Blue Screen of Death - Help

[motherspet]

I used to have this old driver and it worked well for all EPs. Now with Pets it does not anymore. I too get the BSOD with the hour glass. So I have updated it to the newest driver (nvidia 93..) and this did not help. It is so frustrating and I wish a real good computer guru could help us. Mine could not.

[RaynePoodle]

My hubby is an expert with comps, but he doesn't play Sims2... so he has no idea whats wrong... I'm still getting the BSOD too... so now I hardly ever play

[susaninsturgis]

I have no bsod just screen of blue since upgrading video card. I will know more Thursday when more is done on computer. Im playing less these days. Right now I just want it to work right for Seasons, when it comes. Then after that maybe the new EP after that, then no more EPS. Im not doing sims 3 if I have to have a new computer and thats what it sounds like.

[earth9876]

I too have had this problem since Pets. I too have been in contact with the support techs at EA Games, they gave me the same load about my drivers even though I had my drivers updated in August when I had extra memory and a new graphics card installed. After searching a number of sites and seeing that we aren't the only ones who have this problem I am convinced this problem has to do with Pets and probably won't be resolved until they come up with a patch. However I will continue to correspond with EA Games and if I am given any useful info I will most certainly pass it along.

[RaynePoodle]

Well, because of this problem, I never play anymore

[motherspet]

All those of you who had the problem fixed with more ram, loke 2 gig, how much did you have before? And what new video card did you get? I am trying to solve this problem myself. It had started with FFS, which was the last installment before Pets, so I doubt it that it has something to do with the game. It is just so greedy for memory.

[RaynePoodle]

I have an Nvidia something or other... it was brand new... *rolls eyes*... but I bought it just so I could play the sequel to The Longest Journey... I can't remember the name, but it did need a brand new and much better vid card. So I know my vid isn't the problem... I don't think my RAM is either.... I've got lots of that too....

[motherspet]

There is a huge thread over at MTS for this subject. After reading every thread, following every link, dl 2 small softwares, nothing helped. So as a last resort I decided to rollback to an old driver which was mentioned a few times: 71.89. I have GEforce 6200 turbo charge. And guess what, it WORKED!! I have played for 4 hours and still no BSOD. Touch wood. I thought I tell you all here just in case it will somebody else.

[jubelbelly]

Did you get the body shop patch? I did that when the blue screen of death came and said something about a nv4_disp.dll file. I couldn't figure the problem. My drivers where all to date. So I reinstalled the sims, but this time I didn't put the patch on and no crashes yet. This maybe the casue.

[Sam the T-man]

There is a huge thread over at MTS for this subject. After reading every thread, following every link, dl 2 small softwares, nothing helped. So as a last resort I decided to rollback to an old driver which was mentioned a few times: 71.89. I have GEforce 6200 turbo charge. And guess what, it WORKED!! I have played for 4 hours and still no BSOD. Touch wood. I thought I tell you all here just in case it will somebody else.

I can't back up this solution enough. To all of you guys saying you have updated/newest etc. drivers for your card, that is the problem! The solution being suggested here isn't to upgrade your drivers, but downgrade them. It does work, trust me.

[RaynePoodle]

That's not my problem, or at least, not the reason I am getting a blue screen. I haven't updated my drivers. My game had no problems until I installed Pets. And I have a GeForce 6200 NV44.

[lucentgem]

Rayne, I have a great video card: nVidia 6600GT 256 MB, lots of memory: 2GB and occasionally I do get a BSOD. There are three things that typically cause this for me. The experiences are slightly different but can cause the same effect.

1. Something running in the background is causing your game to pop out and then back in which will cause the BSOD when going back in. You may have already tried this...but just in case you didn't... Go to run under the start menu, then type msconfig, then go to startup items, then deselect everything that isn't system based. Your video card does not need to have something constantly running, nor does anything hardware related (usually)...however you will want to keep your firewall/antivirus going. If you need help determining what they are pm me and I'll go through it with you.

2. What power supply do you have? What wattage? Depending on the video card, more specifically whether or not it requires power of it's own, it may not be getting enough power from the power supply if the power supply is running too many items and this can cause issues. It usually shows up more often when running something graphic intensive.

3. Most likely cause of your issue is bad custom content. I've had situations where I can go into say the CAS and create a sim in a few mins flat. Then there are times when I've installed something recently and it can take an hour just because it's having problems loading due to bad content. This will also create the BSOD randomly. Pull anything newly installed (when the issue occurred of course) and try the game again. Clean Installer is great for organizing by day installed.

All that said, the above suggestions may not be the issue you are having but don't discount anything even though your hubby may be a computer guru. Sometimes it's the easiest answer and us techies tend to overlook those more often than not lol. I'm very guilty of it.

Also just as a side note...if you can find the time, organize your downloads folder with the subfolders. It was after Uni I think that we were able to do that and it makes a huge difference. You can also use the clean installer from MTS2 if you prefer to move all your sim related items like genetics, makeup etc over to the savedsims folder. It does help a bit. It won't solve your BSOD issue except for making it easier to narrow down bad CC in the future.

[RaynePoodle]

Thank you very much for this. I always turn everything off that I can before I load the game, and I disconnect from the internet... so I can turn my firewall and antivirus stuff off.
I don't know anything about my power supply, but my hubby did say it was more than powerful enough. And if I am not happy about something with my computer or games, well, his life is a misery... like now... LOL
I've been thinking that it is just VERY bad CC... and once I narrow it down... when I have time... everything should be fine.
I was just playing not five minutes ago... everything was fine, been playing for 5 hours... then WHAM! Not bsod... but a totally black screen... as if my moniter was off... with my little green power light blinking... I had to restart my whole system. Because nothing else I could think of worked and hubby is not home atm... *sigh*
I'm off... I'm gonna see if I can  get some more time in before something bad happens... I still haven't sated my Sims2 craving.

Thanks again!

[lucentgem]

I think I'm using a different driver set but I won't be able to check until about 9 hours from now when I get home from work. :/

[susaninsturgis]

ILucent all you said above is what my tech friend has found. Its mostly CC. We updated to newest drivers, we have very good cards, one nividia one ati. Mine has 512. He says its CC most often. But still gets it. He thinks too that, there is a software glitch, that the new patch may hopefully fix within the game itself.