# The Call of Duty 4 Freeze/Crash-Bug-Issue



## MasterMinDxD (Mar 18, 2011)

Basicly it's the same thing that people have been dicussing over >HERE< and i'd like to bump this again and hope we can find the answer to this problem for the people that still have this issue, and specificly.. me 

I have been playing the Call of Duty series since CoD1 came out and of course I bought CoD4 as soon as it came out as well. I don't remember exactly when this problem started, but I think it was somewhere around v1.6/v1.7. Back then I was playing CoD4 pretty hardcore and was being good at it, but when this bug started, it totally pissed me off of course. I tried everything I could to fix this bug, reinstall the game, getting a new graca, preforming MemTests, temperature readings, reading forums and eventually formatting my PC, but nothing helped. So after a while I just quit the game and started to play more RTS&MMO's and on the side some CoD2 and eventually CoDWaW&MW2. All the Call of Duty games that came after CoD4 are completely crap imo so I'm not realy enjoying them and a few weeks ago, a friend asked me to play Cod4 together again, just for fun. He convinced by saying stuff like : "Let's play on 1.0 so maybe it doesn't bug there, cause it started in 1.7 right?", so eventually gave in and started playing again.

Of course, just a few hours later - The PC crashed. (With all the weird sound loops&screen freeze like you may have seen on youtube, right >HERE<) And this is realy weird because I DON'T crash/freeze on any other games! I run Cod4 with 333FPS(PuB) or 250FPS(ProMod) steady, my temps are fine (50*C CPU, 75*C-80*C GPU) and my CPU&RAM never go over 50% of their capacity while gaming even.

Ask me anything you like to ask, as long as its related to the issue  My System specs are on my profile and you should be able to see them by clicking on "System Specs" to the left of this page.

It would mean the world to me if someone could find the solution to this problem, because CoD4 is not worth to buy an entire new PC, and I'm not a computer expert but I realy should  be able to run it with my current specs...

P.S : Forgot to say this, and maybe it's even the most important... I ofcourse tried all the suggested solutions from the Youtube video and the forum and it didn't help, obviously. But there was one "solution", that seemed to give an error for me. It should be around page11 on that forum. It's about the core affinity or something : >HERE<. But it gave this error :
"imagecfg -a 0x1 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4
 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe contains no configuration information
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe contains a Subsystem Version of 4.0
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe updated with the following configuration information:
    Process Affinity Mask: 00000001
IMAGECFG: Unable to update configuration information in image."

Edit : Fixed broken links


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## Mussels (Mar 18, 2011)

to be honest, my opinion is pretty constant on these things: its probably your hardware. just because you dont crash in other games doesnt mean anything, because each game uses your system differently.


undo any overclocks, make sure your ram is set up properly (voltages and timings manually - and research it, some boards under/over volt, and therefore the voltage given on the ram modules may not be what it really needs) and do some decent stress testing.


oh and in case its a video card problem, turn Vsync on. its really useless to get 250+ FPS when your screen only shows 60 of them. it'll drastically cut back the noise and heat from your PC, and lessen the stress on it as well.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 18, 2011)

Thanks for the fast answer, but I didn't overclock anything. This PC was assembled in the store and I never touched it, except for cleaning out dust without touching any of the devices inside.

About the Vertical Sync: It's "Forced Off" for all applications in the Global settings of the nVidia-configurationwindow. Edit : So I'll turn that on for Call of Duty for now, just don't want to gib my FPS too much.


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## Mussels (Mar 18, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Thanks for the fast answer, but I didn't overclock anything. This PC was assembled in the store and I never touched it, except for cleaning out dust without touching any of the devices inside.
> 
> About the Vertical Sync: It's "Forced Off" for all applications in the Global settings of the nVidia-configurationwindow.



doesnt mean they know what they're doing. seriously, look at the ram. its the most common cause for random crashes with large spaces of time between them. i had crashes maybe once a week, mostly resuming from sleep - and all it took was one notch up on the ram voltage to solve it. i'd get about one crash a month in games as well, usually a crash to desktop and not the entire PC however.


as for Vsync... force it on. you are getting zero benefit from it, and just wasting power (CPU, GPU and electrical) for frames your monitor cant even display.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 18, 2011)

Mussels said:


> doesnt mean they know what they're doing. seriously, look at the ram. its the most common cause for random crashes with large spaces of time between them. i had crashes maybe once a week, mostly resuming from sleep - and all it took was one notch up on the ram voltage to solve it.


