Computers & Electronics

My computer crashes during Starcraft 2. Is it due to overclocking or something else?

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  • Mar 17th, 2011 3:57 pm
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Member
Feb 2, 2010
348 posts
10 upvotes

My computer crashes during Starcraft 2. Is it due to overclocking or something else?

On average, my computer crashes about once every 10-15 Starcraft 2 games in a row, but sometimes after the 2nd game! It doesn't restart the computer, it just kicks me out the game and gives me the 'crash report' and whether I want to send it to Blizzard. Sometimes it would crash when there's too much going on the screen (lots of action), and sometimes it would crash about 2 minutes in the game when there's barely anything happening. It seems to happen only to Starcraft 2 (the only PC game I play).

I got this computer used, but my friend said the previous guy may have overclocked it, so now I am wondering if this is the issue. If this is not the problem, what is?

I know my computer exceeds the minimum specifications for Starcraft. Here are the settings:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 3.02 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
64 bit operating system
Windows 7 Professional
Water coolant system
Graphics Card is ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series

Not only that, I am actually running the game on 'medium settings' even though my friend tested it out on Ultra. But when I do Ultra, it seems to crash more likely.

My internet connection is wired Ethernet.
Download speed: 14.15 Mbps
Upload: 1.03 Mbps
Ping: 12 ms

This is with my family using the internet right now.

Very confused. Anyone can give me some advice before I consider taking it into a shop? It's fairly new, so I am hoping I can do something manually.
9 replies
Deal Addict
Sep 16, 2005
4899 posts
100 upvotes
Local
I had this problem with sc2 before....
I was able to overclock and play any other game such as counterstrike and it never crashed or anything....as soon as I played sc2. I would get crashing problems....It didn't matter if I played lower settings or higher settings or wut not..

It turned out to be msi afterburner and the custom 2D/3D profile mhz I had set where it would jump down to a low mhz with 2d desktop and up high mhz with 3d...

I switched over to evga precision since it's the only other overclocking utility I could get working with my vidock....no problems since.
Member
Feb 2, 2010
348 posts
10 upvotes
john widow wrote: I had this problem with sc2 before....
I was able to overclock and play any other game such as counterstrike and it never crashed or anything....as soon as I played sc2. I would get crashing problems....It didn't matter if I played lower settings or higher settings or wut not..

It turned out to be msi afterburner and the custom 2D/3D profile mhz I had set where it would jump down to a low mhz with 2d desktop and up high mhz with 3d...

I switched over to evga precision since it's the only other overclocking utility I could get working with my vidock....no problems since.

So a video card problem? Is there a way to adjust the settings rather than changing to a brand new card?
Deal Guru
User avatar
Mar 13, 2004
13840 posts
5545 upvotes
Ontario
Try the simple stuff first.

- Updating drivers for your video card
- Cleaning any dust out of your fans/heatsinks & video card.
- Checking temps of your hardware.
- Update windows like maybe you are missing a service pack that may help
- Update/reinstall Direct X
Deal Addict
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Oct 9, 2010
3149 posts
1334 upvotes
Windsor
Run some benchmarks and testing software. Memtest for RAM, OCCT for general system stability, and furmark for video. If you can get all of those to pass, then it might be a driver problem; I had driver problems with my 5770 and SC2 when I was back on 10.6 or 10.7 drivers ... somewhere around there.
Banned
User avatar
Oct 15, 2005
12954 posts
1617 upvotes
North York
ati drivers are known to crash in sc2.
you could also be experiencing overheating issues.
i would monitor your gpu temps while playing with gpuz and also try a clean install of the game as well.
also try rolling back and installing old ati drivers like 10.5 those seem to be pretty stable for most ppl.
remember to use driversweeper in safe mode after uninstalling video drivers to be sure there are no traces of bad files.
Deal Addict
Sep 23, 2008
1646 posts
292 upvotes
like the others said "heat"

or maybe it could be that the overclock is unstable and u need some more power to the CPU
or you could just remove the overclock if you're too worried about messing up something
Member
Jan 16, 2011
427 posts
78 upvotes
Toronto
If you don't know anything about overclocking - ask your friend if he/she knows its overclock by software or in bios.

One way to know if its hardware: (eliminate software issue first)
reset your bios to default or optimal default
if you have a spare hdd, or if not u can probably find a new but small size hdd for next to nothing. if you don't
want to buy another hdd, then just backup what you need out of this one, format the harddrive and
install fresh windows and drivers (10.5 as another poster suggested if its more stable)
then before you install anything else (after drivers) install / copy starcraft 2 and test.
Or if you want to eliminate the ati "driver issue" factor, see if you can trade / borrow a Nvidia card to test with
then install that (again on fresh windows) with drivers and test.

good luck hope you find your problem
Member
Jan 16, 2011
427 posts
78 upvotes
Toronto
elliotforgames wrote: On average, my computer crashes about once every 10-15 Starcraft 2 games in a row, but sometimes after the 2nd game! It doesn't restart the computer, it just kicks me out the game and gives me the 'crash report' and whether I want to send it to Blizzard. Sometimes it would crash when there's too much going on the screen (lots of action), and sometimes it would crash about 2 minutes in the game when there's barely anything happening. It seems to happen only to Starcraft 2 (the only PC game I play).

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 3.02 GHz

Very confused. Anyone can give me some advice before I consider taking it into a shop? It's fairly new, so I am hoping I can do something manually.

do the troubleshooting yourself, since more than likely you're not going to find anyone useful there for this type of problem.
forget the big box stores, as most techs there wont' help (either not able to or can't be bothered to)
the small shops if they're gamers themselves maybe but it probably won't be cheap.

spend the time to figure it out, and with the money you save from not paying "non-informative" diagnostic, get yourself 4gb or ram , and maybe upgrade the processor if your board can take the newer ones. btw your cpu is only clocked about 10% , so if you have a decent cooler on it just make sure its clean (get yourself some compressed air clean out dust from cpu fan/heatsink as well as video card as another posted suggested I think)

with this system you should be able to reinstall windows and drivers in under an hour, again, test it yourself and use the money for useful stuff like upgrade your ram.
Member
May 25, 2006
301 posts
24 upvotes
Try installing Speedfan and monitor the temps of your GPU. If it always crashes at over 120 degrees its a heat issue, you may want to open it up clean everything up and maybe redo your thermal paste. I had a similar problem and after cleaning it all out and redoing my paste my gpu always stays under 100

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