Computer Locking Up Only On WoW =(

[Redbeard]

Howdy,

So I just got this shiny new computer to better 5 box WoW with and ive run into a wall here and am getting pretty frustrated.

Ive literally had this thing for like a week. It plays other games fine but I cannot log my character into WoW.

I played for a couple hours last night, and ported my char to Dalaran at the end of the night. My computer locked, and since rebooting when I start WoW I can enter my credentials and choose a character, loading screen comes up and I get a full bar and then it freezes. If i play in Windowed mode it shows where I am briefly, then it freezes.

On my laptop I logged in and moved my char to orgrimmar, but that didnt have any effect.

Its a new setup, Windows Vista 64bit home, i7 920 6gb RAM.

This is only happening with WoW.

Any thoughts / suggestions would be welcome:

p.s. ive already reinstalled WoW and tried putting it on a different hard drive, no dice.

[Fizzler]

I will go with the easy fixes first. Have you tried updating or changing your video drivers?

[Redbeard]

Well like I say this is a fresh install of everything, brand new components. I downloaded the newest driver from EVGA for my card. Upon keyclone's suggestion I am currently downloading graphics drivers directly from nvidia, hopefully that will affect a positive change.

Would a driver issue cause some games to work and not others?

[Jafula]

Dumb questions:

Windows Vista 64bit home

Do you have WoW installed somewhere that it has permissions to write to? i.e. C:\Wow1 is probably not going to be easy going.

Are you running wow as administrator?

Less dumb questions:

Have you run a memory tester on your ram?

From my experience with brand spanky new machines, sometimes the ram timings can be out (dodgy ram, motherboard bios not quite ready) and this causes *random* freezes, blue screens, etc. PITA. Its been a while since I've tested some ram, maybe memtest is ready for your mobo/cpu:

http://www.memtest.org/

[Redbeard]

I just uinstalled then reinstalled the video drivers, same deal =\

Jafula,

Wow is currently installed at Z:\games\World of Warcraft the account I am running (Jonathan) has admin rights... Im new to vista, I just assumed programs I initiated under this login would run with my level of access, do I need to do something different?

A note: I HAVE played on this new setup... i ran my friend through Maraudon last night before it froze... so.


Vista has a memory tester app apparently, havent run it yet. Was going to mess around and see what I can find and then run the memtest when I go to bed tonight.

[Jafula]

Re: vista installation location. I think you should be fine running as your user, ... but Blizzard specifically install WOW to somewhere in C:\Users\Public\ to work around Vista permission problems with C:\Program Files...

Take a screenshot in WoW and see if you can find the .jpg in your file system. If you can find the screenshot where you expect it to be, everything should be fine.

I still think dodgy ram is your problem. Windows is a stable product (3rd party drivers aside), if you are having freeze touble it usually is the hardware in my experience.

[Freddie]

the account I am running (Jonathan) has admin rights... Im new to vista, I just assumed programs I initiated under this login would run with my level of access, do I need to do something different?
Yes, if UAC is on, you need to select "run as administrator" when you launch the program.

Without "run as administrator", the program starts with a low privilege level regardless of the type of account that starts it. The difference between an admin and non-admin account is that the admin account has the power to select "run as admin."

You might want to try launching WoW with "run as administrator."

Also, if you haven't done so, you might want to check the operating system's error logs. (Control Panel : Problem Reports and Solutions : View Problem History ... sort by date and double click item to see details.) WoW probably also maintains an error log although I'm not sure about that.

[Redbeard]

Just ran as administrator, same deal.

=\

[Redbeard]

Hmmm..

So i was trying to download something and it froze up on me twice. So I ran a cable real quick and disabled the wireless NIC in my desktop and it let me in...

Hmmmm. The wireless card worked fine for a week (and worked fine for other stuff, like browsing, downloading, etc).

So now I wonder if I just have a bad card... and how I get a refund with no packaging lol.

Crossing my fingers that thats the only issue at any rate.