PunkBuster causes Battlefield 3 Crash

It is a bit mysterious that the games started having problems after the patch.

Maybe the patch did not install well and corrupted a file or files,  but I'll carry

on with some general observations -

I do have have a little tool called 'Power Iso', which is just like Daemon tools,

I would uninstall this tool first, at least as a troubleshooting option.

PowerISO may not use the same driver as Daemon Tools or Alcolol but if

it does it can cause problems, and like may conflicts it may not affect all games/software.  As with the Userva tweak it may not help in this instance, but it

is worth knowing about.

Zigzag has instructions for removing the driver in his post   -

BSOD at high memory usage, fltmgr.sys - Windows 7 Forums

Tweaks like  Userva - I don't know.  A bit of fact mixed with urban mythology

that may not necessarily be applicable to BF3 ?  An interesting tweak, and

maybe fun to play with, but...

The system RAM is probably not your problem as much as VRAM.

With 4GB system RAM it would be advisable to  limit background processes

and not have any browsers open when playing BF3, but 4GB should be adequate. I have 8GB but don't think I've ever used more than about 46% of

that.

I would, however make sure that there is an adequate Page File. Some people suggest Page Files are a thing of the past, but I've read a few Read Me files with recent games that still suggest having a Page File .

How high you can push the settings and maintain stability does seem to vary from game to game, and if only one game is causing a problem I would be inclined to tweak some setting down.

 With your system and BF3  you  don't want to use Anti-Aliasing or HBAO for starters, but it would not hurt to tweak down a setting or two that use the cpu too,  as both you cpu and gpu will struggle  when too high settings are used.

There are a good number of people trying to squeeze too much out of their systems with this game (the Nvidia forums were full of people blaming the drivers for their problems ).

It may seem the system can handle certain settings, and you may even get playable fps, but this does not indicate that the settings will not catch up with the system.

As an example. I can play Crysis2 on Ultra with extra texture pack @1920x1080

on my machine ( AMD Phenom 965 @3.4GHz / GTX 560ti ). I get 35-45 fps

consistent , which to my eyes is a playable frame rate, but the game will lock-up

on occasion and I also had one TDR. When I lowered  the resolution to 1680x1050 the frame rates jump to 45-55 FPS and there are no crashes.

The interesting observation here is that when I was getting 35-45fps the gpu

was almost topping out with peak usage of up to 99%. Little wonder there were

occasional lock-ups.

The VRAM is also stressed less with a lower resolution.

.

Thanks a lot for taking time out to reply.  I have posted this on the Battlelog Forums before, but people just tell me to 'Google' it. Pretty much all fixes I could find on the forums, Google and YouTube gave me no help. A few people have had similar issues with the games and I don't think they've been able to solve it either. Yes I reformatted my HDD, updated all drivers and have applied all Windows updated. I do have have a little tool called 'Power Iso', which is just like Daemon tools, I did try a clean boot many times which also didn't seem to resolve the issue. Nothing has been over clocked and yes I did try to disable AV.People have told me to increase the userva, re-install the game, disable cloud storage, disable Origin in-game, trying to run the game without Origin and much more. I'll try a System scan really soon and BF3 crashes in Single player (SP) and in the Co-op mode. Other games such as BFBC2 or COD work great, no crashes and smooth FPS. They never crash.

"EA help support is completely useless. Even a blind squirrel is more helpful."

There are so many possibilities for the error message "Battlefield 3 has stopped Working" (and Problem Event Name: BEX ) it could blind Superman, and the EA forums are just like this forum, just people from the community, no employees of Monopoly$oft here, but if  you hang out long enough over at EA  you may still find something specific about BF3 that is unknown on this forum.

Are others having a problem with the game since the June update ?

"I've tried re-installing the game, re-installing my Windows 7 (64Bit) TWICE, I've tried disabling DEP, repairing it and pretty much every fix I could find from Google and on Battlelog forums, but nothing helps. "

Too bad about reinstalling Windows unnecessarily twice. If other games were

working properly  this would not be a fix, and as the game is recent Compatibility mode would be no use either (rarely is much use - imo ).

Obviously after reinstalling Windows on a  reformatted HDD  you also updated the chipset drivers, graphics drivers and did the Windows Updates, all by the numbers, and did not install any other exotic  software/bloatware (Daemon Tools, etc) that may conflict if it loads with Windows at Starup  ( msconfig > Startup) .

You are not overclocking, and your BIOS settings are all at default. And you have tried disabling you AV too.

All the common starting points that people will suggest because they have to

be sorted out before moving on to more esoteric  suggestions.

So, what were the other fixes suggested on the Battlelog forums not listed above that you tried ?

My understanding of the BEX error is it is often a software issue. If not in the

game, then a conflict with the game from another program.

When you disabled various processes did you do it from Clean Boot or Task Manager ? Clean Boot is a viable troubleshooting option.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

There is also a chance of a system fie corruption which can be fixed with the

System File Checker -

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker - Windows 7 Forums

I notice you only mention the problem in multi-player modes. The game runs well in single player mode, or not ?

BFBC2 and COD run well in multi-player ?

.

Thanks for the reply.

I have already updated my drivers and the EA help support is completely useless. Even a blind squirrel is more helpful. "Battlefield 3 has stopped Working."

Hi,

Do you receive any error message when the game crashes?

Update the latest graphics card drivers and then try to play the game and check if the issue persists.

‘Update a driver for hardware that isn't working properly’

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Update-a-driver-for-hardware-that-isnt-working-properly

If the issue persists then, I would suggest you to contact the game manufacturer support regarding the issue.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum

https://help.ea.com/contact-us