Games Crash to Desktop within 10-50 Minutes

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jasumi

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May 23, 2008
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Basically, I've installed the Sims 2 with its expansion packs onto my system. The game crashes randomly to the desktop every 10 minutes or so. Usually when I have animations playing. But it crashes even when the game is not doing much. I was going to test Half Life 2, but I can't find my disk. Movies played fine. The system doesn't crash if I let it hover on the desktop.

Oddly enough, the game worked perfectly fine the first day I installed my system. I played the game for like 6 hours straight and not a single crash. It's only until two days ago that this mess started happening. I know it's not a virus, because I don't go online with my Gaming PC (I'm using a laptop right now).

I checked the temperatures of my system and I'm not having a problem there. The CPU never surpasses 55C and the video card never reaches 60C either. The ambient temperature is 36C. I have 4 fans (one in front graphics card, one in front HDD rack, one in the back, one on the side, and my PSU, CPU, and GFX card have fans). I can't swap parts in or out since this is my first time building a system.

System Specifications:
E8400
500gb Western Digital
HIS Radeon HD 3870x2 (dual gpu, not crossfire)
600w with 35A on 12v
4gb Patriot 800mhz
Vista Ultimate 64-bit (torrent version, not legit or authenticated yet. I have 27 days left. Could that be an issue?)

And I didn't overclock anything.
 
**** you strangestranger, if we all just cough up hundreds of pounds for microsoft's **** then why would microsoft ever feel the need to improve their piss poor, jizz stain of an operating system.

long live the pirates i say, and strangestranger... you need to get your lips away from bill's rich ass.
 
throw yourself off a building scum
Click to expand...

OMG, this strange guy is thinking about throwing himself off the building. I hope his family is aware of this. Maybe this low forehead looker call strangestranger should calm down and understand that using software with a timer to limit time of use for trails and testing is okay from developer and publisher. They made it like that. har har.

Even if it came from torrentz download. What's wrong with download via torrentz site? How does one know if download is illegal until one installs it? Maybe it is full of virus or it packs a trojan to spy on the victim. Maybe it is legitimate. Or maybe it's a picture of strangestranger's mama. har har.




 
technically strange, he's not done anything wrong or illegal by installing it and not activating it (although my knowledge there is fuzzy), but regardless, i dont think this could be an issue, have you tried google ;P
 
strangestranger,

Do you feel yourself scum whenever you install shareware on your computer?

Do you feel yourself scum whenever Novell sue various unix companies for copyright infringements and lost? SEE? Novell seems to have cause to argue.

Do you feel yourself scum whenever for using microsft vista when microsoft is the bad guy when the EU (that's eeee uuuu) people took microsoft to court for corrupt business pratice? The legal jargon used is antitrust case. This is still on going and on for about a decade.

Do you feel yourself scum when the Chinese just figure that microsoft is also commiting bad business pratice in china. Yes, China has recently claim that microsoft for selling each of their product like microsoft vista or microsoft office for more than the total cost of the complete hardware. The bad guy microsoft does holy **** and go public and tell china it is the worst offender of copyright law and at the same time sells it products at an insanely price level in china.

Are you a god damn scum too strangesstranger?

What happen if OPEC increase oil price by a factor of ten and then tells the holy knights of the united kingdom to stop stealing gas (refined from oil). Will you feel like a scum then?

What happen? Did your forehead just grow by an inch? Be sensible will you, explain yourself.

jujubefruit

BTW, I only play the sims. I stop play EA games because they release an add-on full of bugs. The cheapest way to fix this bug was to bundle it with a modify version of the sims, and then bundle this add-on with the sims. EA then stop selling standalone version of add-on. Bestbuy has all the other add-on except this one in their stores' computer. So, people like me who dish out $50 bucks for original first wave release of the sim. I can't play this add-on unless I buy the bundle and effectively double pay for the game the sims. I email their tech support many times and never got feedback. EA business pratice disturbs me. So now, if I play the sims 2 or other EA games, guess what? I am going underground. Umm...Uh...Er... that's layman's term for playing games in the basement. har har.

Any dumbass EA people reading this? READ YOUR TECH SUPPORT DB and scan for jujubefruit. Then refund me for 2x the sims times 10^9 for mental stress. Yes, I still got the orignal the sims cd plus the sims cd in the bundle. The apple IIe users support electronic arts for years before pc pickup the gaming . I supported EA for almost 2 decades and EA screw up with sims and with me a fan of computer game--this was not the first game screwup--I vaguely remember EA release game simply crash and does not work all the way through in the apple iie era. Concepts like beta release did not really exist in the 80's and EA took advantage and release beta games for retail. Terrible then. Terrible now.

