WoW is a great game...when it works. Many players suffer from random and frequent crashes turning the game into nothing more than a frustrating headache. To help with solving this world of warcraft crash dilemma I am compiling this list of possible solutions to retain your sanity and get back to the fun. I can not guarantee any of these solutions will work for you but if it helps someone then it was worth my time.

Before trying any of these solutions you should first, if open, close WoW and remove the WTF, WDB, Cache and Interface folders. If you do not want to delete these you can always just move them to the desktop or another folder for storage. Do not do all of these steps at once. Try one thing and then test the game, if it does not fix the problem move on to another solution. Good luck!

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Black Screen or Freezes (A)

_{A crash may occur when starting the game – this is possibly due to unsupported hardware or outdated drivers.}

Solution: Clean Install of Video Card Drivers

_{Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Performing a Clean Install of Video Card Drivers”.}

Solution: Update All Device Drivers

_{Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Updating Device Drivers”.}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Black Screen or Freezes (B)

_{You crash during actual game play – Many things could be the culprit in this situation. A few possibilities include, damaged video card malfunctioning, power supply does not meet systems needs (especially for newer video cards) or insufficient cooling in your computer case.}

Solution: Disable AGP Fast Writes (For older video cards/motherboard)

_{Some have reported fixing this type of crash by disabling AGP Fast Writes in the motherboard BIOS. To enter the BIOS you need to reboot your system and while the PC is just starting, press the enter BIOS/Settings key (typically DEL or an F key.), the required key is usually printed on screen at startup. You may have to look around and do a few reboots to find it if you're not quick enough to spot it. You can also press the PAUSE key at startup to give yourself more time to find the key.}

Solution: Adjust AGP Aperture settings (For older video cards/motherboard)

_{Do the same as the last solution and enter the BIOS, locate AGP Aperture setting and change it to something else. You'll just have to play with this to determine if it will help.}

Solution: Delete WTF, WDB, Cache and Interface folders

_{In case you didn't do this already, try this and reload the game. May times the user interface and add ons are the main culprit.}

World of Warcraft Crash with Blue Screen (Windows)

_{When you receive a blue screen this usually means there is a hardware conflict or failure. When this occurs the device shuts down to prevent damage to your system. There are a number of types of blue screen errors so be sure to record the entire message that is displayed to aid in troubleshooting.}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Blue Screen Error "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" (also "STOP 0x000000D1")

Solution: Update Device Drivers

_{Microsoft informs that this error is caused by bad device drivers. Ensure that you have updated all of your drivers to the most current versions. Make sure to update your sound, video, network card and motherboard drivers as well as any other drivers for your system. Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Updating Device Drivers”.}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Blue Screen Error “NV4DSP.DLL”

_{When receiving this error you may need to update your video card drivers to the most current version.}

Solution: Perform a Clean Video Driver Installation

_{Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Performing a Clean Install of Video Card Drivers”.}

Solution: Disable Trilinear Filtering

_{Disabling trilinear filtering in the World of Warcraft video options may prevent this error from occurring.}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Blue Screen Error “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA”

Solution: Test RAM for errors

_{If you are getting a page fault error message, this usually means a driver or hardware failure has occurred. Often this is memory related and you would do well to test your ram.  Test RAM with link in resources at bottom of page.}

Solution: Update Device Drivers

_{If your ram is not faulty then reinstalling or performing updates on your device drivers may solve the problem. Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Updating Device Drivers”.}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Blue Screen Error "STOP: 0x0000008E"

Solution: Update Windows Operating System

_{Make sure your Windows operating system is fully updated with all service packs and patches.}

Solution: Test RAM for errors.

