Strange problem since a few days

[Vinnnch]

Hi everybody !

I come here to tell about a strange problem I have with Civ4 since a few days or weeks.
I always had big problems making Civ4 run on my PC, the mother board's heat exploded after a few dozens of minutes, and the game crashed.
But I solved this problem a while ago, essentially by cleaning my PC.
But since a few days, my game crashes after 1 or 2 turns, for every game I start. Although, if I change an "old" game, much advanced in time, it works fine. I can't understand how big crowdy end games can run while new light and healthy games ALWAYS crash, now.

Does anyone have ideas ? I thank you !!

[Traianvs]

I take it you have tried reinstalling your Civ4?

[Vinnnch]

Hello !

Thank you for answering. Yes, I have tried to reinstall, twice in fact. Friday night, I tried to uninstall again, but a strange behaviour appeared : when I tried from the "config panel" (forgive the name), nothing occured.
So I "manually" deleted Civ4, and then browsed the registry to delete any reference to Firaxis or Civilization.
I installed Civ4 it again, and it started well. But then after turn 3, blang, Windows exploded, blue screen (I had not seen that since severel years ! ). I reloaded the game, and at the same turn, blue screen again.
So I cried and burnt my computer on my sacrificial altar...

Well not really, but I am blocked again. the only problem I see with my configuration is that I only havec 512 Mo RAM. But it used to work, so I don't understand...

[Traianvs]

Actually, I have no idea whatsoever concerning technical problems (I was coming here with a problem myself ), so I'm not of much help I'm afraid

[snoopy369]

My gut feeling says "overheating". 512mb RAM is not great, but it's not the problem (the amount anyway).

You probably have an overheat somewhere, either the RAM, the video card, or somewhere else. BSOD errors (blue screen of death) are quite often heat-related, either memory or video card (though most video card ones give "Blank screen of death" not blue) ...

What does motherboard monitor say (I assume you have some such program installed as you reference the heat earlier) - if not, google motherboard monitor, install it, see what temps you have.

Also, check your vid card's temp - both brands have several programs out there (nvidia/ATI) for programs that will monitor your video card's temperature.

You may also just have a bad memory stick - if you can afford to, buy (or borrow) a new stick of RAM, and see if you still have the problems once that happens. HOWEVER, if you have heat problems the heat will just damage the new RAM, so do this only if you're satisfied your heat is acceptably low.

[Vinnnch]

Thank you for your answer Snoopy.
Well well, indeed, I think my problem is not at all related with Civ4. Many applications have started to crash now after a while, sometimes with a BSOD (I love it !) or just application falldown...
I even discovered that I cannot run Civ2 on my PC anymore, it also makes everything crash !!!!!!!!!

So, it may be the video card yes, or the RAM, that now has probably suffered much. I guess I will have to pay soon. I'm even wondering if I should change my whole computer...

[shinji13]

It may also be that a fan is not hooked up somewhere, you might want to try looking at your power supply and fans, make sure they are all running.

About 1 1/2 years ago I had the bluescreen whenever I was playing Unreal Tournament, I for a long time thought the game itself was messing up my computer until my comp started crashing on other things as well, in the end it turned out my power supply had fried one of its circuits and so it wasnt sending the correct amounts of power to my motherboard which in turn was starving my processor, you should fully assess your computer before jumping to conclusions, otherwise you'll be practically rebuilding your computer from scratch before you figure out what exactly is wrong.

[Vinnnch]

Wow, thank you shinji, I will sure try that tonight !!

[shinji13]

Originally posted by Vinnnch
Wow, thank you shinji, I will sure try that tonight !!

No problem, if its on powersupply it will likely look like this it could also be scorched on the wires, but usually it'll be scorched on the actual connector, if its something else it may be visible and may not be, for instance ram will have small burn marks or will have gunk somewhere on it, same applies to most hardware, if it is you can get rubbing alcohol and a rab put a very small amount on and rub the dirt or gunk off [my friend once spilt pop on 4gigs of ram and we thought they were all broken, but my friend being a jew about everything tried to fix it and it worked], but basically do that and make sure its totally dry before re-installing RAM otherwise it'll fry lol..

Yeah sorry for going into detail about every little issue, if you find an issue with hardware and need help just ask. :] Im having trouble with Civ4 myself, but its software problems, I am totally reinstalling everything on it and gonna try using old patch.