Problem is, I don't know what I'm doing exactly either when it comes to Hardware. But I did run some MemTests and they all came back fine (back in the day when it recently started crashing.)


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## Mussels (Mar 18, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Problem is, I don't know what I'm doing exactly either when it comes to Hardware. But I did run some MemTests and they all came back fine (back in the day when it recently started crashing.)



find out your motherboard model and download its manual. look how to get into the BIOS, and how to setup ram timings and voltage. should take less than 20 minutes to achieve, even for a complete beginner.



i find that people always assume software is the problem when it comes to crashes, most of the time its hardware.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 18, 2011)

It seems that everything (CPU Voltage, DRAM Voltage, ...) is turned on [Auto] in the BIOS;
 - is this a good or bad thing?
 - should I change the voltages to manual values?
 - If so, which values do you think are appropriate?


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 18, 2011)

Oh dear lord... I just played with the Vsync Forced On as you said and it's impossible to play. Getting red 60fps constantly and when I just spray on a wall with an automatic gun to test it out, it fires like 1 bullet every 2 seconds. Impossible to play with.


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## Mussels (Mar 19, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Oh dear lord... I just played with the Vsync Forced On as you said and it's impossible to play. Getting red 60fps constantly and when I just spray on a wall with an automatic gun to test it out, it fires like 1 bullet every 2 seconds. Impossible to play with.



'red' ?


as to the voltages, leave all of them alone except for the ram stuff.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

Mussels said:


> 'red' ?


In call of duty 4, if your FPS drops below a certain amount that's needed to play the game decently, its color goes Red instead of White.



Mussels said:


> as to the voltages, leave all of them alone except for the ram stuff.


So shall I put the DRAM Voltage to the Minimum, Maximum or some random voltage in between?


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## xBruce88x (Mar 19, 2011)

wait... this is a store built rig? may i ask who the vendor is and system model. I'm curious about the system ram quality (like if it even has heat spreaders) and psu make.

as for the bullet thing at 60fps... it shouldn't be that slow... mine seemed to be fine with the weapons at 60fps.

then again i've heard at 250fps the game does some weird things (like weapons shoot faster than they should) when the game is set to low settings. i guess you used to this.

edit: is that framerate counter with fraps? i know it also turns red when you're recording video.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

- It's not a store built rig, I chose the components myself and they put it together & configured it for me in the store. The RAM&PSU is in my System Specs, it's 4GB Kingston RAM and 850W PSU.

- It realy feels uberslow for me, I'm used to things going fast 

- No it's just the build-in ability from CoD4 : Console -> /cg_drawfps 1


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## xBruce88x (Mar 19, 2011)

kingston valueram... probably not the best for gaming. you can find heat spreaders to go on the ram, that might help some. do you have any programs to monitor the temps of your hardware? (gpu-z is good for the video card, you can have it loggin the temps in the background) pc wizard will monitor cpu temps. i'm still puzzled as to why cpu-z doesn't monitor temps.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> 50*C CPU, 75*C-80*C GPU


I use GPU-Z & CoreTemp, keeping logs so I can see the exact temperatures right before I crash.

About these heatspreaders, does it realy help that much? And I first want to know if it's actually needed, because as far as i can see, my temps are fine.