Oops, ea jargon didn't exist back then either, it was ElectronicArts one word syntax.

jujubefruit



 


Hello, what's technical about it? Another dumbass scum in the mix. Try to explain yourself out of it now.
 
The only ones who's stealing in this thread is probably the same one who publicly claim others are "rationalise stealing".

You either steal or you do not steal. There's no rationalise from me or anyone in this so far here.

Did you know, history show, holy christians sits in church, got hungry and stole from their neighbor, then goes back to sit in chuch, and got bless by their priest. And so, same christian and their descendents claim holiness and honesty to decree holy **** (past tense) moral values on other.

Today, another christian descendent saw a user post using timed trial microsoft software as designed by microsoft and post for world view "rationalise stealing" is wrong.

I jujubefruit dare say this in the united states of america. Bite me christian holy **** monsters.

 
Surely he has done nothing wrong except download the media for Vista using torrents? If it was the PROPER illegal torrent version it wouldn't need activating! The fact he has 27 days remaining means he's just installed Vista and is using the 30 day grace period.
 


you did not say what mobo you have and wether your ram is 2x2 or 1x4,
so check your mobo's QVL,list to see if this ram is recommended,[some] patriot ram while it is good stuff usually winds up in servers [tyan] and the like,you could also test your ram one stick at a time with memtest...:)
 
Has anybody thought that perhaps this guy has a legal copy of Windows but hasn't activated yet because he still has time left to do so and wants to sort out his PC first?

Otherwise, if he needs to reformat he'd have to do multiple activations which could cause some issues down the line. I know, be cause of licensing and Microsoft tech support, its the easiest / safest way of doing.

And provided he has a legal copy there is nothing wrong with what his done.
 
why cant he be testing the product out? I had server 2008 for the entire trial period before buying it... strange is just a spazz and hates his life.

OP check support forums and also try doing the usual run in compatbility mode crap.
 
the amorality of some people is shocking.
Click to expand...

What is illegal about him running an operating system under the trial period? Can you answer the question or just make stupid little remarks.
 
Although it is known as an activation period it is used by everyone as a trial.

Especially with vista as you can install any version of Vista you want (assuming you have the media) without even needing to enter a product key. Do you really think Microsoft would give you this option if they wanted you to always buy the software first before using it?!

The fact that Microsoft doesn't require you to enter a product key to install Vista is essentially telling the customer to try out any version of Vista they like (without buying it first) and then buy it once the trial/grace period has expired if they like it.

The problem with Microsoft is that they are very good at not being direct and not telling you what anything means. So the term "Activation Period" can be interpreted in many different ways - Like 99% of their website ;-)

Seriously though what has jasumi done wrong? He has just downloaded a copy of Vista. He hasn't even downloaded an illegal "cracked" copy of windows because if he had it would either, not need activating or activate by itself anyway.
 
Back on topic, have you tested the RAM?
I can't remember the power requirements on the x2 either... Possibly double check your PCIe power connector's not loose?

These are the first 2 things that spring to mind if your temperatures are fine, although faulty RAM would probably cause problems in Windows too...
 
Oddly enough, I can play Mass Effect for 6 hours straight without a single problem. Well, once the the game stopped responding to my cursor, but that was an isolated event. I think this is a software issue since the Sims 2 was made on an XP platform, whereas Mass Effect was optimized for Vista. It plays very nicely, too. Is there any way around this nonsense?
 

Damn straight.

Strangestranger - sorry I would rather spend my money helping other people than the rich,you sadistic ass.
 
Can we please actually discuss the issue here? I'd love to see if anyone has any information on this. Because I *did* pay for and activate my retail copy of Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition and *I* am having this problem, too. It's frustrating, I haven't found any good solutions, and what is happening is that my games--yes, legitimately purchased boxed games--are crashing. More than one of them.

I have yet to find a pattern, except that for the first X many hours I've played a game since install, everything runs fine. Then, at random, whichever game it is will just...stop. One moment I'm playing, the next moment I'm staring at my wallpaper. Sometimes I can go for a whole hour, finish playing, and log off with no trouble; other times the crashes are chronic. But they always seem to materialize only after I've logged some hours (different for different games) playing the game since it was installed. I see nothing in the Event Viewer, nothing in DXDiag to indicate any problems, I keep all drivers, A/V and anti-spyware up to date and run scans regularly.

