Problem with a few games crashing , need help figuring out why

[StarKnightX]

This has been an ongoing problem that my brothers have been having for a couple weeks now , but they kept thinking they had fixed the problem only to have it return again. I've all but given up trying to figure out what the problem is.

2 of the main games my brothers play are Guild Wars and League of Legends. Both games have been having issues as of late , but both are very similar. In League of Legends the client works fine up to the character selection screen and loading the game , but a good amount of the time the game will crash during the process and kick back to the desktop. Sometimes the game will load fine but instead at some point during the game will do the same thing. If that happens he can occasionally reload the client , re-login and rejoin the game but it will often crash again after a period of time. Guild Wars sometimes crashes during loading up the game but instead of dropping back to the desktop just goes to a black screen and requires a ctrl-alt-del to get out (he told me that sometimes that doesn't even work and the whole computer has to be restarted). Also sometimes the game seems to hit really bad lag spikes (like if your connection is crapping out) but catches up after a bit , don't know if that's related or not though.

We've contacted LoL support forums over its issues but haven't had much luck. They've given us numerous troubleshooting things to try , including upgrading DirectX , video card drivers , ect. After sending them one of the error logs they claimed it was bad latency causing the game to crash , not anything game or computer specific , but we don't really believe this since the problems have only recently started.

I know that's not a lot of information to start with but I hope at the very least it might be enough to think of something , anything , that we might not have already tried. I can provide more information as needed if it'll help. My brothers could probably provide far more input on the situation from first hand experience than I could.

Edit:Computer runs Windows Vista Service Pack 2.

 

[crystalklear64]

i know a lot of people with that same LoL problem and they all have shitty/inconsistent internet connections so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the issue.

Guild Wars however... I've played over 1000 hours with those same people and never heard of that happening. Rubberbanding (looks like you're one place but then you get magically teleported back to where you were just standing) is common in Guild Wars if your internet connection is crappy.

Some of the other issues I wouldn't attribute to lag, but it sounds like that may be a good portion of it. Check your router settings to ensure the right ports are open/forwarded if need be, try pingtest.net, try to traceroute to LoL's servers.

What are the specs like on these PCs? Crashing and locking up without weird video related stuff can be a sign of the PC running out of memory or perhaps faulty memory. Since you say these problems started recently maybe a memory module has started to die.

Try uninstalling and reinstalling the games. This has fixed a LoL problem of mine (all the sound effects were being played and "chipmunk" speeds.)

Since these problems started recently, do a system restore to a date where things were working fine.

Some stuff to try.

 

[runsongas]

Try running some offline SP games, if they don't crash then you'll need to traceroute to see whether its a latency issue or a networking issue for those programs. (Firefox etc work ok?) If the offline games don't work then you'll need to memtest/stresscpu/etc to rule out hardware. Last thing would be to sfc/repair install windows.

 

[StarKnightX]

[quote name='crystalklear64']i know a lot of people with that same LoL problem and they all have shitty/inconsistent internet connections so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the issue.

Guild Wars however... I've played over 1000 hours with those same people and never heard of that happening. Rubberbanding (looks like you're one place but then you get magically teleported back to where you were just standing) is common in Guild Wars if your internet connection is crappy.

Some of the other issues I wouldn't attribute to lag, but it sounds like that may be a good portion of it. Check your router settings to ensure the right ports are open/forwarded if need be, try pingtest.net, try to traceroute to LoL's servers.

What are the specs like on these PCs? Crashing and locking up without weird video related stuff can be a sign of the PC running out of memory or perhaps faulty memory. Since you say these problems started recently maybe a memory module has started to die.

Try uninstalling and reinstalling the games. This has fixed a LoL problem of mine (all the sound effects were being played and "chipmunk" speeds.)

Since these problems started recently, do a system restore to a date where things were working fine.

Some stuff to try.[/QUOTE]

Specs : HP Desktop with Windows Vista SP 2
3 gigs RAM (1 pre-installed , 2 added)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+
250 Gig HD (with like 30 gigs freespace)
GeForce 6150 SE nForce 430

Trying uninstalling/reinstalling LoL (several times since it was recommended in the troubleshooting several times) always helped for a little bit than started having problems again.

I tried doing a system restore to as far back as I thought to before the problems started , and that seemed to work for a couple days but the problems returned.

[quote name='runsongas']Try running some offline SP games, if they don't crash then you'll need to traceroute to see whether its a latency issue or a networking issue for those programs. (Firefox etc work ok?) If the offline games don't work then you'll need to memtest/stresscpu/etc to rule out hardware. Last thing would be to sfc/repair install windows.[/QUOTE]

Diablo 2 runs fine , he's been playing that more in the meantime while trying to sort the problems out. Also playing practice games in LoL never seems to trigger a crash , only regular or Co-op vs AI games (which he hates since that means he always has to risk taking a leave to see if its fixed or not).

A few suggestions , I'll take a look at them and see if anything good comes of them.

 

[G33]

For LoL, the problems may reside within the game client and not your computer or internet connection (in which case, it'll be hard to resolve, if even possible). I know that your particular issue sounds similar to the current major bug that they are attempting to fix (client crashes while loading/post-game stats never load). As this is the case, it may eventually get resolved through a patch, if you can't find a solution before then. If you haven't done so already, you can see if updating Adobe Air helps any (I've had that resolve LoL issues in the past).

A suggestion I have would be to monitor the help & support and bugs forum on the official website and see what advice/solutions seem to work for other people, and see if their solutions, or a solution you devise from seeing their solutions, help to fix your problem. Do a Google custom search if you have specific search terms in mind, and see what you find.