Game Hangs Randomly for a Minute at a Time
Hello.
I've been running into a recurring issue while playing FFXIV since the Phase 2 days, and I was wondering if anybody has had a similar problem.
This happens randomly while I'm playing. Sometimes, it's as soon as three minutes after logging in and getting down to business. Other time, I can go over an hour without seeing it. Here's the breakdown:
- The game screen will freeze for a second. I can still see everything, but nothing is moving.
- The game will resume for about a half-second.
- The game screen will freeze again, as before. This time, it will stay frozen for a minute or more. During this time, I can hear the background music playing, but no sound effects. [Alt]-[Tab] and most other Windows functions are disabled, but I can use [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Delete] to open the Task Manager. After doing this, I can see the Task Manager window and my taskbar, but the rest of the screen is black. Switching to another non-FFXIV application doesn't fix the black screen.
- Eventually, the game will resume, and everything will be as it was before. Except, now, I'm probably dead.
Here's my important specs:
- Windows 8 Pro x64
- Intel Core i7-3720QM 2.6GHz (Ivy Bridge)
- 32GB DDR3 RAM
- nVidia 4GB 680M
- Samsung 830 256GB SSD
- Killer Wireless-N 1202
I've done a clean install of Windows 8. I've tried two versions of nVidia drivers; the latest version, and a version a few months back that I use for older titles. My GPUs temperature stays in the high 70s, so I don't think this is a heat issue.
I figured the obvious culprits would either be Windows x64, the video card (or its drivers), or the Killer network card, which has caused issues for me in the past but I haven't found any posts linking it specifically to FFXIV.
Has anybody else had this happen to them? I never had any issues during Phase 2, but it's happened occasionally since Phase 3. It's not to big of an annoyance out in the field, but it's gotten me killed during Duties and instances more than once.
Thanks.