I've also tried running the games lean & mean, with every non-critical program killed off and every non-essential service stopped. And I've tried running the games in out-of-the-box Windows Vista default settings, with or without Aero as well.

I've tried Beta drivers. I've tweaked memory timings 5 ways from Sunday, have it currently set on the exact specifications the memory manufacturer suggests for the brand of motherboard, and for Vista--couldn't believe they went to that much trouble, but by god they posted the timings and I've used them. I've run memtest and video tests and benchmarks, all indicating everything is running just fine. I've tried killing one protection package at a time (e.g., Ad-Aware Service, Windows Defender, Avast! Antivirus & its protections) or running shields down to see if something internal is killing the game.

Which leaves me with this one interesting note that may be the key: anything very new runs fine. In other words, I can play Crysis all I want on the highest settings, but if it's Halo 2 or older, it's gonna eventually decay and become another intermittent crash-to-desktop.

Here's the hardware:

ASUS A8N-SLi motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 4400+ Socket 939 processor (2.2GHz)
4GB OCZ Platinum RAM (4 x 1024MB, 2-3-2-5 @ 2.5V if I recall correctly)
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition
2 x nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, SLi Enabled
2 x SATA 2.0 3.0GB/s HDs (non-RAID), OS on C:, games & apps installed on D:
Creative Audigy X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Antec 850W PSU (recently upgraded, and had the same problem on the 650W PSU, too)

Current games I have installed that crash:

Halo
The Matrix Online
Call of Duty 2
Halo 2

Current games I have installed that don't crash:

Blacksite: Area 51
Crysis

Any ideas about this problem, or even just other people reporting similar experiences, would be much appreciated.
 



Lol, I don't know what is worse; him howling at people about pirating windows, or your self-righteous garbage.

AS IF you go out of your way to help people - and by the way; guess what Bill is doing right now? He is using his incredible wealth to work on charity and developement for the less fortunate - you're the **** sadist. Stop acting like Bill Gates is some evil person breeding a race of pod people to take over ur windozes because at this point he is doing a hell of a lot more to help needy people than you ever will.


About the issue:

compatibility is an issue with 64 bit OS'es - it'll happen. The best thing to do is learn how to dual boot XP so that you can run your old games on it instead.
 
Great. Glad we could continue the pissing contest instead of actually trying to help anyone. Blah blah Bill Gates blah blah money blah pirates blah give up and dual-boot.

I give--I'll go back to finding the answer on my own. :pfff:

 
I get this happen but with only one game, Richard Burns Rally. I am running Vista x64 too and have never been able to solve the problem 🙁
But hey it's only 1 game, although a bloody great game!! Shame!

Have you tried?
Only 2 or 1 mem stick (Vista sometimes has compatability issues with 4 during install)
Uninstalling/Disabling AV,Defender,Indexing (windows Search), Superfetch (er i hate that thing)
Updating all drivers, including directx?
As your using Nvidia it might be worth giving the nov '07 beta drivers a try im using those to remedy my own problems... but thats a different topic ;-)
Try disabling DEP. At first turn it on for all apps except the ones you sepcify and then specify your game, then maybe disable compeltely. command prompt, google it.
What audio/video codecs do you have installed?
Service Pack 1 for vista plus all the nvidia recommended updates (some are now part of SP1)
disabling SLI.
Tried one nvidia card installed at a time and swap them
using the onboard audio instead of Creative or disabling all audio hardware compeltely
updated to all the latest patches in the games
Disabling all wireless and non wireless network cards
Memory timings, command rate 2t instead of 1t
Can you run any of the games in a windowed mode to see if it still happens then?
Disabling all screensaver and powersaving modes
Install the game into default install folder
Tried running any of the games in XP or 2000 compatability mode
Checked folder security permissions where the game is installed making sure you have full access to everything
Turn OFF UAC and give yourself administrator rights

The new thing is interesting... are you running crysis dx9 or dx10? Have you tried running in both to see if the prob only happens in dx9?



I'm sorry if i've covered some stuff you have already done but i just typed as it came into my head. If i think of any more i will let you know.


*EDIT: This all applies to jasumi as well considering he is the original creator of this thread!

 
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