Random BSoDs when playing FFXIV

5minutehallway

New member
Hi guys!

Recently I have been having several issues with my computer, and the situation is worsening daily.
In particular, when I am playing the game 'Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn', the game will crash almost every 10-20 minutes. Occasionally, it will also BSOD. In addition, the sound also cuts out entirely at completely random occasions, with seemingly no reason as to why. The sound issue is only resolved by restarting the computer. As you can imagine; having to do this on a daily basis, almost every other hour, in addition to the constant crashing and BSODing is leaving me with disdain. Curious as to why this was happening, I asked several people on various websites but even with Event Logs and Error Codes to hand I cannot find a solution.

I have tried everything to resolve the crashing/BSODs. I have turned the graphics settings in-game to the absolute lowest (though I can easily play it on Maximum settings, and I used to, before the crashing started), I have made sure all the files are verified so that nothing is missing, I check for new graphics drivers on a daily basis and update as soon as anything is available, and I've even attempted changing from Windows Aero to Basic/Classic; but it has all lead to nothing. I am totally at a loss for how to proceed - I have been told it may be a RAM issue, or something to do with my Graphics card, and therefore I was wondering if it was possible to have my PC checked over to see if this can be fixed.

Thanks!

Case COOLERMASTER CM STORM ENFORCER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Change to: 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
M.2 SSD Drive NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)
Processor Cooling TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Fan Controller NONE
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

(PS. could a Mod delete the other thread?)
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
There are usually 3 factors that attribute to a BSOD:

1/. Incompatible driver confliction
2/. Overheating of components
3/. Failing hardware

So those are the 3 areas to concentrate on quickly to find out how to proceed.

1/. Can you look in c:\windows\minidump and upload the latest 2 files in there?
2/. install hwmonitor and speccy and record temps when playing game/bsod occurs.
 

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
When it BSoD's what error code do you get? That's a good start to trying to diagnose the problem :)

If you want the PC checked over you'll need to get in touch with PCS and request a RMA and they will take the rig back and fix it for you. You never know though, if its a software thing we could help you solve it on here? Might be quicker?
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I don't mean to criticise but when I read posts that start "Recently I have been having several issues with my computer..." the very first question I want to ask is what changed recently? If it was working fine and now it's not then clearly something has changed.

It could be a hardware fault of course but it's much more likely that it's some change(s) that you made recently. Things like installing new software, installing new hardware, installing new or updated drivers, software configuration changes, BIOS changes, even installing Windows updates (especially recommended and/or driver updates).

So if you can think back to what changes you made just before it started having issues you'll be halfway to a solution.

:)
 

Androcles

Rising Star
A lot of people have had issues with FFXIV BSOD'ing since the last patch, many of them have found that it's an issue with Anti-Aliasing, try turning off AA/FXAA in settings and see if that has helped.

The sound issue sounds like a bug that has been in the game since beta that they never fixed, restarting the game is the only way I have heard of fixing it.
 
Last edited:

5minutehallway

New member
Here are some event logs:

EVENT LOG for a crash:

Faulting application name: ffxiv.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x54591df2
Faulting module name: d3d9.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7b7b3
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00050c73
Faulting process id: 0xcb0
Faulting application start time: 0x01cfff81948430e7
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game\ffxiv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\d3d9.dll
Report Id: 4761b349-6b7d-11e4-8ae9-5404a6c491c9

EVENT LOG for a BSOD:

Faulting application name: ffxiv.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x541947fe
Faulting module name: kernel32.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18409, time stamp: 0x53159a85
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000119e0
Faulting process id: 0xae0
Faulting application start time: 0x01cfdcb8ea8b81d4
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game\ffxiv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\kernel32.dll
Report Id: e8f8f65c-48cb-11e4-84f1-5404a6c491c9

Using MSI Afterburner, I noticed that game crash occured at GPU Temperature 84 degrees Celsius, fan speed was at 66%. It also crashed again later at 74 degrees Celsius, fan speed at 74%. I have also uploaded 3 of my latest minidumps, located here: View attachment Minidumps.zip. All of my GFX settings in-game are on the absolute minimal. Hope this helps!
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Here are some event logs:

