Help - computer keeps restarting since installing steam/xcom

[celliott_16]

Hi, I've installed steam, got civ 5 and have been playing it for a week or so, great game. I downloaded Xcom and it ran really jerky the first time, then crashed, now it just crashes/restarts the system after about 1 minute of it being launched. The thing is, civ 5 now wont play, it just restarts my pc after a saved game has loaded - anyone else having this issue after installing xcom? I've also had a few problems with steam not launching and having to manually exit via task mgr then restart.

I'm re-downloading xcom to see if that will do anything - very frustrating as civ 5 wont work :o(

(AMD fx4100, 8gd ddr3 hyper x, gb ddr5 550 ti graphics, win 7 64bit - all drivers bang up to date)

[Satoru]

FX processor means you're running into the AMD FX Steam issue

You MUST update your motherboard BIOS before even trying any other stuff

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2876044

Here's some info on the issue.

Basically the issue means that any steam game using CEG (which is basically all AAA titles like xcom civ5) will do 'odd' things like crash, hang, bsod, etc.

[celliott_16]

Thanks for the info, I'm sure my bios is bang up to date :o( I'll follow the link and see where I can get to.

[celliott_16]

As I thought, my bios is bang up to date (f4) and the issue is exactly the same :O( My motherboard is a 970a-ds3, any other suggestions?

[EliteLife]

Have you checked the EVENT Viewer, under WINDOWS LOGS, click drop down arrow, click on applications. Give it a second or so to compile and reveal the data. Look for RED exclamation marker. If you click on that it will show you the path of the faulty program. Read the GENERAL TAB at the middle bottom. Make sure it shows your game you are looking for. It might provide some information. Here is one for an example. It bascically tells me in short form. That Windows Native API (application programmable Interface) is conflicting with Steams API and caused it to crash. the NTDLL.DLL more specifically. Doing some research I found out that steams overlay was being loaded into memory as normal, but when i use the overlay it will crash after a minute or so. The Windows API loads this stuff into the kernal or memory, so in the end both API's were not allowing each other control. It was fixed with Steam update and has since stopped crashing the overlay. For those nit pickers out there. I did not go into great detail or explain everything....but hopefully this will help you find the problem or a workaround. best of luck.

Faulting application name: GameOverlayUI.exe, version: 1.32.20.50, time stamp: 0x4f46a9bf
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17725, time stamp: 0x4ec49b8f
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0003464a
Faulting process id: 0x9c4
Faulting application start time: 0x01cd5938dfd7b5f3
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\GameOverlayUI.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 077546cd-c534-11e1-8fb1-00241dc449ad

[celliott_16]

I've just checked event viewer after trying to start civ 5 and xcom.

Civ 5 rebooted my pc as per and the info given under event viewer was:

Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

XCOM, for the first time didnt reboot my pc but just crashed and went back to windows, the event viewer is as follows:

Faulting application name: XComGame.exe, version: 1.0.0.11052, time stamp: 0x5075b2c5
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17932, time stamp: 0x50327672
Exception code: 0xe06d7363
Fault offset: 0x0000c41f
Faulting process id: 0x1294
Faulting application start time: 0x01cdaa596a5b464b
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\Binaries\Win32\XComGame.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: d0b8072e-164c-11e2-ab97-902b346f70c2

Any assistance in translating this into, ahem, plain english would be much appreciated!

[EliteLife]

As a technician with these problems I do a process of elimination. First thing download "microsoft malicious software removal tool". It should give you the current one(October's). Run the program. It will take anywhere from an hour to 5 or 6 hours depending on how big your HDD is and how much it is filled. Once that is done and you have verified that there is no undetectable malicous software on your PC( Anti-virus software can miss or not detect malicious software). The next thing to do that is easy, is put your Windows O/S disk in the drive and DO NOT REINSTALL, but there is a recovery for missing and broken files. This will look at all windows files and correct them as neccessay. The WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) could be corrupt. This will also check the registry for errors and repair them as needed. If I remember it is called REPAIR windows i think. You must press F8 at boot up, be sure to look as it boots, sometimes computers use different keys. There are some that reccommend RESTORE but from my expierence do not do that, it can have bad results. If you restore to a time period before you installed a game it will have negitive effects. I only use restore as a last resort to recover files before i actually reinstall the O/S. I will keep in contact with you and see if we can come up with a solution. Start with what I posted first since it is the easiest and safest way without reinstalling. I will keep looking and research for a fix for you.

