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Sparhawk-9's avatar
Sparhawk-9
Seasoned Rookie
11 months ago

Oh, look, another person experiencing random crash to desktop. Help please :)

Hi All, seems I'm one of many experiencing random crashes for no good reason.

System specs and what I've done so far through process of elimination to try and resolve.

Asus ROG Motherboard (forgotten the model of the top of my head, not at home but it compliments the CPU/RAM below) 
Intel i9 14900k CPU
64Gb Corsair Vengence 5600 RAM
Sapphire Nitro+ 7900XTX 24Gb GPU (running at factory settings)
Lots of colourful fans and funky stuff.
Logitech G502 and G815 Keyboard.
Windows 11 (up to date and completely virus checked)
2 x Acer Predator 32" 4K monitors.

Problem:  Random crash to desktop when loading the next map Or simply a random total drop to desktop in the middle of a round. Fine when I'm doing rubbish (well, not really), really annoying when I'm doing good (Rare 🤣)

What have I done to try and fix?: 

Repaired BF2042, Cleared all cache's
Reinstalled the EA App and BF2042 after a complete strip down of anything related in the registry.
Reinstalled AMD Video drivers. 
Rolled back and tried earlier video drivers
Reinstalled the latest ones again.
Even tried (and currently running) the Pro Edition 24.Q4 video drivers. (I do use Davinci resolve so these are quite useful in that respect). Game runs very nicely (until it crashes).
I do run an OC Profile on my PC. However, I have completely defaulted the BIOS to optimised defaults with NO overclocking. 
Completely disabled XMP (not just redued it a touch, disabled it entirely).
I've tried closing down Armoury Crate services before loading the game (I have not yet disabled it entirely in the Motherboard BIOS)
Disabled ALL Overlays.
Switched between Borderless to Full Screen
Set to run as Administrator.
Actually created a secondary profile within Windows to try and resolve. 

All of this and to no avail. It just crashes. Sometimes, I can go for days, even a couple of weeks without a crash, the next I'm crashing in between every round and it seems to grown exponentially worse.  I'll repair / reinstall and it seems to be ok for a bit. Then it'll randomly start acting up again.  Nothing is over-heating. The CPU isn't maxing out at 100%

The only thing I haven't tried yet is adjusting priority to high for the CPU (I'll do that later this evening) and I haven't yet disabled full screen optimisations but I will also try that later.

If anyone has any magical words of advice that can help resolve these very annoying crashes, I'd be forever grateful (well at least until the next BF comes out with whatever exciting challenges that brings).


Thanks in advance.


PS. no other game crashes. As such, I refuse to reinstall Windows based on one single game crashing.


30 Replies

  • Sparhawk-9's avatar
    Sparhawk-9
    Seasoned Rookie
    11 months ago

    To be fair, I've had a look through the Event Viewer and I'm struggling to see anything that stands out. All I see is a confirmation that EA Anitcheat loaded and then unloaded successfully.  This coincides directly with the creation of a Crashdump file which was created at 02:31:37

    The screenshot below are the times the entries were added to the Eventviewer Log. Beneath that is a copy of the message. I doubt much the Anticheat program is causing the issue but then again, it wouldn't surprise me. 


    File System Filter 'EAAntiCheat' (Version 10.0, ‎2025‎-‎01‎-‎23T22:54:42.000000000Z) unloaded successfully.
    File System Filter 'EAAntiCheat' (10.0, ‎2025‎-‎01‎-‎23T22:54:42.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.

    * It's not a particular map. It can literally be ANY map.  As for servers. BF2042 servers are hosted centrally and as such, when you connect, you're shoehorned into an available server using whatever algorithms or connectivity rules they set out. There are no privately hosted servers for the regular game modes. As such, the only people whom are capable of removing a player from a server are EA staff themselves.  Given the fact that a lot of my crashes occur on loading into the map before the round has even started, I can't see it me being removed. I also don't play in a way that would arouse suspicion. Quite the opposite haha. 

    A stress test on the PC using a Benchmarking utility would make sense although not at the same time as playing. That would most likely just result in a game crash regardless. 

    My next step is to reduce down the clock speed of my system ram from 5600 down to 5400Mhz. I have read over on Reddit that some people have had success in reducing the clock speed of their RAM.

