Easy Anti-Cheat

GaryHost4184

New Build - Everything Running Stable except...

Any game that has 'Easy Anti-Cheat' enabled on it. This is causing my computer to reboot (i.e. Load Game, Black Screen, Back to the Mobo Logo and Window's reloads to login.

I'm getting this issue in Apex Legends through Origin store and Halo through XBox GamePass. I'm able to run MS Flight Simulator without any issues. Halo will play stably with Easy Anti-Cheat turned off.

I have already verified the game integrity and repaired the Easy Anti-Cheat service. Updated all software and drivers and performed a memory check.

• Microsoft Microsoft Windows 10 Home
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Vermeer 3.8GHz 8-Core AM4 Processor
• G.Skill Trident Z Neo Series RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3600 PC4-28800 CL16 Dual Channel Memory Kit F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC - Black
• Samsung 970 EVO+ 1TB SSD V-NAND M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive
• GTX 1080Ti
• 750W EVGA Gold psu

Anyone else running into this issue with Easy Anti-Cheat?

JS_MC

Hello @GaryHost4184

Have you tried reinstalling EAC?

I've seen some posts about this quite some time ago (I believe it was Div2), but haven't experienced this issue in some time.

The solution for me was to reinstall EAC.

Let me know.

GaryHost4184

Yep tried that too.

JS_MC

Hmm..

Their website has several instructions on what to do if you're having an issue.

Have you tried these steps?

https://www.easy.ac/en-us/support/game/issues/guide/

JS_MC

Also, have you ensured that you have the latest chipset and graphics drivers installed?

GaryHost4184

Yes, did that too. All updates.

Just spoke with a tech that suggested this link...

Easy Anti-Cheat

and to also try making an exception for it in Windows Defender. Going to try that.

JS_MC

Let us know if you find an answer from there!

When did you start noticing these crashes would occur?

Can you check Event Manager for any recent Critical Errors that may have occurred around the time that your system is crashing?

If you're seeing any, can you share those with me?

GaryHost4184

Does that help?

JS_MC

When this crash happens, are you resetting the machine or long-pressing the power button?

JS_MC

Also, were any other reports generated from these?

Since the Kernel-power 41 just refers to a not proper power off, any other reports that may have happened around this critical error would be more helpful.

GaryHost4184

No, it just goes from running great and cuts to black screen.

Then the computer boots and first thing you see is the motherboard name and then Window's boots. I generally go through a restart before trying again.

But to answer your question, I haven't touched the power button.

JS_MC

Huh. Very weird indeed. Mine used to hang at a black screen and I would have to force the restart using the reset key on my case.

Have you tried running an older version of the GPU drivers you have installed? Just to see if it's an issue with the latest?

GaryHost4184

I think we have stability after creating an Exclusion in Windows Defender under Virus & Threat Protection.

I will update after testing!!!

DreadPirateRoberts

Did you make an exlcusion to anit-cheat or one of its parts?

JS_MC

@GaryHost4184

Keep us in the loop! Would love to know if that solves it for you!

GaryHost4184

I was able to play for about 15 min. before the crash happened again. Getting frustrated.

I installed COD Black Ops Cold War and have been able to play that as well without any issues. I still believe the issue lies with Easy Anti-Cheat and not a hardware issue given the stability in other games. I'm also able to run benchmarks on the CPU and GPU without any crashes.

JS_MC

This is quite a strange one for me. I've not seen something like this happen solely because of software. Have you tried running this in safe mode with only the absolute necessities enabled for you to play the game?

PowerSpec_MichaelB

@GaryHost4184 This is certainly a curious issue. I would start by disabling XMP/DOCP on your memory. Since these anti-cheat software often scan what is currently running within system memory, it's possible that it's flipping a bit it shouldn't be and is crashing the system. Often times you'd get a BSOD with this, which is why I find it odd that your particular crashing isn't doing so, but it's worth a shot anyways.

The ram you've chosen is 3600 C16 dual-rank DIMM's which can be quite difficult for AMD's memory controller to handle outright without some manual tweaking unless you have a solid motherboard memory topology and CPU memory controller. Memory on the edge of stability can do odd things sometimes, so this will help determine if this is indeed the cause of the crashing or if something else is at fault here. I know you've already performed a memory check, but those often determine if the DIMM's themselves are functional, and do very little to confirm if the CPU's memory controller agrees with the timing parameters trained by the board.

GaryHost4184

@LandShark I'm able to boot into Safe Mode but then I have no internet and Apex will not load.

@TSMichaelB I might need some help with disabling XMP/DOCP. I don't have any overclocks running in bios or msi afterburner.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/28800#Comment_28800

No worries, I made the assumption that you had one loaded based on the speed of the memory you purchased. Do you recall entering your BIOS at all to adjust the memory speed? Easiest way to tell would be to check Task Manager for the reported memory speed:

My speed being listed at 1200 is actually running at 2400. With DDR (Double Data Rate), your effective clock is double your "real" clock. So my effective memory clock speed would be 2400Mhz.

If you can get me a screenshot of this page, we can confirm if your XMP/DOCP profile is loaded or not.

