Editor crashing, locking up my computer.

[Angel_Mapper]

8800GT, latest drivers (175.19)
Windows XP Home
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+
2GB RAM



This happens at least once a day, completely at random. The red jaggies will appear, and my computer will completely lock up except for any music I was playing at the time. I have to hold down the power button to get it to restart.

It looks like a video card issue, but I have no idea what could be going on. I've had my temperature monitor on when it's happened and it's not overheating.

Anyone else have this problem?

[pinnacle]

I had a problem like this and it was my video card RAM. If that is the problem for you the only solution is an RMA unless you want to run your video card RAM underclocked for the rest of its life. Also try using rivatuner to turn up the fan speed on your card... that might help even though it doesn't look like it's overheating.

[Angel_Mapper]

How do I test the video card RAM?

[pinnacle]

There's no program that does just that, but you could try this "brute force" method:

1. Download and install ATI Tool
2. Underclock the core by a lot and run "scan for artifacts" to test for stability in isolation (your comp will probably lock up here if my guess is correct)
3. If the problems go away it's probably a heat issue
4. If the problems persist, underclock the RAM by a lot
5. If the problems go away, then slowly raise the RAM clock back up to the max stable value, testing for artifacts after each jump
6. If the max stable RAM clock isn't too far below the stock speeds, then I'd just stay with that. If it doesn't ever get stable or something like that, then RMA the card.

Note: ATI Tool will stress your card very much, so you only need to run "scan for artifacts" for about 2-3 minutes to get a good idea for stability. If you want to be completely sure of stability run it for an hour or two.

[Angel_Mapper]

Thanks. I downloaded Rivatuner and lowered the clock settings on my card to the NVidia defaults. The card I bought was factory overclocked, but I haven't had any problems with it outside of UnrealEd. If this works I'll know to just set Rivatuner to this profile when using UnrealEd.

[Latent Image]

I had a similar problem with the 8800GT on another machine however I get blue jaggies. Although I think it may be overheating, not sure yet.

[Dark Pulse]

Make sure you got the latest drivers, that never hurts, though I find it odd if it worked normally before and it only began doing this recently.

Also, make sure it's getting enough juice.

[Angel_Mapper]

Na, it's been doing it the entire time, but ONLY with UnrealEd. I've kept up on the drivers, but it's looking like clocking it back to NVidia's specs is working so far. I'll post back here if it crashes again.

[d3tox]

I've seen something similar, viewports will flash completely red. My VC is also factory OC'd with no issues aside from this. It doesnt happen all the time either.

[JohnDoe641]

I know that in the past, the Unreal engine could sometimes be really picky with overclocking. Perhaps UnrealEd doesn't like the factory OC speeds?

[Fuzz]

That seems to be the case. Good to know if I stumble upon something similar myself. I usually don't overclock and this is a good reason not to. Factory overclocked products should work, but I guess pushing them beyond nVidia's standards can cause issues like these.