[celliott_16]

I'll do what you said and get back to you, thanks so much for your time.

I did have a thought in the wee hours of the morning, as you do, could it be my ram? I ask as its kingston hyper x which is intel xmp certified quad channel to 2133mhz. When I spoke to kingston (because it would only run at 1333 on an amd cpu/motherboard), they said it was designed more for intel but should run fine on my setup, they just said it would be very difficult to overclock it, which I havent attempted to do as of yet. The memory is khx2133c11d3k4/8gx (4X2gb dimms).

[celliott_16]

Well this is strange, I downloaded the malicious software removal tool, about 1 min into it the pc restarts! Which is puzzling, I looked at the event viewer and find this message:

Log Name: Application
Source: Microsoft-Windows-WMI
Date: 16/10/2012 04:02:53
Event ID: 10
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Chris-PC
Description:
Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-WMI" Guid="{1edeee53-0afe-4609-b846-d8c0b2075b1f}" EventSourceName="WinMgmt" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">10</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-10-16T03:02:53.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>3238</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Chris-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>//./root/CIMV2</Data>
<Data>SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage &gt; 99</Data>
<Data>0x80041003</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

So now I am baffled, its a brand new pc and in the first week I played s.t.a.l.k.e.r. and civ 5, I installed xcom and now all games crash, Im guessing the performance is ramped up during the maicious software test, as with a game i guess, and the pc restarts itself, hmm. I also have unticked the option of the computer to restart when an error occurs so I should get the bsod, but it still restarts.

[celliott_16]

The 'quick scan' ran all ok though, the above freeze was on full scan

[EliteLife]

I will look into your RAM ( khx2133c11d3k4/8gx (4X2gb dimms) compatibility with your setup. The other post with the fault after the Malicous software issue, the EVENT said again WMI fault. I was wondering since you did not mention, did you put your Windows disk in and try REPAIR windows. Just to be sure also download or run a CPU temp monitor and maybe a GPU monitor too, at least rule out an overheating problem. Run a high graphical game (That will run,lol), then quit to see the top end heat range of CPU and GPU, just because it is new doesn't mean something could have went wrong on the manufacturing side of things. Like you said after you installed the game it had problems so leads to believe software more than hardware, but I have seen stranger things. The next steps after that would be verify BIOS settings are set properly according to hardware, Running the computer with default settings to see if the problem goes away. Like the Kingston rep said those XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) were built around Intel chips then you would stay away from using those profiles. Have them set to AUTO in BIOS to be absolutely sure the RAM's are properly set. After this will be an advanced process of elimination only if you are ready to go that far. Need to know, did you build this computer yourself or was it pre-assembled.

[celliott_16]

Yes, I did build the pc myself. I've since tried some ram which was matched by kingston to my board/cpu (I spoke to them over the phone), absolutely no difference whatsoever :o(

The problem has got a little worse too, it sometimes just loops round, restarting and almost loading windows then restarting again, if I leave it for a few minutes then it starts up and runs ok... until I try a game or other intensive programme, surfing the net is ok.

This has led me to believe it may be a faulty PSU, I have a 700w Alpine unit, and by all accounts its cheap and nasty, the only 'budget' part of my build tbh. A new high quaility PSU is turning up tomorrow for me to try. If this doesn't fix the problem then Its back to the drawing board.

I did try repair windows too.

[Satoru]

If your PC is rebooting in a scan then it's something with your computer. You'd have to go through it one thing at a time and see what's the culprit.

[Legendary old man]

If you turn off "automatic restart on system failure" then you will likely get a blue screen instead of a restart. That blue screen will have helpfull information.

Testing your memeory is very easy so I would do it as a first step and likely cause. I prefer memtest86 but other programs likely work good to.

[celliott_16]

Gigabye released a beta version of bios yesterday, I have installed that. At the same time I have upgraded my psu to a high quaility one.

Guess what, the game runs now - woooohoooooo. No idea if my psu kept cutting out or if it was the bios, or just a steam download/corruption issue, but I'm so chuffed, and the pc is much quieter with the better psu too :o)

Thanks all for your help.

[EliteLife]

Was going to mention next to try a PSU tester to test the power supply, like I said before I have seen strange things with computers, you would not think that power could cause the problem, of coaurse you did a firmware update to BIOS. You probably had both problems at the same time. It makes sense, when the CPU and GPU ramp up in power requirements as you lauch a game or program and there is not enough power, Corruption Will Happen. Glad to see things are ok.