Starcraft System Crash

I'm using Windows 7 RC x64.
I regularly play starcraft over UDP on my friend's LAN, as well as over Hamachi VPN.
This has happened twice now, where about 15minutes approximately into any game, my game completely locks up and I cannot Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Alt+Del or use any other method to exit the game.
The only thing I CAN do is a hard-reset.
On my friends screens, it's shows me timing out (via the "Drop Player" screen that pops up as soon as my system freezes).

I've played StarCraft extensively in Windows XP and Vista and NEVER had a problem like this.
I'm using 7 RC x64, like I said, and am using a Lenovo ThinkPad (specs below).
This has happened twice now, the first time I thought that Hamachi had dropped the connection. However, this time I was playing over the local network and the same crash happened.
It seems random, the in-game music keeps playing, my mouse freezes where it is and my entire system can't respond.

Quickly checked the Event Viewer under both Windows Logs > Application and Windows Logs > System and didn't find any information at the time of the crash.
EDIT: I will be monitoring my PC's temps in case it's hardware related.
I run TPFanControl to dissipate heat during 3D intensive games (Mirror's Edge, Mass Effect, etc.) and have no problems with GPU/CPU temps (I monitor them in-game using RivaTuner).

Have you tried running in compatibility modes? Are you running the latest Starcraft patch?

I've run StarCraft in both compatibility mode with Windows XP SP3 and without.
I was playing around with the compatibility options because of the color issue StarCraft seems to have (inverted colors, 8-bit colors makes everything look like its on acid, etc.).
It has crashed both running with and without compatibility options. And I am running the latest StarCraft patch, 1.16.1.

It has happened three times now.
My friends computer uses Vista and has had no problems like this ever.
And like I said, I've run it under XP and Vista myself, never any problems crashing.

I never could get it to run in the Beta build so I guess it's one of those games that just refuses to work in the current iterations of Win7
C&C 3 was the same way.

Just wanted to jump in and say that I've been having the same problem too (hard freeze during multiplayer games). The strange thing is that I usually have a Skype chat going while I'm playing and that keeps working fine (I can hear my friends and they can hear me, and I can hear them complain that I'm lagging out) while everything else is frozen.

Someone on another forum suggested a similar problem was solved when he updated DX9 on his system (I think it's this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en) but I tried that and it didn't work for me. Maybe you could give it a shot, ambientmf?

My DirectX is up to date so I doubt that's the issue.

Just installed Age of Empires 2 today, happened while playing SINGLE PLAYER.
This is really frustrating.
Why on earth would older 2D games cause Win7 to choke like this?
Very frustrating and confusing.

the only thing i can think of is that its either a DX or a driver issue...
consequently have you tested any of the vista/nvidia/windows updates and see if the same issue come up?

Well, I'm changing drivers every few weeks so I know that with at least three sets of drivers, StarCraft still crashes when playing over LAN. I doubt it's a driver issue, every other game on my computer is stable.

I've used Forceware (via modified INFs @ laptopvideo2go) 181.22, 185.68, 185.81 Vista x64, AND 185.81 Win7 x64.
Currently using 185.68 Vista x64.
All "important" updates are installed via Windows Update.

I read on vistax64 forum that games may freeze because of faulty RAM.
Maybe memtest86 wouldn't be a bad idea, just to be safe?

ambientmf said:

Well, I'm changing drivers every few weeks so I know that with at least three sets of drivers, StarCraft still crashes when playing over LAN. I doubt it's a driver issue, every other game on my computer is stable.

I've used Forceware (via modified INFs @ laptopvideo2go) 181.22, 185.68, 185.81 Vista x64, AND 185.81 Win7 x64.
Currently using 185.68 Vista x64.
All "important" updates are installed via Windows Update.

I read on vistax64 forum that games may freeze because of faulty RAM.
Maybe memtest86 wouldn't be a bad idea, just to be safe?

Click to expand...

yeah it can be that...
another thing to check is that if this happens if you play extensively in single player against many AI... (not campaign, i think its called skirmish...) and see if this happens...
if it does not then it might be the network driver...:sarc:
whats is bothering me is that AoE 2 is not working either...
so bad mem is the most probable cause....

darkassain said:

yeah it can be that...
another thing to check is that if this happens if you play extensively in single player against many AI... (not campaign, i think its called skirmish...) and see if this happens...
if it does not then it might be the network driver...:sarc:
whats is bothering me is that AoE 2 is not working either...
so bad mem is the most probable cause....

