums, I don't know if I have just missed seeing the answer, so am hoping you wonderful people could help a girl out.

There doesn't seem to be any regular pattern to this, but every so often, the game will just pack up, switch off the monitor and reboot the pc. This can happen 2 minutes after starting the game, 2 hours after starting the game, and many variations in between. It doesn't seem to matter where about in the game I am - and I'm not far lol because of all this rebooting!

The specs of my machine are:-

P4 560 with ht technology
1024mb DDR
500gig SATA HDD (250gb x 2, @ 7200rpm)
16x DVD, 8x DVDRW Multi (dual layer)
ATI Radeon X600XY 256mb pci express (with updated driver of Dec 2004)

I've installed patch 1.3, uninstalled and reinstalled, changed graphics driver settings, turned off and turned on firewalls/antivirus - all to no avail.

So any help you could give me would be much appreciated.

Azh

[Hiriyu]

Which OS are you running? How about power supply?

You may want to turn on error reporting in your OS, so that you will not have an immediate reboot (procedure will be OS dependent). Also, try running a temp/voltage logging program such as MBM5 and see if there is anything funky going on with your hardware like voltage drop or over-temp.

Good Luck!

[AzhriaLilu]

I'm running xp home edition (bog standard rubbish that comes prepackaged lol) powersupply again is the bogstandard UK power.

Have checked temperatures and powerdrops and everything is pretty stable. Have been playing Halflife2 with no problems at all, if that's any help http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[digitalelite]

its very rare for software to reset a pc unless installing and it asks ur permission b4 it goes ahead ...

if the reset happened during use of the game then 1 of 3 things happend ...
1 . u binded ctrl,alt,del to ur game controls !
2 . software/windows install corrupt ( usually boots to windows after error ) but i seen weird things lol
3 . ur hdd , video card or cpu is overclocked and/or cookin itself ..

take the pc case off and blow a fan into it and play ur game .. if u can play 4 longer b4 another reset , then i would say this is ur issue !!

[AzhriaLilu]

I'd be inclined to agree only:-

1. I think I'd notice hitting ctrl/alt/del time after time every single time I play the game http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
and

2. We have three pc's of differing specs in the house and the game does the same thing on all of them - so if it is a corruption, then it's Far Cry that has it lol

3. Tried it... still booted lol

But thanx for taking the time out to give me some options http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[DocSEAL]

If it doesn't work on three computers of different configurations, then sounds like your disks are bad and you need to return them.

[Zoomie_NS]

My brother-in-law and I just bought identical machines from the same manufacturer, and we're both experiencing the same monitor shutoff/pc reboot problem with Farcry...

Our machines:
P4-530 3.0 GHz
512 MB DDR RAM running dual channel
AOpen i915Pa-E mainboard
Sapphire Radeon X600XT 256 MB PCI-e video
160 GB SATA HD
16x DVD, 8x DVD-RW

Tried reinstalling, no luck. Adjusted video settings Very High through Low, no difference. Tried latest Catalyst drivers and Omega Drivers, same results.

The only hint of an error that I've been able to find has been in Event Viewer, under the System section. It appears that this error appears twice every time the system goes through one of the crashes/reboots - "The RadClock service depends on the Radeon Probe Driver service which failed to start because of the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified."

This error has also appeared in conjunction with the crashes - "The Radeon Probe Driver service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified."

For anyone that's investigating this bug, I've also noticed that sound continues to come from the speakers long after the monitor goes to power save (loss of video output). It doesn't appear that the game continues play (because I don't hear myself getting shot!), but the audio processing still seems to be running and generating an output.

[DocSEAL]

Sounds like a required driver service is not enabled. Hit start\administrative tools\services and set Radeon Probe Driver service to automatic. If it is not listed, you need to reinstall your video driver.

[Zoomie_NS]

I'd tried that, and it failed to start. I did a bit more digging, and it turns out that the service is related to RadLinker, which came with the Omega Drivers. It must not have been completely uninstalled. So, I reinstalled the Omega Drivers (and RadLinker), and the service runs fine. Unfortunately, I get the same crash symptoms as before, but with no error message in Event Viewer http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

The errors appear to be unrelated to the crashes, and are more related to an incomplete uninstall of the Omega Drivers. I'll try uninstalling RadLinker tomorrow (which is listed as a separate program under Add/Remove Programs), and see what happens. If that fails, I'll then uninstall the Omega drivers and return to the ATI Catalyst drivers, and verify that there's no reference to the Radeon Probe Driver or RadClock in Services remaining. I'm not terribly optimistic - I think there's some other conflict between the game and the hardware that hasn't been resolved...

