WoW in Wine - PC freezes randomly

kainisma · Post by **kainisma** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 2:53 pm

Hi there
im new at the whole thing of linux, and newer in Wine.
I mostly use Wine to run World of Warcraft in Ubuntu 11.04
i finally got the game to run correctly, and with no sound/video problems.
The only problem i'm having is that, sometimes, when im inside World of wrcraft, sometimes the pc freezes... not only the wine, or the game, but the whole computer. I cant do anything but shut down or restar the computer (manually ) then i turn on the computer and keep on playin or whatever... and maybe if im again on the game, maybe it frezes again...
so... dunno... i was hoping if someone could help me. I've searched all over the internet and found nothing about this. Some ppl have a similar problem, that the game crashes or wine freezes... but it's not my case... the whole computer is freezing in my case...

anyway, thank you very much

bcpeterson · Post by **bcpeterson** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:25 pm

Per the FAQ:

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-7f5c965 ... 7eadaff31a

If you are getting a complete deadlock and are unable to even use your mouse after running Wine, it's probably not a specific problem with the Wine software. Wine is a user-level process, and shouldn't be able to completely hang the operating system under any circumstances. Instead, Wine is likely exposing a deeper problem with the system, such as a defective hardware driver, a bad memory stick, or overclocking flakiness.

It's often a graphics driver problem, in which case non-Wine apps might also be affected. If running glxgears also crashes, it's definitely a graphics driver problem. The most common cause is upgrading to a new kernel without also updating the graphics drivers to match. Try reinstalling your graphics drivers.

If the computer is a laptop and shutting itself off entirely, a likely cause is overheating. Some laptops have problems with cooling to begin with, and the Linux ACPI code controlling fans is known to be buggy.

If that doesn't help, ask for help on the wine-users forum. Be sure to mention the name of the app, the version of wine, the output of cat /etc/issue , lspci | grep -i vga , and, if you're using the proprietary NVidia drivers, cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version . Maybe someone can help.

So, what version of wine do you have, and what kind of video card and driver version?

klaine8 · Post by **klaine8** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:37 pm

Hi,

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:53 PM, kainisma <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi there
im new at the whole thing of linux, and newer in Wine.
I mostly use Wine to run World of Warcraft in Ubuntu 11.04
i finally got the game to run correctly, and with no sound/video problems.
The only problem i'm having is that, sometimes, when im inside World of wrcraft, sometimes the pc freezes... not only the wine, or the game, but the whole computer. I cant do anything but shut down or restar the computer (manually ) then i turn on the computer and keep on playin or whatever... and maybe if im again on the game, maybe it frezes again...
so... dunno... i was hoping if someone could help me. I've searched all over the internet and found nothing about this. Some ppl have a similar problem, that the game crashes or wine freezes... but it's not my case... the whole computer is freezing in my case...

anyway, thank you very much

I am learning Wine myself. But for the hanging.

I am pretty sure Wine or the program running inside it does not hang
the computer - meaning kernel panic. The X (user interface) might
hang, which is as bad as computer hanging.

You could try CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to get out. Then there is SysRq key
combinations which would allow you to cleanly reboot. Sorry don't
remember these - I have not had stability problems for years.

Also a good way is to use ssh if you have two machines. Write down the
IP address of the machine before running Wine. When it hangs write ssh
<IP address> and it opens a shell to the hang machine. Then you can
reboot it cleanly. If your other machine is Windows google for putty.
It is a free ssh client for Windows.

It just occurred to me that if you use closed source binary drivers
from Nvidia or ATI (AMD) then those drivers could hang the whole
machine causing kernel panic. And you are probably using them...

I would also check memory of the machine. There is a free good test
program - was it memcheck+ or something.

I would also check for the hard disk with manufacturers diagnostic program.

If you know how to compile kernel, that's a good test. With option -j4
for example.

Sorry if this does not help.

Best Regards
Kari

--
PICs, Displays,Relays - USB-SPI-I2C http://www.byvac.com
USB and FPGA boards http://www.ztex.de

I am just a happy customer

kainisma · Post by **kainisma** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:11 pm

bcpeterson wrote:Per the FAQ:

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-7f5c965 ... 7eadaff31a

If you are getting a complete deadlock and are unable to even use your mouse after running Wine, it's probably not a specific problem with the Wine software. Wine is a user-level process, and shouldn't be able to completely hang the operating system under any circumstances. Instead, Wine is likely exposing a deeper problem with the system, such as a defective hardware driver, a bad memory stick, or overclocking flakiness.

It's often a graphics driver problem, in which case non-Wine apps might also be affected. If running glxgears also crashes, it's definitely a graphics driver problem. The most common cause is upgrading to a new kernel without also updating the graphics drivers to match. Try reinstalling your graphics drivers.

If the computer is a laptop and shutting itself off entirely, a likely cause is overheating. Some laptops have problems with cooling to begin with, and the Linux ACPI code controlling fans is known to be buggy.

If that doesn't help, ask for help on the wine-users forum. Be sure to mention the name of the app, the version of wine, the output of cat /etc/issue , lspci | grep -i vga , and, if you're using the proprietary NVidia drivers, cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version . Maybe someone can help.
So, what version of wine do you have, and what kind of video card and driver version?