Click to expand...

Ran memtest86+ v2.11.
50 min later and no errors so my memory seems to be functioning.

In relation to StarCraft and AoE:

• StarCraft would only freeze during LAN games -- I have played full games successfully (4v4 with 3 humans on map). However, every once in a while, five minutes into a match it crashed
• AoE, so far, only crashes during certain points in the single player -- today, it was crashing in a specific tutorial map. Hardly any AI on the map.

Still no closer to an answer...
To be sure, I downloaded DirectX 9.0c Redist for Software Developers and re-run the dxwebsetup from DirectX End-User Runtime.
Didn't make any difference.

EDIT: Sorry to anyone reading this thread, I'm not much help.
EDITEDIT: I'm seriously considering rolling back to Windows XP...

Well neither SC nor AoE 2 knew ANYTHING about DX10 so if you're running it in Full blown Win7 Mode it's likely poking DX10 for anything that the game doesn't call DX9 for.
Try runnin the games in Compatibility mode for XP

AeonGamer said:

Well neither SC nor AoE 2 knew ANYTHING about DX10 so if you're running it in Full blown Win7 Mode it's likely poking DX10 for anything that the game doesn't call DX9 for.
Try runnin the games in Compatibility mode for XP

Click to expand...

I run both games in full compatibility mode for Windows XP because I was having issues with the color going to 8-bit mode (or whatever it was, all the colors were messed up).
I don't think its a DirectX issue to be honest.
Like I said, I run them in compatibility mode anyways and I still get total system lockups.

Try turning off all the video options in starcraft like color cycling and disable unit portraits and see if that lessens the frequency of the hangs. It seemed to me I was hanging more when unit portraits was on.

I think problems with crappy colors and with system freezing have the same route. Because when I kill explorer.exe process, both problems went away o.o (solution originally posted by HunterZ here)

Same prob with AOE 2

I have the same problem with Age Of Empire 2. Randomly crashes. Doesn't matter if its single or multiplayer. Usually happens after playing for maybe an hour. Hard crash, nothing to do except a hard reset. I haven't had this happen in Starcraft yet. To be clear, I DO disable explorer.exe to correct the funky colors. Doesn't stop the crashing tho.

Specs:
Windows 7 RC1 64bit
MSI GX630 notebook (QL-62)
4gb ram

Just to clarify something here
Everyone having major issues with Starcraft or AoE 2 are using Win7 64bit?

I also have this problem with current SC, Win 7 RC, x64, Build 7100. No information on AoE2. I have nVidia 8800gt, core 2 duo, etc.

The SOLUTION

It's very simple . Chek all boxes at compatibility tab & compatibility for XP SP3
and wen you start starcraft alt+tab go to the starcraft.exe process
Right mouse button Set Affinity... and leave it to run only on processor 0 (for multicore processors) close windows side bar and the other programs that use your processor the most and whatever software skype etc you want to use make it run on the other processor(s) this shuld solve your problems with system crashes on windows 7 x64 bit it' shuld all be fine after that

Hello! I believe I am having the same problem you all are having.

I can play SC:BW for HOURS, or, maybe only for five minutes, and then my screen jars and I get this disgusting freeze that is impossible to escape from, no alt-tabs, no alt f4's, no nothing. It almost seems like a hardware crash.

I believe I am a little closer to the solutions, though, than most...

I had Windows XP SP2 x86, and I was having these problems. Well, I upgraded from XP SP2 to Windows 7 x64. A COMPLETELY new OS with a different architecture (32 to 64bit).

I STILL have these problems!

I believe that means it -MUST- be hardware related, there's no way around it! ALSO...One of times my computer screen froze, I hard-rebooted and then my monitor had a bunch of weird numbers/characters on it - my graphics card got fried!

One GFX later, I'm still having the same problems!

What kind of mobo are you guys using? I have a P5N-E SLI ASUS board.

My AIM name is Wing Neo Star 15, maybe it'd be easier to talk there, otherwise respond here if you have any good info!