[AzhriaLilu]

Zoomie that's exactly the procedure i've just gone through to LOL and yeah, still no joy.. in fact it's worse now... I hit campaign and the load bar doesn't even go quarter % before the reboot kicks in.

[DocSEAL]

Sounds like both of you are in need of some completely fresh driver installs.

I suggest you follow the guide here (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=58636a33da0b40e84ab9896b07fbd7bd&threadid=67799). Another useful program for cleaning that I personally use is Nasty File Remover (http://www.etplanet.com/download/ati_nvidia/Nasty%20File%20Remover%200.7.2.zip).

While I'm linking you to the site...very good place for vid tools: http://www.etplanet.com/download/ati_nvidia.shtm

[Zoomie_NS]

No good, DocSEAL...I tried all that, and even tried a selective startup in msconfig, omitting all the win.ini/system.ini/startup items. The PC still locks up during the game. It has to be a game issue. I've submitted the problem to Ubi support, along with the dxdiag and sysinfo file.

[DocSEAL]

Sorry to hear that, let me know what Ubi support comes up with please.

[Zoomie_NS]

Will do, DocSeal. This all figures, of course...Farcry is the first game I've actually bought in a little while... http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

I submitted the info on the 9th...any ideas what their typical turnaround times are for support issues?

[DocSEAL]

Actually, from what I've seen on these boards, their turnaround time isn't all that bad 2-5 working days.

[Zoomie_NS]

Hmmm...I've updated (added additional information) my question to Ubisoft 3 times since it was originally submitted, and I haven't heard a peep from them yet.

Is there a way to check to see if anything is being worked on, or if my question got tossed into the bitbucket?

[DocSEAL]

Check the services again. When you try to start one that fails, find out what it's dependant on and see if that one is running. If not, run that one first.

[Farcry_noob2005]

whats the diff between omega driver and catalyst driver? there r 2 drivers for radeon cards?

-sorry i posted a noob question here lol

[Zoomie_NS]

DocSEAL: The services problem described above was a result of the Radlinker which came bundled in the Omega Drivers. After I reported that symptom, I did a format C: and reinstalled Windows using the XP Install guide at tweakguides.com. After running various versions of the Catalyst drivers, the Event Viewer is as clean as a whistle - there are no errors being generated at all in conjunction with the crashes. I don't think the services are the problem. I'm going to try some experimenting tonight with some info I found at http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/3968.html, and see if any of the recommended settings will help with the issue. Sapphire tech support has been rather useless through this issue, finally recommending that I RMA the card. However, I know it's not the card because I had two identical systems built, and gave one as a gift - and the other system is experiencing the exact same symptoms in Farcry. That narrows it down to either a game issue or a driver issue - and I'm grabbing at straws at this point http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Thanks for your help - I'll keep you updated as I learn more.

Farcry_noob2005: Check out http://www.omegadrivers.net/ - they have drivers for ATI and nVidia cards. The ATI Omega drivers are essentially the same as the Catalyst drivers from ATI, except that they've been optimized for gaming. Some people find that they perform better, although I wouldn't know because my card won't stay running long enough to find out http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Zoomie_NS]

Well, I finally fixed it, or at least I think I have. I exchanged the card under RMA today, installed the new one, and lo and behold the game works without a hitch. I've played it for two hours without so much as a hiccup.

I really didn't suspect a bad card because when I bought the system that it's in (Nov 30, 2004), I didn't just buy one system but two. The second system I gave to a relative as a gift. The system has exactly the same hardware, and had the exact same symptoms when playing Farcry. I'm willing to bet that the two X600XT cards came from the same batch, and both are faulty. Now I've got to worry about getting the card that's in another province sent back here so that I can exchange it and send it back to my relative.

Thanks a lot for the assistance everyone. For the original poster, you may want to RMA your card because I suspect yours came from the same batch my original two did http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[DocSEAL]

Ahhh, nice to hear a success story after so much effort!!

[Zoomie_NS]

Yup, thanks again, DocSEAL...the video card was the last thing I would have suspected. After all, who buys two computers at the same time, and both of them have faulty video cards??

Maybe now I can actually get through the single player game, and venture into the multiplayer world...looking forward to it.

Cheers!