[Wine] WoW freeze computer

[Marco Di Fresco]

Hi all,
my problem is probably common (I actually asked for help for a similar
problem in the past), but I cannot find any solution.

While I play with World of Warcraft my computer keep freezing (totally,
I have to push the reset button).

I have Kubuntu 8.04 64 Bits and Wine 1.1.2 (but the problems started
with the 0.9.59 and all the versions afterward) on a an Intel Core 2 Duo
E6700, 2GB RAM, EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX; the motherboard is a "ECS PN2
SLI2+ Extreme nForce 680i SLI Socket 775 1333MHz DDR2-800". The video
drivers are up-to-date (173.14.09), I am using a self-compiled kernel
2.6.26, but the problem happens also with the default Kubuntu kernel
(2.6.24-19).

I did the "Registry Tweak" suggested in AppDB
(http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=11329),
but it didn't help.

During my research, I read a page (I don't have the link on hand) where
they suggested to disable "Texture Sharpening" from the Nvidia Settings,
but it didn't help.

So far I found no pattern for the freeze. It happens in instances, when
I am questing alone, and some time even while on the characters
selection screen; some time it freeze after only 2 minutes since the
last freeze and some time I can play for 2.5 hours.

I did a memetest for 8.5 hours and it shown NO errors. My CPU is at ~40
degrees Celsius and the video card at 74 degrees Celsius (and the Nvidia
default "Slowdown Threshold" is at 110 degrees, so I think my video card
is not overheating).

This freeze happens only with WoW, but unfortunately it is both the
only 3D intensive program in general and the only Windows application,
so I have no way to state if it is Wine or the Nvidia's drivers that
cause the hang.

The problem happens regardless if Compiz is enabled or disabled.

I have uploaded some of the logs of my system (the last link is
actually the WoW config file) if it may be useful (I found no clue):
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/debug.txt
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/dmesg.txt
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/messages.txt
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/syslog.txt
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/xorg.conf.txt
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/kern.log.txt
http://marcodifresco.interfree.it/marco/winefreeze/Config.wtf.txt

I have been having this problems since I installed Kubuntu 8.04; with
Kubuntu 7.10 it was working fine (and while I definitely want to be able
to play WoW, I will not downgrade the whole OS just for it). I tried to
re-install Kubuntu 8.04 from scratch just in case there was a screwed
setting, but it didn't solve the problem.

I asked in the Ubuntu forums
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=822540) how I can debug the
freeze, in order to track down the problem, but I didn't got an answer.

I don't want to sound lazy (especially since I will probably still waste
a lot of time on this issue anyway), but I would like to keep the "try
another 3D game" test and the "Regression Test" as the last resort,
since they are both very time consuming (but eventually I will do them
if it is necessary).

Any idea?

Thank in advance.

-- 


Marco Di Fresco
http://marcodifresco.wordpress.com/
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