I searched in the FAQ but i guess i missed that part. Anyway, i put "lspci | grep -i vga" in terminal and this is what it showed :

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV730 PRO [Radeon HD 4650]

Wine version: wine-1.2.2

the computer is brand new, so i really doubt that is memory problem, or HD problem or whatever. About the video card, it's kinda old, but it seems to function quite good. it's MSI R4650 (and the driver i found for it is that one that shows up there... )

maybe i should use catalyst (as it's the common driver for windows) but i really dont know if that'd be better than this one... and i read that people had some troubles using Catalyst drivers in ubuntu with wine.

thanks a lot.
PD: Sry for giving poor information... i really didn't see that one in FAQ

kainisma · Post by **kainisma** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:18 pm

klaine8 wrote:Hi,

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:53 PM, kainisma <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi there
im new at the whole thing of linux, and newer in Wine.
I mostly use Wine to run World of Warcraft in Ubuntu 11.04
i finally got the game to run correctly, and with no sound/video problems.
The only problem i'm having is that, sometimes, when im inside World of wrcraft, sometimes the pc freezes... not only the wine, or the game, but the whole computer. I cant do anything but shut down or restar the computer (manually ) then i turn on the computer and keep on playin or whatever... and maybe if im again on the game, maybe it frezes again...
so... dunno... i was hoping if someone could help me. I've searched all over the internet and found nothing about this. Some ppl have a similar problem, that the game crashes or wine freezes... but it's not my case... the whole computer is freezing in my case...

anyway, thank you very much

I am learning Wine myself. But for the hanging.

I am pretty sure Wine or the program running inside it does not hang
the computer - meaning kernel panic. The X (user interface) might
hang, which is as bad as computer hanging.

You could try CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to get out. Then there is SysRq key
combinations which would allow you to cleanly reboot. Sorry don't
remember these - I have not had stability problems for years.

Also a good way is to use ssh if you have two machines. Write down the
IP address of the machine before running Wine. When it hangs write ssh
<IP address> and it opens a shell to the hang machine. Then you can
reboot it cleanly. If your other machine is Windows google for putty.
It is a free ssh client for Windows.

It just occurred to me that if you use closed source binary drivers
from Nvidia or ATI (AMD) then those drivers could hang the whole
machine causing kernel panic. And you are probably using them...

I would also check memory of the machine. There is a free good test
program - was it memcheck+ or something.

I would also check for the hard disk with manufacturers diagnostic program.

If you know how to compile kernel, that's a good test. With option -j4
for example.

Sorry if this does not help.

Best Regards
Kari

--
PICs, Displays,Relays - USB-SPI-I2C http://www.byvac.com
USB and FPGA boards http://www.ztex.de

I am just a happy customer

About that thing of ctrl-alt-backspace... i tried it. But really, the whole pc seems to freeze. i mean, i can't even turn on the "num lock" button in the keyboard... so i guess it just freezes the whole computer. I tried doing CTRL-C for wine , alt-tabbing, ctrl-alt-backspace and all those things but nothing happenned. As i said to bcpeterson recently, the computer is new, so i really doubt it's memory problem, or the hard disk or any hardware thing.

About the video card driver... i really dont know what "closed source binary drivers" are... i think the driver i have is that one i showed to bcpeterson.

However, i remember downloading something like fglrx or something like that, ... because when i was searching how to run WoW in wine, i read something about fglrx drivers, and i understood that those are like the "open source" drivers for ati ... (but i dont know, maybe im just really noob and missunderstood everything)

about the "ssh" i could try it.. i have another computer, running same ubuntu but 32bit (i use 64bit)... so maybe i try it when it happens again

Martin Gregorie · Post by **Martin Gregorie** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:06 pm

On Thu, 2011-09-08 at 23:36 +0300, Kari Laine wrote:

I would also check for the hard disk with manufacturers diagnostic program.

A simple and easy way to keep an eye on your disks' health is to install
the SMART monitoring package. It runs as a daemon that tracks operating
changes on your disk(s) and periodically runs a test on them. By default
it reports changes in the overnight logwatch report and I also have a
weekly cron job set up to do a more rigorous report. AFAIK SMART is part
of every distro (I use Fedora), so installation is straight forward.

Almost all disks have been SMART compliant for several years now.

Martin

Martin Gregorie · Post by **Martin Gregorie** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:19 pm

On Thu, 2011-09-08 at 16:11 -0500, kainisma wrote:

the computer is brand new, so i really doubt that is memory problem,
or HD problem or whatever. About the video card, it's kinda old, but
it seems to function quite good. it's MSI R4650 (and the driver i
found for it is that one that shows up there... )

Unfortunately that means almost nothing.

Its a fact that electronics tend to fail at both ends of their life:
either within the first few hours of use or after a very long time when
contacts and solder joints start to corrode and fail. This is known as
the 'Bathtub curve'. There's a full explanation here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

FWIW the most reliable computer I own dates from 1992 - its been used
every day or two since then, but its original motherboard failed within
the first two months. The replacement is still running reliably despite
spending a significant part of its life being run in a van in the middle
of an airfield, powered by a small petrol generator and, yes, that did
run out of fuel a few times.

Martin

kainisma · Post by **kainisma** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:20 pm

Martin Gregorie wrote:On Thu, 2011-09-08 at 23:36 +0300, Kari Laine wrote:

I would also check for the hard disk with manufacturers diagnostic program.

A simple and easy way to keep an eye on your disks' health is to install
the SMART monitoring package. It runs as a daemon that tracks operating
changes on your disk(s) and periodically runs a test on them. By default
it reports changes in the overnight logwatch report and I also have a
weekly cron job set up to do a more rigorous report. AFAIK SMART is part
of every distro (I use Fedora), so installation is straight forward.

Almost all disks have been SMART compliant for several years now.

Martin

thx for the info. i've just installed it. Now i'll take a look at it.
And i didnt know anything about the bathtub curve, so thx for that too.

Anyway, i've been running wine for some 5 hours maybe, or 6, i dunno, and fortunately it has not crashed anything yet.