    After that, I will run the "Memtest" feature from my BIOS which will test every single block in the system memory to see if there is an issue there.  If so, then I will have it replaced under warranty. 

    If that is fine, I'll run a full stress test benchmark. 

    I appreciate your taking the time to read these replies and make suggestions.   If I can get down to the bottom of this then, it would also hopefully serve as a potential solution for others. 

    Reinstalling Windows is the absolute last resort solution. In fact, I'm more likely to install a secondary copy under a Dual Boot on a secondary M.2 SSD as opposed to a full on format and reinstall. That way, I can test stability and compatibility of the game and slowly introduce other applications I use to see if one of them starts to trigger crashing.

    All this for a darn 3.5 year old game. 🤦😂

  • I was going to suggest the event viewer........but it can get technical, and I have to google all the events to see what happened. It may not be so technical for you as you have that background.  

    Just a thought though, is it a particular game server or map that causes the crash ?

    I have been booted to the desktop on a number of occasions in the past. If an admin takes a dislike to you or needs space for a server "member" to play they can boot you all the way out of the game. I have to log back in to play again. The forums will tell you that this can not be done, but I beg do differ.

    Several people on the forums seem to have this problem. Maybe it is a fault in the game.

    Have you tried stress testing your PC at the same times as you would be playing ?

    Running out of ideas for you, but I can say with confidence that it is probably not you PC's fault. Don't let someone tell you to reload windows and all the game files and other nonsense like that.

  • Sparhawk-9's avatar
    Sparhawk-9
    Seasoned Rookie
    11 months ago

    Nope, all other devices are dormant after around 11pm.  My sons laptop is completely shut down, he uses that only for graphic and motion design. No gaming but as mentioned, it's shut down completely.

    His XBOX, he hasn't used in a few weeks anyway and is fully powered down (not just in sleep state).  Our Android based TV is switched off.  The only other devices would be mobile phones. At most they are receiving the odd notification from social media / email etc. No intensive apps running.  

    I do actually work in an incident management and network analysys role.  As such, my network runs very efficiently and  I have already monitored it for any additional activity and there is none that would interfere.   Certainly nothing that would spike a network so significantly that it would cause an entire crash to desktop scenario.   If there were data spikes on my LAN, I would expect a significant period of "lag" or a disconnection from the round and drop back to game menu. Not a outright crash to desktop. This is literally, like someone has closed a window down or ALT+F4'd an app.  No warning, no stuttering, just simply closes right down to desktop.  Oh, it's probably also worth noting that I physically disconnected my second screen to make sure that wasn't an issue. Didn't fix anything.

    AV is configured correctly, Firewall on the Router is configured correctly.   As previously mentioned I have opened ports to no avail.

    The thing to note is that it's somewhat inconsistent.  I can play for days, sometimes a couple of weeks. Whilst this may sound like I'm a no lifer haha, it's more  case that I jump on for an hour perhaps at the end of the evening, maybe a couple of hours if I'm not working early the next day (and of course not every night). BUT, it can be days or a week or two without issue. Then I'll suddenly just get hammered with crash to desktop almost every round. In fact, there is often a time when the game will start up, get the main splash screen and simply shut right back down to desktop.

    Whilst the PC is relatively new, it's actually over a year old.  Windows is fully up to-date. I do however only allow Windows updates to occurr when I specifically start them. They are not permitted to run automatically. I act upon them when notifications appear in the system tray so it's not something that can be ocurring in the background.

    When the game crashes, there is absolutely NO error on screen. I will have to query the Event viewer and see if there is anything I can view from there. I will also have to get a viewer for the crashdump files to see if there's anything in there that gives an idea as to the problem.

    This, I feel is purely something very poor in the game code somewhere that either doesn't like the hardware configuration I have. Again, Other apps and games are fine. 

    I do a lot of photo and 4K video editing, the latter very resource intensive.  The computer has no problems. No memory buffer issues, no bottle necking of data on my M.2 drives so it's not like there's a resource issue for the game.

  • "There are various other devices utilising wifi connectivity however, I play late at night and as such, all other devices are in an unused state."

    You play late at night which is when it crash's ?. ..Perhaps someone has left a connection on to download a movie, game etc ???

    Make sure all these devices are inactive.

    Have you allowed all the relevant programs for the game through your anti virus ?