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## xBruce88x (Mar 19, 2011)

i'll put it this way... every set of gaming ram i've ever seen comes with them. of course its hard to say if this will for sure fix your problem. i think if the ram getting hot was the issue you would have had trouble from the start... unless they've slowly been damaged from heat over time.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

Back to the RAM Voltage. The Minimum value is 1.50V and the Maximum I can put the DRAM Voltage is 2.78V. So I tried to put the voltage as high as possible (& then check if it still crashes, etc etc), but it instantly gave me an error after the automatic reboot : "Overclocking failed! Please enter SETUP to re-configure your options." Any value above 1.86V would give this error. So obviously I put the DRAM Voltage on 1.86V for now and going see if the game still crashes tomorrow.
Time for me to get some sleep.


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## xBruce88x (Mar 19, 2011)

you really don't want to increase the voltage with ram that doesn't even have heat spreaders. the only need to up the voltage is if you're going to overclock the ram, and then again not recommended without proper cooling. if anything i'd leave it at 1.5 to get it nice and cool


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## Mussels (Mar 19, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Back to the RAM Voltage. The Minimum value is 1.50V and the Maximum I can put the DRAM Voltage is 2.78V. So I tried to put the voltage as high as possible (& then check if it still crashes, etc etc), but it instantly gave me an error after the automatic reboot : "Overclocking failed! Please enter SETUP to re-configure your options." Any value above 1.86V would give this error. So obviously I put the DRAM Voltage on 1.86V for now and going see if the game still crashes tomorrow.
> Time for me to get some sleep.



jesus, 2.78 would fry ram! dont do it that high. turning it up a notch or two is what i said earlier!


try about 1.75-1.8, lower it before you fry your ram


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## xBruce88x (Mar 19, 2011)

after reading that thread you posted in about the freeze bug... i'm wondering if theres really anything you can do about it.


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## Virus-j (Mar 19, 2011)

Im not 100% sure if i can help in anyway but I remember seeing someone having this problem on the micromart forums when i was a member on there. As far as i can remember he had to run the game with one core as he was on dual and another member happen to mention that if your running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches.

I also saw from a few other forums after searching through google that another fix is something to with the sound drivers vista install for Realtek and that removing them fixed it. Not sure if you are using onboard sound ? 

Also found that someone fixed this by (again to do with audio) by changing the sound rate bit depth for there playback device.  

I still think it's something to do with how many cores the cpu has as it seems to be mentioned in every forum i found and they seem to give the same warning "running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches"

I have never used or heard of infact imagecfg but i take it that it just makes the programme use X amount of cores permanently ? I dont think the guy on micromart used that (trying to find forum post for you now see if that may find something to help you) 

When you used Imagecfg to make Cod4 run with one core did the Cod actually start up or did you just get that Error ? 

Reason i ask is that if it did not Start up, couldn't you just Run the game as normal without imagecfg then when your on main menu press Ctrl-alt-Del then just set Cod 4 to use one core from there and see how that goes and if it runs ok perhaps you could increase it to 2 cores ?


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## Mussels (Mar 19, 2011)

Virus-j said:


> Im not 100% sure if i can help in anyway but I remember seeing someone having this problem on the micromart forums when i was a member on there. As far as i can remember he had to run the game with one core as he was on dual and another member happen to mention that if your running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches.
> 
> I also saw from a few other forums after searching through google that another fix is something to with the sound drivers vista install for Realtek and that removing them fixed it. Not sure if you are using onboard sound ?
> 
> ...



i've ran every cod, including 1 and 2 on my hexacore with zero problems. people who say it works by disabling one core, are simply lessening the load an their unstable systems - if they dont use a core thats unstable (due to OC, or improper setup) then suddenly their 'stability' increases.


