I blame EA/Dice

[glenwilson]

Had a PC problem that took quite a few days to track down. The only moral to the story is that just be methodical and try and make sure you check all options at each level before moving on to the next component...

There was a Battlefield 4 update and Second Assault also dropped too followed by my PC starting to lock up, Not just BF4 locking or the usual BF4 stopped working pop up but a complete lockup requiring a press of the power button to resolve it. This went on for a couple of days and the obvious cause was the BF4 updates. So deleted and reinstalled BF4. Made no difference. Checked for Win 8 updates and uninstalled them, no difference. Rolled back to a January backup, then ran the required updates and, no difference. Play BF4 and it locked up. Other apps such as Photoshop and Lightroom worked OK. After a whole day of BF4 cold turkey I then started getting strange behaviour on those progs too. Not locking up but gradually slowing and then not responding. All temps and other indicators ruled out cooling and as the power supply was newish and from a reputable manufacturer and the PC wasn’t just powering off or displaying any of the other power related clues.

Windows logs and event viewer wasn’t showing anything either. Checked all the leads and SATA cables and found one of the SATA leads was loose at the motherboard end. That seemed to be a cure for a day or so and then the problem started again. Checked the lead and that was OK.

So stripped the PC back to an empty motherboard (just leaving the CPU and Windows SSD in place). Ran it with one memory chip and internal graphics and it worked OK. Then tried the other three memory sticks on their own and that worked OK suggesting the individual sticks were OK. Then tried one stick in all of the individual slots and that too was also OK.

Then added the graphics card and ran it with that for a while. That worked fine with none of the issues experienced.

Then started swapping the OS SSD through all the SATA leads and sockets and no issues. Then started adding the drives one at a time. 3tb data hard disk was OK. Swapped that for the BF4 SSD and that was OK with no lockups that I was previously experiencing. Have drives dedicated to iTunes, system backup/restore, and an SSD used for working with work photos before moving them to the server (speeds up Photoshop and Lightroom). Adding that SSD caused all the issues to return. Removing it again resolved the problem. PC has been fine since then. Did go back to the event log and dug around and eventually found an odd error that said a device connection had been lost. I think that as the SATA drives were not set up as hot swappable when the drive encountered a problem it disconnected somehow and than caused the lock up.

Added the SSD via USB and it worked OK and I was able to get the data drive off the drive so nothing was lost. I might try updating the SSD firmware but given it is quite small 64GB and out of guarantee so it may just go into the “spares” box.

 

[AndyS40]

Ok glen ive had this issue as well just of late when im playing BF4 it goes into windowed mode and calls up my folder with drives Or My computer I just close it down and go back to playing
Strange yes and I always check for viruses with Norton and malwarebytes etc all is clean so why would it do that
Never does it on anything else only BF4 strange
Maybe the keys I press are activating short cuts keys but ????
Also its caused me to loose my d (Spare drive) drive sometimes but a reboot and all is fine again

EA are looking at my PC

 

[glenwilson]

Definitely a knacked drive. When connected through USB it has intermittent connection. I'll see if the blowtorch helps it back to life!

 

[glenwilson]

Definitely a knacked drive. When connected through USB it has intermittent connection. I'll see if the blowtorch helps it back to life!

Nope, still dead! The smokey smell did remind me I need to prepare some ribs though!

 

[Steffos666]

wtf is wrong with you glen fighting your SSD with fire isnt good

 

[parafant]

Everyone knows, that you need a big hammer to callibrate harddrives!

 

[glenwilson]

Actually seemed quite hard to get any sort of flames to come of the thing. Forgot about the hammer trick, that has worked so well on "real" hard disks in the past. I'll get the hammer out later (once I have finished the house work!).

Just looked for a new SSD. When did the price drop that much? 960GB for £330 and 240GB for £85!

 

[General_Misery]

I've had similar problems before with virtually all BF offerings (as it's THE game I play) and it's eventually evident that's it's a hardware problem many times - GPU and HDD being the main culprits. Often it starts with minor and subtle problems so I start with the common routine of checking drivers, virus, connections etc. It's boring chores but it has at least brought me upgraded GPUs at no additional cost as I've had warranty left.

 

[glenwilson]

Drive was out of warranty so not much I could do. Not worth the risk of using it. I'll recycle it responsibly tomorrow with a really large hammer - don't want the NSA to get hold of it!

 

[AndyS40]

Drive was out of warranty so not much I could do. Not worth the risk of using it. I'll recycle it responsibly tomorrow with a really large hammer - don't want the NSA to get hold of it!

Think it maybe a bit to late about NSA, they know where you live and who you are your not a free man just a number :arg:

Just watched a program with some reference to secret underground bases the NSA was mentioned, they say there building is 20 levels deep full of super computers if there computer is that good lets see it run BF4 :arg: without crashing

 

[samoz83]

Don't worry it's all probably already in their data centre in Utah (has an expected capacity of between 3 and 12 exabytes)

 

[parafant]

Ask the NSA for the full backup.
They have them all.

 

[glenwilson]

I usually #NSA or add NSA to emails so they get backed up. I think GCHQ is probably scarier as they seem to be accountable to nobody and everything is legal as there is not framework for the sort of stuff they are doing. The usual argument of if you aren't doing anything wrong doesn't hold as you wouldn't let the police search your house without a warrant.

Anyway, hammered SSD and it was rather unsatisfying. Spinning hard drives put up more resistance and a much more satisfy audible feedback to one's efforts with a hammer.