Beosboxboy, if you have time could you help? :) UPDATE: RESOLVED see last post!
trl:
Thanks Kathy, I tried it and unfortunately that wasn't the issue but I appreciate your help very much. Well hyperthreading was enabled and supported by this computer so we disabled it and it still crashed to the black screen, this time right after I saved. I am unable to get any error messages because of this. Is there a way to get/recover error messages from the computer if you had to shut down using the power button? I am going to see once again if NVidea can help since I am narrowing so many things down.*bangs head on desk* :) still trying to smile! LOL I will get to the bottom of this if it is the last thing I do dag nam it!
caffeinated.joy:
do you have both the ATI and and Nvidea drivers installed on your computer? If your new card isn't faulty, the problem could be with the different drivers conflicting with one another. (Just another shot into the dark from me ;))
DLMulsow:
Caffinated Joy has a point. If you have both cards installed and two sets of drivers, this could definately present a problem.
You have to go into your hardware and set the chosen card and drivers as defaults and remove the other one. I found that out the hard way too.
BeosBoxBoy:
After looking over the images you post in #14 of this thread, I see nothing with those particular items that would lead to this issue, trl.
Before I start yammering a long while in techno-babble, I don't see anything in the posts above that indicate if this is a TS2 only issue or if it is happening frequently under all conditions.
If it is only during TS2, then there is clearly a conflict between the software and your system's set-up. I will try to be as brief and informative as I may below, but it will be long and I ask you to look over these things carefully.
But let us think about these things in this order:
Hyper-threading
At the boot-up of the computer in BIOS there may be a setting to disable this, getting to your system's BIOS will require pressing some key or combination of keys; you will have to consult your system or motherboard user-manual to determine just what key(s)
Conflicting Hardware
Sometime two pieces of hardware just don't get along because they struggle for control of identical system resources; largely the plug-n-play technology of Windows PCs does not suffer this, but some times it does occur. If you have any sort of built-in video card, you may need to disable this device in the System control panel - under device manager.
Possible sources other than a video card may be some USB device such as a scanner, camera, or multimedia adaptor.
Software conflicts
as DLMulsow remarks, having drivers for video cards that are no longer present may well cause issues. In the Add/Remove Programs control panel make certain to remove all video card drivers there, even for your current video card, reboot the system as many times as it takes to remove each one, then re-install the most recent driver for your current video card from the nVidia.com website.
Insufficient power
Most newer video cards have very high power demands, most now require you have at least a 450 watt power supply, if you are using a pre-made system by a major manufacturer, they rarely add such a large wattage power supply, this could be part of your problem.
An older power supply, even 1 year old, may begin to drop off wattage production. So it is generally advisable to replace the power supply once a year. This was not a problem in the early days of computers, but since the days of the Pentium-III this has been a growing menace to computer owners.
Some systems have a BIOS that will display the voltage being fed to components, this is not necessarily a reliable thing, since one can only see the BIOS when the system is not under load. If you can view these figures under load with some special software during Windows, you may see numbers below optimum and quite different from what you see in BIOS at boot-up when the system is pretty much at rest.
Case/Component temperature
In micro-electronics, heat is the rust of the technology era. A temperature even 0.01° above the designed tolerances of the circuitry is enough to cause issues. In the long run, the heating and cooling results in expansion and contractions that result on microscopic fractures that eventually lead to the death of components. Many things can cause the heat production to increase. A power supply that is old or clogged with dust may begin to feed uneven or lower than desired electricity to components. Things will run hotter when they are running with too little power, fan motors burn out or fuse, and all leads to increased heat and faulty performance.
Look carefully at your case, does it seem dirty? is it too close to a heat source such as a lamp or a window? is there adequate air circulation around the case to allow for case heat to be dissipated to the larger area of the room?
Cleaning out the case with a can of compressed air will not hurt, no matter how clean it may appear. Pay close attention to the very small wires on chips on the video card, motherboard, and RAM sticks. Cleaning off any dust will improve the performance and eliminate this as a potent source of the problem.
If the hard drive is over-heating, this will cause all manner of problems. Cases hardly ever allow for the heat production of modern large hard drives, so this could very well be your problem.
In any event, check all your fans and see if there are any that need replaced.
Potential Bad Components
Bad video cards happen far more now than formerly. These things are mass produced in tropical locations with little or no concern for their well-being after manufacture. They are stored in large metal warehouses beneath the equatorial sun and bake. Then they are slammed with little concern into giant steel cargo boxes, dropped onto the decks of huge cargo freighters and shipped across the ocean. The steel cargo box is generally exposed to the elements and may even be struck by lightning. Then they are unloaded at some port, tossed about via lorries and freight trains with no protection against extremes of heat or cold, then dropped in a warehouse without any real temperature control. Then they are handled again a number of times before you see them on the store shelf or some digital or print catalogue.
