World of Warcraft Crashes/Freezes

[ElectricMan5]

Hi there.

Whenever I play WoW, my computer always freezes up, and the sound starts to repetitive click. I can't move the mouse, even if I'm playing in a window. I always have to force quit my mac by holding down the power button for 5 seconds.

I have the new MacBook that came out earlier this year, the aluminum one.


The crashes usually happen when i go into an arena, on my rogue.


Please help!!!

 

[Fire Chief]

Have you applied all the recent updates and EFI firmware?

 

[vaporaction]

I've had the exact same problem. I did some research and found alot of people are having similiar problems. The only potential solutions seem to be making sure you have the latest firmware/graphics card updates, and also using smcFanControl which allows you to increase your CPU fan speed which will help cool down your graphics card. You can download it from here:
http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/smcfancontrol2/index.html
(the conventional wisdom seems to be to set the CPU fan to anywhere from 1/2 to full speed)

Since using it I haven't had any recurrences of the problem but that doesn't mean its gone for good. From what I've read it seems the problem can come and go.

one other thing to try would be to set your max fps by typing /console maxfps 30 which would set your max fps to 30

 

[ElectricMan5]

I've had the exact same problem. I did some research and found alot of people are having similiar problems. The only potential solutions seem to be making sure you have the latest firmware/graphics card updates, and also using smcFanControl which allows you to increase your CPU fan speed which will help cool down your graphics card. You can download it from here:
http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/smcfancontrol2/index.html
(the conventional wisdom seems to be to set the CPU fan to anywhere from 1/2 to full speed)

Since using it I haven't had any recurrences of the problem but that doesn't mean its gone for good. From what I've read it seems the problem can come and go.

one other thing to try would be to set your max fps by typing /console maxfps 30 which would set your max fps to 30

Is SMCfancontrol for the new macbooks that came out? when i tried it, it said i was running an unsupported computer.

EDIT: It works, but the temperature doesn't really change. It only changes when i quit out of WoW. How long do i need to wait before the temp changes?

 

[vaporaction]

I don't mean to state the obvious but...did you increase your fan speed? WoW will increase your temp due to the graphics/CPU usage so in order to guage the difference you would have to compare the temp between WoW without using fan control and WoW while using fan control.
That given, if there's still no difference perhaps it doesn't work with your Macbook model?

 

[ElectricMan5]

I don't mean to state the obvious but...did you increase your fan speed? WoW will increase your temp due to the graphics/CPU usage so in order to guage the difference you would have to compare the temp between WoW without using fan control and WoW while using fan control.
That given, if there's still no difference perhaps it doesn't work with your Macbook model?

It's working a bit, and yes, i did change it, but would 10 degrees make a difference? Maybe i should compare...

EDIT: OMFG DUDE IT WORKS!! NO MORE CRASHES!!!


THANK YOU!

 

[Aledar]

RE: World of Warcraft Crashes/Freezes

Hi everyone,

I have EXACTLY the same problem, same mac, same game, same issue. I've done what Vaporaction said, (updated firmware and used the fan (turning it up the full)), yet to no avail.

With (on average) 2 freezes a day, meaning two force restarts, it's really starting to get on my nerves.

Any more ideas? All help appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[raygungirl]

This probably won't help you, but my boyfriend's old-ish desktop PC never had trouble with WoW before and after the most recent patch, it's almost impossible to play, even with all the settings set to low. So I'm just wondering if maybe this isn't a Mac-specific issue. I know there have been other patches that "broke" the game for me on my old PC, as well. Once it was because they turned on some shaders by default that my computer couldn't handle. I had to go in and manually edit a file to turn them off.

I'm not quite a Mac owner yet - it's in the mail... What kind of video card do you have? My old PC had an ATI Radeon 9200 something and my boyfriend's PC that's currently having trouble has an Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT. Our newer Asus laptop also has an Nvidia card and it's having no issues.

If you haven't looked on the official WoW forums yet, I'd try there, in the Mac technical support area. When I fixed the problem before, it was thanks to the official forums.

 

[ElectricMan5]

Hi everyone,

I have EXACTLY the same problem, same mac, same game, same issue. I've done what Vaporaction said, (updated firmware and used the fan (turning it up the full)), yet to no avail.