EVENT LOG for a crash:

Faulting application name: ffxiv.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x54591df2
Faulting module name: d3d9.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7b7b3
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00050c73
Faulting process id: 0xcb0
Faulting application start time: 0x01cfff81948430e7
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game\ffxiv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\d3d9.dll
Report Id: 4761b349-6b7d-11e4-8ae9-5404a6c491c9

EVENT LOG for a BSOD:

Faulting application name: ffxiv.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x541947fe
Faulting module name: kernel32.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18409, time stamp: 0x53159a85
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000119e0
Faulting process id: 0xae0
Faulting application start time: 0x01cfdcb8ea8b81d4
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game\ffxiv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\kernel32.dll
Report Id: e8f8f65c-48cb-11e4-84f1-5404a6c491c9

Using MSI Afterburner, I noticed that game crash occured at GPU Temperature 84 degrees Celsius, fan speed was at 66%. It also crashed again later at 74 degrees Celsius, fan speed at 74%. I have also uploaded 3 of my latest minidumps, located here: View attachment 5906. All of my GFX settings in-game are on the absolute minimal. Hope this helps!

These are not BSODs these are application crashes (APPCRASH). Both of them here relate to the ffxiv.exe module which, I assume is the Final Fantasy game. The 0xc0000005 exception code indicates that the application made an access_violation which basically means it tried to do something Windows would not allow. Drivers are very often the cause of this, so be absolutely certain your drivers (esp. the GPU driver) are up to date and installed correctly). Going back to my earlier post, have you updated any drivers (esp. your GPU driver) recently?

The mindumps all show a memory exception (trying to read an invalid memory address) with an id of WIN7_DRIVER-FAULT and a failing process_name of GameOverleyUI, which again suggests this may be a driver error relating to the way Final Fantasy interacts with the GPU driver I'd guess.

I think the first thing I'd suggest is that you disable any overclocking (esp. on the GPU) and see whether that's the issue. If that's not the problem check that your GPU driver is current and installed properly (you might try downloading a new driver and then perform a clean install). If that doesn't help I'd suspect the game is the problem, a web search might show whether that's the case.
 

5minutehallway

New member
These are not BSODs these are application crashes (APPCRASH). Both of them here relate to the ffxiv.exe module which, I assume is the Final Fantasy game. The 0xc0000005 exception code indicates that the application made an access_violation which basically means it tried to do something Windows would not allow. Drivers are very often the cause of this, so be absolutely certain your drivers (esp. the GPU driver) are up to date and installed correctly). Going back to my earlier post, have you updated any drivers (esp. your GPU driver) recently?

The mindumps all show a memory exception (trying to read an invalid memory address) with an id of WIN7_DRIVER-FAULT and a failing process_name of GameOverleyUI, which again suggests this may be a driver error relating to the way Final Fantasy interacts with the GPU driver I'd guess.

I think the first thing I'd suggest is that you disable any overclocking (esp. on the GPU) and see whether that's the issue. If that's not the problem check that your GPU driver is current and installed properly (you might try downloading a new driver and then perform a clean install). If that doesn't help I'd suspect the game is the problem, a web search might show whether that's the case.

I've updated my GPU Driver recently, yeah, using the Nvidia GeForce Experience app. But the crashing was happening long before I ever updated my drivers - I updated them because the crashing started. As for anything that may have changed, I had to get a new HDD because my old one died on me but that's all; I tend really not to update things unless it's critical that I have to. I did a fresh install of FF about 3 or 4 days ago after updating the drivers but to no avail.

That's interesting though, because GameOverlayUI is the in-game Steam Overlay. Do you think that the Steam overlay is causing these issues then?
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I know nothing about Steam (I don't game) but it does sort of look like that might be the issue. The only way to be sure is to do a clean reinstall of Windows and all drivers and all important updates (but no driver updates). Don't install any other software and see whether you can get it to crash. If it doesn't then try reinstalling you third-party software one at a time to see whether you can identify which one causes the issue. You might find however that after a reinstall it works just fine.
 
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