    This is a new machine I am supposing.....This is the time when a lot of windows updates will be downloaded...something else to check on.

    What is the message you get when the pc crash's ?....... windows will tell you why it crashed.

  • Sparhawk-9's avatar
    Sparhawk-9
    Seasoned Rookie
    11 months ago

    So, another update.  It's still crashing like crazy, so it wasn't Armoury Crate.  I'm thinking it truly is just this PoS game. Totally at a loss.

  • Sparhawk-9's avatar
    Sparhawk-9
    Seasoned Rookie
    11 months ago

    Very concerning if consoles are also affected. Being a very closed environment, the game should be absolutley solid on them.

  • Sparhawk-9's avatar
    Sparhawk-9
    Seasoned Rookie
    11 months ago

    Hi, thanks for replying.

    Internet Connection is a 1gb downstream / 100Mbps upstream connected directly via Ethernet to an Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 Router.  There are various other devices utilising wifi connectivity however, I play late at night and as such, all other devices are in an unused state.  My own speed tests confirm a good solid connection with exceptionally low latency and jitter. No unnecessary QoS settings on the router. Also, no unnecessary IP routing and firewall settings are at default. I did open up ports to see if this helped. It didn't. I closed them again as if not required, to be open, they don't need to be.

    Very few background apps. Just the bare essentials. I did however, even run tests with most of these disabled (via services so they couldn't auto restart themselves).

    *Note however from my reply last night, I have actually uninstalled Armoury Crate completely. Post uninstall, my game seemed to be very much more stable so this does have me wondering if this was the problem all along. This however could have been just a lucky period of stability. I will be testing this over the coming days. I remain a little skeptical at this time that A. Crate was the culprit but, I'm rather hoping it was.

    Yup, as mentioned, I run a clean ship, minimal background apps, just the ones that are required for the most part. Malware / Virus checks done regularly.

    Yes, switching to the second monitor does not make it any more stable.  I have also disabled as many of the "additional" features my AMD Radeon software provides such as Anti-Lag, Sharpening etc. etc.   All that is unnecessary.  Literally running it vanilla to reduce possible issues.

    The OC thing. tbh, that was part of the build with the Motherboard / CPU / RAM bundle I purchased from my local computer shop. They offer an OC'ing service with bundles and then store it as a profile for use if required.  It was active by default and doesn't give any issues for any other games or uses. Of course having it running or not, is purely down to preference. As mentioned, having completely loaded factory settings for the BIOS (that is, pre-tweaks) the issue was still as bad.

    Haha, the colourful fans thing is just for fun.  I like it, it doesn't detract from anything I'm doing ;) Very minimal power draw.  Which reminds me, I have a very good high quality PSU in the machine too.

    Windows 11 does not require XMP to run. It can run perfectly happy with XMP disabled (have been doing so for a few days now). It can however improve performance on lesser powered machines when active.

    It certainly does seem to point to something other than the PC as a whole. Particularly when other games are not affected. 

    Very frustrating and it does seem based on other peoples comments and other posts elsewhere that there is something awry with BF2042.  Something it is particularly sensetive to that could be disabled or adjusted within the PC hardware or software settings, that if we could find out and amend, could possibly result in much better stability.

  • It's the game. You can't fix it by repair or tune your device. Both consol and pc are affected

  • How are you connected to the internet ?

    How many connections on the same line ?

    What do you have running in the background ?

    Does it crash on BOTH monitors ?

    Your specs say you should be able to run this game "standing on your head", so obviously it is NOT your PC provided it is configured correctly and you have a handle on what is running.

    You have a powerful PC, why do you feel the need to overclock it ?....unless you are launching a space shuttle, you probably do not have to.

    "Lots of colourful fans and funky stuff"...Do you watch the PC tower or the monitors ???.....all the glitz and led's is just for sales purposes...turn it all off, you don't need any of it.

     "disabled XMP"....this is apparently required for windows 11 to run ?

    An "intermittent" fault also points to other than the PC.

    That's not a bad start for you.

  • Update:   Uninstalled Armoury Crate completely - Stability has been a LOT better. One crash but that was a complete freeze up as opposed to Crash to desktop.  Still running stock config on motherboard so no OC's.  I'll play a few days like this and see how it goes and if all is well, reload my OC profile.

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