67 replies to this topic

[Feisty Canuck]

McDanger

I think you have one of 3 root problems:
- Failed/failing video card that is only able to run at slower speed reliabily.
- Dirty video card (try cleaning heat sinks)
- Dirty/failed/failing heat supply. Vid cards draw so much power that it seems to show up there if your power supply is 'on the edge'

[A Challenger]

nVidia just released a new driver. No idea if that will solve problems, but it is worth a shot.

Edit: Nothing.

Edited by A Challenger, 13 March 2012 - 04:11 PM.

[Navasha]

I experience this freezing after resuming a Single player game after having played a few MP matches. Not sure if its related. However, restarting my computer and opening the game fresh seems to resovle the issue entirely.

[Goliath.ro]

I encountered this problem also, upon detailed analysis I discovered that like clockwork every 3 minutes the game will freeze for 1 second ( maybe 2 ), checking resource usage during this freeze both CPU and GPU usage fall to 0, the freeze happens anywhere in the game, wethere in menus, during dialog or when fighting ( maybe even during cutscenes but not sure about this ), the audio is not affected at all by this

For me this happens only if I have my internet connection active ( regardless if I set origin to offline mode or not )

PC specs:
i5 2500k
8GB ram
Nvidia gtx 560 ti
Crucial M4 SSD ( game installed on it )
Windows 7 x64 SP1 ( everything is as up to date as it gets from bios to video drivers )

[schwarz880715]

Well disabling my internet connection seems to fix the issue, but because of this I still can't play multiplayer. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to manually disable my internet connection whenever I want to play Mass Effect 3

[luffaren91]

I have this problem when i tryin to play this game in SP, havent tried MP yet, but it freezes for about 5-10 seconds when i use Melee or any tech-ability close range.

I7 2700k, Geforce 570 1280mb gtx, 8gb ram, SSD 120gb

[meatsack]

McDanger wrote...


I solved my problem! Which makes me think I must have a very similar but unrelated error...

It turns out that my graphics card, in contrast to at least one other on this thread, must have been running too hot. I initially was going to see if it was being overclocked. Tho, I don't remember ever overclocking it, I thought, what the hell might as well check. It wasn't overclocked, but while I was there I further thought hell I might as well try *underclocking* it. So, I dialed it down from 880Mhz to 850Mhz.

The game now plays fine and I'm still at 60fps most of the time (which I assume is the upper limit due to vsync). As my wife says, "Who would have thought your graphics card was too *fast*??"

Hope this helps others!

Note to everyone, it may help to crack the case and make sure your GPU fan and chip are blown out with some compressed air.  Simple dust collection within the fan / heat sink can seriously effect the operation of your card.

Edited by meatsack, 19 March 2012 - 06:34 PM.

[McDanger]

Hmm... I'll dust off my card and stop underclocking and see if it still works. Thanks for the tips!

[A Challenger]

schwarz880715 wrote...

Well disabling my internet connection seems to fix the issue, but because of this I still can't play multiplayer. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to manually disable my internet connection whenever I want to play Mass Effect 3

That is actually very interesting, I'll give that a shot myself, at least for the campaign. As for dusting, I have been meaning to do that as well. I need to go get myself some compressed air first though. I have my doubts the latter is the issue though, but it certainly will lower my cards temp and raise performance, even if it doesn't fix the issue at hand.

[cobbler51]

I have had issue's with all the mass effect games 1,2,and 3, where it either just locks up at random, or on a couple of occasions it crashes to a blue screen. For instance played Mass Effect 2 from beginning to end once with no problems at all. No other recent game that I have has ever crashed or frozen like the Mass Effect series. System is a Intel i7 with 6 gigabyte's running win 7 pro, Geforce 560 Ti OC with latest drivers, X_Fi Fatalty sound card. The other night while exploring a system the sound just failed and had to do a game restart.

[Adamski_707]

I had a similar problem with ME2 when it first came out.
Turned out my graphics card was nailing itself into a coffin. The fan on it had broken and it was just slowly melting away. I had to use a deskfan to help keep it cool until one day it basicly just blew up. Good thing my new rig was on the way at that point.

Point im saying is use a program like GPUz to see if your card is running too hot, if so that may be your problem.

[Ipanyotl]

Hi,

i have exactly the same problem, it freezes for about 2 secs, tried the dust clean up, didn't help. The  temp of my GPU is under 50C, even under full load. It's a really annoying problem. Maybe it's a 64 bit problem?