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## Virus-j (Mar 19, 2011)

Iv never had problems with any of the cod games myself and like you iv had 1,2,3,6 Cores myself.
Thought id post up the info i found though ; ) I see what your saying though so really like you pretty much said he needs to check out his Bios fully before we can rule that out.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

Mussels said:


> jesus, 2.78 would fry ram! dont do it that high. turning it up a notch or two is what i said earlier!
> 
> 
> try about 1.75-1.8, lower it before you fry your ram


It's on 1.86V, couldn't put it higher as the BIOS itself would give an error >.<



Virus-j said:


> Im not 100% sure if i can help in anyway but I remember seeing someone having this problem on the micromart forums when i was a member on there. As far as i can remember he had to run the game with one core as he was on dual and another member happen to mention that if your running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches.
> 
> I also saw from a few other forums after searching through google that another fix is something to with the sound drivers vista install for Realtek and that removing them fixed it. Not sure if you are using onboard sound ?
> 
> ...


- I was trying to make the game run with 1core but it instantly gave me the error message I posted.

- I'm not using realtek, I'm using SoundMax and the drivers are updated.

- I already changed the soundrate, since that was one of the suggested solutions from the old thread. I changed it from 24bit 48000hz to  16bit 44000hz, didn't help.

- The ImageCFG is not realy a program. It's an extra command you create by putting it in the System32 folder and it should make your selected program use specific cores after using the command : > imagecfg -a 0x1 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe <, it's explained >HERE<. But for some reason it gave me the error. That error wasn't when booting up Call of Duty, it was an error message in the CommandPrompt itself after using the command. However I could be completely wrong...


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

Played 20minutes and crashed again :/ Now on to 1.5V for the DRAM, if that doesn't help either, it's going back to [Auto] and we'll have to search elsewhere I guess.


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## Virus-j (Mar 19, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> It's on 1.86V, couldn't put it higher as the BIOS itself would give an error >.<
> 
> 
> - I was trying to make the game run with 1core but it instantly gave me the error message I posted.
> ...



I ment have you tried running Cod4 with one core without using ImageCFG, Like Starting up the game first then using Task manager to set it to use one core instead of ImageCFG ?  Reason i say this is because Running Cod4 with one core may actually work and ImageCFG may be playing up as if it's showing a error message it's most likely not doing it.....


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 19, 2011)

Been playing for a few hours straight now with the 1.5V DRAM, this might be promising... Not cheering too early though


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 22, 2011)

Took a long time but there we go, after ~15hours of gameplay it 'finally' crashed. Sad to say but : the RAM voltage apparently didn't fix it after all :/


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## Mussels (Mar 23, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Took a long time but there we go, after ~15hours of gameplay it 'finally' crashed. Sad to say but : the RAM voltage apparently didn't fix it after all :/



but at least we know its related, since it made it more stable than it was.


What ram voltage is it set to now?


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 23, 2011)

1.5V, the minimum.


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## Mussels (Mar 23, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> 1.5V, the minimum.



try 1.55 through 1.75 then, see if any of those prevents the crashes. it took me about 2 weeks to tune my ram voltage in, i turned it up one notch (about 0.025v) each time i had a crash, and now its fine (around 1.575v i think)


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 23, 2011)

Mussels said:


> try 1.55 through 1.75 then, see if any of those prevents the crashes. it took me about 2 weeks to tune my ram voltage in, i turned it up one notch (about 0.025v) each time i had a crash, and now its fine (around 1.575v i think)


Just a sidequestion, did you use to crash on CoD4 as well or was your entire system unstable?


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## Mussels (Mar 23, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Just a sidequestion, did you use to crash on CoD4 as well or was your entire system unstable?



i had a different system back then, so no i didnt have that problem. Random crashes with varying time between them is very, very common for ram issues... and ram voltage needing tweaking is very, very common since it cant do it automatically. it always defaults to the lowest voltage, even if the ram needs more.