With (on average) 2 freezes a day, meaning two force restarts, it's really starting to get on my nerves.

Any more ideas? All help appreciated.

Thanks.

What helped a lot for me is updating all of my software, and getting the latest openGL update.

 

[Aledar]

Re: World of Warcraft Crashes/Freezes

Hi,

I'm using a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, and some more info about my computer:
______________________________________________________________

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB51.0073.B06
SMC Version (system): 1.32f8
Serial Number (system): W8841YK31AX
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
_____________________________________________________________

And as for the OpenGL upgrade, I've never heard of that before but I'm downloading it, so I'll get back to you.

Thanks all

 

[iMouse]

iMac - Same Issue - Fixed

My Mid 2007 iMac 2.4 (DDR2 667) would do the same thing. Heat is the culprit. The ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video card gets HOT beyond belief and eventually causes all video function to freeze, forcing a manual power-off.

I was able to create a fan profile specifically for WoW using SMCFanControl2 which resolved the issue. However, I noticed that in some cases, especially in arenas and raids, 2GB of RAM isn't enough and WoW starts paging from the hard drive more, creating more heat. Since adding 4GB of RAM, the drive paging has been near zero and the temp of the system overall is a few degrees cooler.

Since my WD Caviar Blue 500GB just died, I'm probably gonna strip and apply Arctic Silver 5 to the CPU/GPU when I install the new WD Caviar Black 1TB this week.

I have a strong suspicion that the drive failure and heat generated by hours of WoW are somehow correlated.

 

[ElectricMan5]

My Mid 2007 iMac 2.4 (DDR2 667) would do the same thing. Heat is the culprit. The ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video card gets HOT beyond belief and eventually causes all video function to freeze, forcing a manual power-off.

I was able to create a fan profile specifically for WoW using SMCFanControl2 which resolved the issue. However, I noticed that in some cases, especially in arenas and raids, 2GB of RAM isn't enough and WoW starts paging from the hard drive more, creating more heat. Since adding 4GB of RAM, the drive paging has been near zero and the temp of the system overall is a few degrees cooler.

Since my WD Caviar Blue 500GB just died, I'm probably gonna strip and apply Arctic Silver 5 to the CPU/GPU when I install the new WD Caviar Black 1TB this week.

I have a strong suspicion that the drive failure and heat generated by hours of WoW are somehow correlated.

They are :-D

As WoW takes up more RAM, your computer generates more heat, and when it gets too hot it crashes.

I started turning smcfancontrol up to its max, and wow would run smoothly with no issues. Then I stopped changing the smcfancontrol speed, and wow STILL ran perfectly. I don't know what it was, but when I also turned the sound off the problem would go away a bit more often.

This had been happening on 2.4.3, so I think that when I updated it fixed the OpenGL issues which generated all the heat and RAM usage.

 

[iMouse]

They are :-D

As WoW takes up more RAM, your computer generates more heat, and when it gets too hot it crashes.

I started turning smcfancontrol up to its max, and wow would run smoothly with no issues. Then I stopped changing the smcfancontrol speed, and wow STILL ran perfectly. I don't know what it was, but when I also turned the sound off the problem would go away a bit more often.

This had been happening on 2.4.3, so I think that when I updated it fixed the OpenGL issues which generated all the heat and RAM usage.

There should be no excuse for this. The system has full control over the fans in my iMac and should adjust their speed accordingly. I find it rather funny that the fans can run at a maximum of about 6k RPM, but the damn system locks up because they're only running at 3500.

Apple cites that running the fans at higher speeds wears them out faster. You tell me what's more of a problem... Replacing a couple of cheap worn out fans or a $300 video card?

There is no reason why running SMCFanControl2 should fix the issue when Apple has the same control over the fans through the EFI/Mac OS.

 

[ElectricMan5]

There should be no excuse for this. The system has full control over the fans in my iMac and should adjust their speed accordingly. I find it rather funny that the fans can run at a maximum of about 6k RPM, but the damn system locks up because they're only running at 3500.

Apple cites that running the fans at higher speeds wears them out faster. You tell me what's more of a problem... Replacing a couple of cheap worn out fans or a $300 video card?

There is no reason why running SMCFanControl2 should fix the issue when Apple has the same control over the fans through the EFI/Mac OS.

That's true, but obviously the EFI isn't helping at all