In truth, it is rather a miracle anything survives that sort of treatment, so it should not be at all surprising that some video cards have more "personality" than others of the same model. Truth be told, the £1000 video card and the £19 video card receive equally horrific treatment before you open the box; this holds true for every form of digital and electronic equipment.
Testing for a bad video card is not easy. There is software that can check for certain things, but DXDIAG.EXE run from the "Run" on the start menu is about as good as anything you might easily use or understand. It will also check your drivers and other Windows/DirectX environment for possible issues that may give you a clue as to where things are going wrong.
You will want to test your system's RAM to see if it has any bad chips. You may only encounter this problem when the bad chip is accessed by a program that requires a large amount of system RAM to operate, such as The Sims 2. You can download a number of different utilities that can do this, I prefer to use memtest86 - you can download a free copy here: http://www.memtest86.com/
You may have a hard drive that is nearing end of life, hard drives only have an expected life of about 3 years, it depends largely on how much you use then and whether you keep your computing environment to white room specification (most people don't). Most hard drive manufacturers have some specific software that they recommend for testing the health of a hard drive, in all instances it is best to use their recommended software since this will read the error codes the hard drive produces and determine whether a replacement is necessary. If the hard drive has problems, then it will most likely show them after something as demanding as loading TS2 happens.
Bad cables do occur, but I have only encountered this very rarely, which isn't surprising since humankind has been making wire for about 5000 years. Still, look at the various wires in the case and connecting externals to the case, look for signs of obvious damage and heat stress. Darkened, discoloured, cracked, or perforated coating is a sure sign they need replaced.
Closing thoughts
Updating your system's BIOS may be required. Also whatever system resource drivers for the various USB chipset and other motherboard components may need to be updated. Consult the technical support of your system manufacturer or the motherboard manufacturer for potential updates.
Run the EA diagnostic tool, EAsy Info - save the report to a text file, and paste it here.
Run the DXDIAG.EXE tool - run all of the tests and save the report to a text file, and paste it here as well.
Then try to remember when this problem started. Think back and try to remember if there was anything no matter how small that you installed that might be a potential source of these problems.
If it proves to be an incompatability with Pets EP, could you live without that EP?
I hope that this has not been too long-winded for you. I know you are nearing the end of your patience with this problem. Bear up, and we may yet whip this thing.
trl:
You are such a sweetheart to take the time to help me. I cannot emphasize enough how greatful I am. Some of the questions I can answer immediately.
Software conflicts
I don't have 2 cards on at the same time. My hubby removed the ATI card as well as any and all files/drivers related to it prior to putting this card back on. We also have the latest drivers installed, the 94.24, as our card manufacturer recommends (we had the 91 something driver before today). Still crashed.
He is actually quite computer "literate", I'm the one who isn't but I am learning everyday. You can teach an old dog new tricks LOL
Hyperthreading
We disabled hyperthreading and the problem still occurred so we have enabled it again.
Temperature
I check my temperature often, lately, and it stays at around 52 degrees even when I have been running the game a long while.(That is if it lets me play long lol). I also have the computer set to warn if it is getting too hot through my cards control panel. We also keep it dust free inside and out and are diligent about this.
Crashing only in game
This computer was purchased in December as a gift to me and I only have the SIMS and it's EP's installed as well as a few photoediting programs. That is all. It only crashes when I play this game. It hasn't crashed using the internet or photoediting programs, yet. The GEFORCE card was purchased as a gift for my birthday at the end of April and has only been used for a total of about 10 days tops between my first installing it in April (then uninstalling it a few days later) and the past 3 days since I reinstalled it. I had went back to my ATI because I was in a few contests and needed my game to run. And it ran flawlessly with that Radeon 9250 card but my load time and such is better with a 512MB card. This leads me to believe the GE Force card is conflicting with something.
Hardware conflict
We do have an on board video card (it is an ATI motherboard type card) and I will have my hubby see if it can be disabled. Although I do have an exernal harddrive which is used only to back up data and such to keep my available memory as high as possible. The game is installed on the computers C drive.
As for my power supply, I am not sure about that. I didn't purchase anything like that or does it come with the card? Hmmm...maybe this is the problem! Wait I think mine is 350 watts. I will check into that. I do believe something is conflicting with this "fussy" card because as I mentioned I have never had a crash with my ATI card. My hubby is teasing me that "If it ain't broke don't fix it" but I have a need for speed, baby, so this card with more video ram is just soo tempting. (Although my load time with the other card was not very long).
The thing that is getting to me is that last night when it crashed to the black screen my game came back for a minute, and I keep thinking it must not be the game crashing but the card or the monitor. The computers yellow power light was solid, blinking then solid etc and my monitor power indicator was lit up so the monitor was not turned off. If only I could see the error messages!
I have added the easy info file as well as the dxdiag file. They were very long so I compressed them to save space on the forum. I still have to run that Mestest thingy you linked me to but I will wait until tomorrow. I did notice on the Easy info report that I had 44 background tasks going on. WTF! Maybe I should turn some of them off. :idea1: :doh: :scratch:
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