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## 1nf3rn0x (Mar 23, 2011)

In graphic options put textures etc to automatic not extra. it fixed it for me and from what I see doesn't look any different at all.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 23, 2011)

It was on automatic already.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 23, 2011)

In the last 45minutes, the game crashed already 3 times. (1.56V, 1.58V & 1.60V) This may be bad luck or an indication of something but it seems that the higher I put the voltage, the faster it crashes. And when I put it on the lowest I played for 15hours and eventually it still crashed, idk wtf to think anymore ^^


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## Mussels (Mar 24, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> In the last 45minutes, the game crashed already 3 times. (1.56V, 1.58V & 1.60V) This may be bad luck or an indication of something but it seems that the higher I put the voltage, the faster it crashes. And when I put it on the lowest I played for 15hours and eventually it still crashed, idk wtf to think anymore ^^



it means its related to the memory somehow, but not how we first assumed.

can you set up a fan to blow air over your ram and northbridge, to cool them? that's the first thiing that comes to mind... higher volts = more heat, and more heat = faster crash.

therefore, more cooling = less heat = less crash, and we should focus on things connected to the ram that get hot (CPU, NB, RAM modules)

CPU is last on that list, but check if they're hot to the touch, and get a fan on them.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 25, 2011)

My temps are fine, these are the temps at the moment of the crash;
NB 49*C
CPU
Core1 50*C
Core2 48*C
Core3 47*C
Core4 44*C
GPU    69*C
Fan @ 40%

My ram voltage is currently at 1.64V and I keep increasing it with the minimum increment of 0.02V, but it doesn't seem to help at all. The crashes are just random as fuck:/


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## Mussels (Mar 25, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> My temps are fine, these are the temps at the moment of the crash;
> NB 49*C
> CPU
> Core1 50*C
> ...



you dont have temp sensors on your ram. dont rely on crappy software sensors, go and see if they're too hot to touch with your fingers, and put a fan on them regardless. if it stops the crashes, then you found the problem.


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 25, 2011)

Well if I think logicly; If most of the temps in my PC are around 50*C, except my graphic card. I'm pretty sure my RAM will be around that temperature as well, and if I would touch a 50*C RAM, isn't it obvious it would feel pretty hot but it doesn't mean it's "too" hot..?


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## Mussels (Mar 25, 2011)

MasterMinDxD said:


> Well if I think logicly; If most of the temps in my PC are around 50*C, except my graphic card. I'm pretty sure my RAM will be around that temperature as well, and if I would touch a 50*C RAM, isn't it obvious it would feel pretty hot but it doesn't mean its "too" hot?



no, that logic is flawed. without air to move that heat around, it just keeps building up. think of a pot of water on the stove - with a low heat it may take a long time, but it will eventually heat up.


if you can hold your finger on it, its <70C. i've found many unstable systems where the VRM's, RAM, or NB were too hot to hold a finger too, and additional cooling solved their problems. It was very common on DDR2 systems where they ran at 2.1v


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 25, 2011)

Can easily keep my hands on the RAM without actually feeling any heat, compared to the Graca which I can barely touch for longer than a few seconds


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## MasterMinDxD (Mar 28, 2011)

Bump


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## MasterMinDxD (Apr 4, 2011)

Bump for everyone with some bright ideas out there


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## Porongoso (May 2, 2011)

Bump, im having this problem too, my computer is not overclocked or anything and everything its working perfect, even modern warfare 1 (cod 4), my problem its with modern warfare 2, its freeze, then trrrrrrr sound and i have to hard reboot :S

My specs:

Asus Crosshair IV Formula
EVGA GTX 570 
G.Skill Ripjaws 1600mhz DDR3 4gb
Ocz Fatal1ty 750w 
CM HAF 932 Amd Edition
Amd Phenom II x6 1055t cooled with Thermalright Silver Arrow
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500gb


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## Mussels (May 3, 2011)

Porongoso said:


> Bump, im having this problem too, my computer is not overclocked or anything and everything its working perfect, even modern warfare 1 (cod 4), my problem its with modern warfare 2, its freeze, then trrrrrrr sound and i have to hard reboot :S
> 
> My specs:
> 
> ...




if your rams at 1600Mhz then its overclocked, AMD phenom II CPU's only support 1333Mhz at stock. No, dont argue it - its stock for your MOTHERBOARD, not your CPU.

if you havent set your ram voltages and timings manually to go with that 1600MHz, either do so, or revert to 1333MHz. might solve your problem.


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