Computor crashes

[Anita du Preez]

Hi, hope this is the right place.
Have only a few mods, but all of a sudden the computor goes out of the game...sometimes flashing a blue screen and restoring itself after a minute or so, or sometimes completely crashes, that I have to reboot to be able to do anything. I do not know if this can be due to a file download or any of the mods. How do I find out what causes this?

[BeosBoxBoy]

Anita - there is a chance you have downloaded something (a bed or sofa for instance) that requires Pets (Mascotas) if you do not have that installed, the game will crash.

There is also a chance you have downloaded a mod or hack that does this.

You will need to run Sims2Pack Clean Installer to check for hacks and mods to see if you can find something. ( http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/ )

If this does not help.  Try Paladin's Sims 2 Hack Conflict Detection Untility ( http://www.simwardrobe.com/ )

If this does not help, you will have to do things the more difficult way.  Move the downloads to a safe place and add a few (5-10) at a time to see if you can narrow down the search.

[ancienthighway]

I had a similar problem right after I got a new computer.  I was using the built in  graphics card, but once I pulled the ATI card from the old computer and installed it, that problem went away.  If you haven't changed any of the hardware recently though, it's probably as Yakov says.

[Anita du Preez]

I removedmy hacks to see ifthat wouldcure the problem... it didn't. I have removedall my recently installed files... problem still there. Seems I will have to spend the night removing and adding... the more labourous way. Still hoping to find the guilty file soon... Thanx for your help sofar...:rabbit:

[karialSim]

Good luck! Do you get the hourglass spinning when the screen goes blue? I was having that problem on my old computer unless I shut down all my background tasks before playing.

[Anita du Preez]

Yes, I do get the hourglass. Usually the game sort of restore itself, and play can continue. But, alas, not every time. I went about the hard way, taking files away, and putting it back. Seems like it is a lot that causes the conflict, everything else seems to be running fine. Will put that back one at a time and see which one if any. This involves hours of play, so thumbs up.

Thanx everyone for your help and advice!
Much appreciated!

[vesa]

That thing happens to me all the time. More custom content: more promblems. Same thing happens with the size of the houses: big houses causes more problems than smaller ones. If I play with small house, with little custom content, there will br no problems

[baileybop]

Not sure if this will help, but I had a similar problem, turned out my graphics card needed driver updates. Once I installed the updaters, it didn't happen anymore.

[karialSim]

I would definately make sure you don't have any conflicts. Like I said, what finally worked for me was to shut off all my background tasks, and turn off my screensaver and anti-virus before playing. But the more stuff you have in the game, the more often that happens-at least from what I've seen in other threads about it. Some people have had luck adding more RAM as well.

[BeosBoxBoy]

I don't have Pets EP installed - the media is now far beyond any use after having served as coaster for my coffee cup these past two months, so i can say with confidence lots of things will cause a crash now. Beds, trees, shrubs, sofas, pretty much anything with support for pet animations/interactions is cause for a blue screen.  Many creators are not making any particular effort to label these objects "Pets EP Only", and worse, they probably don't know they have to.

[vesa]

I would definately make sure you don't have any conflicts. Like I said, what finally worked for me was to shut off all my background tasks, and turn off my screensaver and anti-virus before playing. But the more stuff you have in the game, the more often that happens-at least from what I've seen in other threads about it. Some people have had luck adding more RAM as well.

I turned off the anti-virus program and that helped. No more blue screen/time glass! Well, actually it came once, but that doesn't count

[Akronborn]

I had that happen twice, just recently in the last two days, fixed it both times.  I take out my couple thousand downloads.  Make three new folders called quarantine 1, 2, and 3.  I break up the downloads in three loads.  Take 1 for instance, turn on the game and go into a lot, if it works I rename the file (Safefiles1), then I keep them in and add quarantine 2, if it works then I move on like so.  If it doesn't I take out 1 and just do two, if it works then it's a problem with something in 1 and 2 conflicted (or 2, 3 or 1 and 3).

Or I just put in the first, check it's okay change folder name and take it out.
Try two, check it works rename folder and take it out, then try three.  If it's three, done.  If it's one or two I still check the other two to make sure it's not wide spread. Before all this I take out all new DL's and new houses in packagelot or whatever it's called.