PC restarts/freezes when loading game, sometimes showing #0000001 EAC error

[excusekofiy]

So basically I just can't play game, as it in 99,9% of cases freezes/reboots PC while loading, and even in multiple cases when it fully loaded it still freezes after 30 seconds

A little backstory as to when it started:

After season 13 update shader compilation started taking a lot of time (5-15 minutes on my geforce gtx 660), so i decided to upgrade drivers (to version 472.98), but after that update game started rebooting PC every time I try to run it. I thought that these were some GPU's driver/compatibility problem. I didn't remember driver version that I was using before and I was too lazy to tinker with installing older driver versions so I just switched to other games and occasionally tried to run game again and do some easy troubleshooting.

At the start of August (a couple of days before season 14) I got my GPU upgraded to nvidia rtx 3070 ti (and accordingly updated drivers) but the issues not only persisted but also evolved.

Now game sometimes instead of rebooting PC just freezes. The only way to close it is to shutdown/restart PC. Sometimes, moment before PC actually turns off (after like 5 minutes of shutting down screen) it shows EAC #0000001 (game security violation detected) error

System/hardware info:

OS: Windows 10 Pro 21H2 (rn Build 19044) 

CPU: Ryzen 3600x

GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 ti (before August: Geforce GTX 660)

RAM: 16 gb ddr4

The game is installed via Steam on HDD (which could cause some performance issues on max graphics, but not restarting the PC...)

Fixes that I have already tried:

• Clean boot
• Verifying game files in Steam
• Reinstalling the game (on the same drive)
• Checking that there aren't any applications running in background that could interfere with game or EAC
• Just simply trying to run the game after every game/GPU drivers update
• Checking that the game is in firewall's exceptions 
• Capping framerate with +fps_max 60 launch option (what stopped the chokes on GPU from whistling, but had no effect on the problem)
• Removing all launch options
• Repairing the EAC

Additional info:

gameversion.txt is v3.0.11.32

No crash files are being generated. All memory dumps in Apex Legends\Crashpad\db are from 2020-2021

I'm very sorry if that's some common issue with already available fixes written on internet, but the solutions I found and tested didn't help.

[excusekofiy · Accepted solution]

I moved game on other drive and it works properly.

Looks like hard drive is corrupted.

I'm sorry.

[Wolferato]

@excusekofiy

Apex doesn't reboot a PC, even when an error occurs. this must be one of your Windows services that are set to reboot on error.

1. Press Win-R and type "services" (without quotation marks) to open the Services app. You'll have to select each service and check under Recovery tab, which one is set to reboot, then change it to "Do nothing". At least that would solve the reboot issue.

2. Next, run Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool (you can search for it with Win-R) to see if your PC has memory problems. A freezing PC indicates a memory issue.

[excusekofiy]

A small correction to avoid misunderstandings (sorry for writing title in bad way): The entire PC doesn't freeze, only the game itself.

I opened Apex for a few times and PC didn't reboot (I have changed only one "Power" service, there're some services that windows just doesn't allow to change), but game still continues to freeze (most of the time on black screen with apex logo). And it also looks like now I'm able to stop apex's process from Task Manager (previously it wouldn't close until restart/shutdown).

Memory Diagnostic Tool didn't find any memory problems.

And in any case, thanks for the answer.

[excusekofiy · Accepted solution]

I moved game on other drive and it works properly.

Looks like hard drive is corrupted.

I'm sorry.