System specs:

AMD Phenom II 1090T 
Gigabyte 5670
4 GB DDR 2 RAM
Windows 7 64bit

Edited by Ipanyotl, 25 March 2012 - 02:36 PM.

[Apra]

Goliath.ro wrote...

I encountered this problem also, upon detailed analysis I discovered that like clockwork every 3 minutes the game will freeze for 1 second ( maybe 2 ), checking resource usage during this freeze both CPU and GPU usage fall to 0, the freeze happens anywhere in the game, wethere in menus, during dialog or when fighting ( maybe even during cutscenes but not sure about this ), the audio is not affected at all by this

For me this happens only if I have my internet connection active ( regardless if I set origin to offline mode or not )

PC specs:
i5 2500k
8GB ram
Nvidia gtx 560 ti
Crucial M4 SSD ( game installed on it )
Windows 7 x64 SP1 ( everything is as up to date as it gets from bios to video drivers )

I hope they found a solution somewhere that I'm not seeing...

This is exactly what is happening to me. I am getting frustrated as the game is not even playable while I'm online (turning off internet for long periods of time is not an option for me). It's discouraging to see that people were having this problem 5 months ago, yet no one seems to have found a viable solution to it.

I also notice that there seems to be 2 seperate problems that people are talking about here. It seems that people with Radeon cards can experience some type of freezing due to a problem with their card. Mine has nothing to do with my graphics card, and everything to do with hanging up while it's trying to perform some type of internet communication every 3 minutes or so. The only way to stop it is to unplug the internet. I had zero problems with Mass Effect 2 on steam (or Skyrim, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 to name a few others.)

My computer was built from the ground up for gaming, and will be able to handle any games released in the next 3 years on high settings.

These are my specs.

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
BIOS: BIOS Date: 02/05/10 19:13:52 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel® Core™i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Page File: 2644MB used, 13714MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Display: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
Driver Version: 8.17.13.142
Driver Date: 5/15/2012
DAC Time: Integrated RAMDAC
Approx. Total Memory: 2751 MB

PLEASE help me with this.. I just spent $60 on the digital deluxe version of this game, and it's practically unplayable.

[Apra]

Alright... I wanted to wait patiently before having to shamelessly bump my problem, but it seems like everyone has just given up on this problem, and I'm left with a $60 digital paper-weight. Does anyone know what the solution to this problem is? What is it about this attempted internet connection every 3 minutes that causes the game to pause for 15 seconds?

[Apra]

I managed to fix this problem, and will share what I learned, so that others who landed here by googling this issue, will know what to do.

The problem was how I was connected to the internet. I was connected to my wireless network, using my HTC incredible in tethering mode (and an NDIS driver.) While this should work fine with any game, for some reason it conflicted with Mass Effect 3/Origin.

I solved the problem by purchasing an ASUS USB-N53 dual-band wireless-n adapter to connect to my wifi network. I haven't had any freezing or stuttering since. Hopefully this helps someone who is as frustrated as I was trying to solve this problem.

[Raklin]

I'm having the same issues, even after cleaning out my box and even buying a new video card (just in case)
I've tried all the posted fixes so far asides from disconnecting to the net (I'm more concerned about multiplayer atm) to no avail. I'm starting to get rather annoyed, being unable to enjoy what is otherwise a great game.
I thought this was supposed to be better on nVidia, but it looks to me like everyone with the issue is using nVidia cards

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name RAKLIN-PC
System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model EP43-UD3L
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz, 2667 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. F1, 12/11/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\\Windows
System Directory C:\\Windows\\system32
Boot Device \\Device\\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
User Name Raklin-PC\\Raklin
Time Zone Pacific Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 8.00 GB
Available Physical Memory 5.42 GB
Total Virtual Memory 16.0 GB
Available Virtual Memory 13.4 GB
Page File Space 8.00 GB
Page File C:\\pagefile.sys

[Raklin]

I tried disabling Origin to see if that would help, but it didn't help. I'm still freezing in a constant cycle of about 3-4 minutes (it's always the same length of time, I'm just at work right now, and don't have it written down on me) and nothing I'm doing is even alleviating the problem.

[Raklin]

Bump.
Shortly after my last post, I talked with EA's support again, and they escalated my case. I still haven't heard back from them yet.