GaryHost4184

Interesting - I didn't change the memory speed in the Bios

PowerSpec_MichaelB

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/28806#Comment_28806

Yours actually looks normal. Mine is still showing "real clock" instead of effective clock because my version of Windows 10 is fairly outdated. Yours operating at 2133 means you do not have XMP/DOCP loaded, which rules out my original theory about this being related to the speed/timing combination of your memory relative to EAC's poking around in memory.

I am finding it less likely that the software itself would trigger a kernel power error instead of a crash dump BSOD, it just doesn't seem all that possible to me. We might be overlooking something else here.

Do you have any means of monitoring CPU temperatures while gaming? The GPU temperature in your Task Manager screenshot looks normal, but I am curious about your CPU temps. I see from your purchase history that a Kraken M22 was purchased and is likely being used in this build, but I want to make sure that the pump is working properly and that the CPU thermals are not at fault for the system shutting down here. Depending on the game you are playing, some may be more or less CPU demanding than others, and it may present itself as an issue with games using EAC when in fact it's games that are more CPU bound, not GPU bound.

If you need tools to monitor CPU temperatures, my preferred software would be HWInfo64 as it allows you to monitor nearly every system sensor available. You can launch it in a "Sensors Only" mode, and look for your CPU temperatures here:

My sensors may look different as I am using a 2200G APU while you are using a newer 5000 series CPU. Still, look for those CPU temperature sensors and see if you can provide a screenshot with one of your games running in the background (preferably a game that won't immediately crash you).

GaryHost4184

I'm using HWMonitor and I peaked around 80c before I crashed again from Apex.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War seems to peak around 73c

Strange to me because I ran a GeekBench benchmark on the CPU and it peaked at 90c before the test stopped without a crash. Thoughts?

GaryHost4184

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/28821#Comment_28821

Also, Yes. I am using the Kraken M22 cooler on the CPU

PowerSpec_MichaelB

My apologies for the late response. 80C is a little warm, but not enough to reach thermal junction temperatures and shut a system down. The 90C you saw during GeekBench is definitely hot as that is your processors thermal junction temperature where thermal throttling begins. This means the processor will begin to throttle its boost clocks in order to keep the CPU temperature from rising any further. It's also 10C away from thermal shutdown, which would occur at 100C on the 5800X. Still, you didn't get anywhere close to this during Apex, so we are not dealing with a thermal issue here.

Something else has to be at fault here, it's just a matter of ruling things out until we get to the culprit. My next suspicion is BIOS firmware. Reason being, it's directly responsible for the power states of your processor and memory and can easily cause a crash if it doesn't like something about EAC, be it a specific instruction set it is using or as mentioned previously, causing a ruckus with your memory that the firmware isn't liking.

Let's start by confirming which BIOS version your board currently has. This can be found within Windows without having to boot into the BIOS. Open the Start Menu and search for System Information:

Next, locate your BIOS Version/Date from the right hand side of the screen.

NOTE: Yours may have additional information, for the sake of clarity, I removed mine to highlight what it is we are looking for. The P1.30 would be the BIOS version in my example above.

Let me know what your BIOS version is and we can try to work from there to determine if this is related to your AGESA firmware or if something else is at fault here.

GaryHost4184

using version 1.2 - There is a newer version of the bios for this mobo but this is the one that was recommended to me from Microcenter tech support. I needed to update the Bios in order yo run the Ryzen 5800x on the AsRock b550 itx/ax

Do you think I should update to 1.8 of the Bios? I didn't want to risk bricking my mobo

PowerSpec_MichaelB

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/28854#Comment_28854

P1.20 is quite old, and is part of the original release for this series of processors. I'd strongly encourage an update mostly because the more mature AGESA firmware revisions (1.1.0.0) bring about a pretty hefty performance boost in general when it comes to memory compatibility and training settings. If you are not comfortable performing the upgrade, our service department can assist with this in-store.

I won't speak for this ASRock board, but my MSI B550 Unify board had quite a bit of problems with older AGESA firmware and general instability, updating the BIOS helped tremendously.

If you want to go through this process, I'd be happy to provide some step by step instructions with pictures or you can bring it in and have our team handle this on your behalf. Whichever you prefer. Either way, it would give us a much better foundation to work from having a more mature AGESA firmware.

GaryHost4184

Ok please. I downloaded the 1.8 zip from ASRock > B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax

I have a flash drive that I just formatted.

Instructions say to Extract the zip but unclear on how to extract

GaryHost4184

I think I got it.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/28864#Comment_28864

Looks like you are exacting them correctly. Remember that you need to have the flash drive formatted to FAT32 on ASRock boards in order for the flash drive to be recognized by their Instant Flash utility. Once you have a FAT32 flash drive with the BIOS file on the drive, the instant flash utility should see it and handle the rest for you automatically.

Again, I am happy to walk you through this if you need a hand.

GaryHost4184

I just played my first full round of Apex Legends AND Halo with Easy Anti-Cheat enabled

I did not win.

Thank you for the help. I can't believe it was just the bios