_{Quite often this is a memory related error. Test RAM with link in resources at bottom of page.}

Solution: Clean Install of Video Card Drivers

_{This is often caused by corrupted video drivers. Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Performing a Clean Install of Video Card Drivers”}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Hard Locks

_{A Hard Lock is when the system freezes to where you have to shut it down manually (pushing and holding in power button).}

Solution: Update Network Drivers

_{This is usually a memory or Ethernet card related error. Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Updating Device Drivers”.}

Solution: Update Modem and/or Router Firmware

_{Visit manufacturer pages to update the firmware on your modem and/or router.}

Solution: Disable checksum offload and/or change duplex settings _{http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21076}

Solution: Test RAM for errors

_{Your RAM may be at fault due to damage or incompatibility with other RAM in your system. It also may not have been configured properly by the BIOS. Test RAM with link in resources at bottom of page.You may also wish to contact your motherboard manufacturer for details on the correct BIOS settings for your RAM to function properly.}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Crash with Soft Locks

_{A Soft Lock is when the game freezes but you can still move the mouse cursor and use ALT-TAB to exit the program. As far as I know these types of crashes have been resolved but if you are experiencing them you should contact blizzard support at wowtech@blizzard.com}

Symptom: World of Warcraft Disconnect as soon as logging in

Solution: Update Network Drivers

_{I've seen this a few times and for some the fix was to update network drivers. Scroll down to the section on Updating Drivers “Updating Device Drivers”.}

Solution: Update Router and/or Modem firmware

_{This is also a possible solution as this is a network related error. http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21076}

Performing a Clean Install of Video Card Drivers

To perform a “Clean” video card installation, you must first remove all remnants of the old video driver files. Many of us have had more than one video card installed on our system. Each time we upgrade, the old drivers may leave behind files that may cause problems with new hardware. This can result in a crash, lock up, black screen, etc.

NOTE: RECORD these steps as you will be rebooting!

• Download and install the following:

Guru3D - Driver Sweeper is a fast tool to remove driver leftovers from your system. It's very important to remove your drivers on a proper way, because driver leftovers can cause problems like stability and startup problems. You can use it if you want to update/remove drivers from your system.

Go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.

Locate and uninstall your video card drivers.

NOTE: Do not reboot after uninstalls.

• For Nvidia based cards locate NVIDIA Drivers, select it and click the change/remove button. If your card contains other NVIDIA products you will have to select only the video drivers and click remove.

• For ATI based cards you will have to remove more programs. First uninstall ATI Display Driver. Next uninstal ATI Catalyst Control Centre\Control Panel and finally uninstall ATI Software Uninstall Utility.

Go to Start > Run

Type msconfig and hit enter. Select the BOOT.INI tab. Check the box /SAFEBOOT and click apply and now when you reboot you will enter “Safe Mode”. There is another way to enter Safe Mode which is while your computer is booting up to repeatedly press the F8 key. Choose your method and go ahead and reboot into Safe Mode.

Once your computer boots into safemode you will have a wizard popup dialog box saying "System has found new hardware", you will click No for each box until it has finished. (for arguement sake, most ATi cards have 2 display drivers, 1 for primary and the other for secondary) Now run Driver Sweeper. Check the box for your video card. For Nvidia make sure you select Nvidia display and not Nvidia chipset. Press the Analyse button located on the bottom. It should show a list of directories, files and registry entries. Now click the Clean button down bottom.

Go back to Start > Run > msconfig

Navigate to the General tab and select Normal Startup. Click Apply and yes to reboot.

^{RECOMMENDED:Now that you are back in the operating system we need to make sure all video card files have been removed. Download and install Reg Cure to optimize your PC.}

Now that your computer has been cleaned of all the old driver files and registry entries – download the latest drivers for your video card. Some of the drivers listed are beta, so make sure to read the descriptions. Do not change any 3d settings. Try the game on the default settings before making any changes. If your crashing is resolved, only change 1 thing at a time and test to make sure it doesn't cause more crashing.

Update All Device Drivers

Locate and download updated versions of all of your device drivers. This will require you to know or identify the manufacturer of each of your devices. Some of this information may be listed on your PC or in the manual. Be sure to at least update your sound card, network card and motherboard drivers.

_{RECOMMENDED:Download and install Driver Detective. This application will automatically remove old drivers and update to the most current driver available for ALL of your system devices.}