Crashes at character creation screens.

[Corey Ardwin]

I will update my specs when I get off work. I'm having a strange issue with pc games. Whenever I enter the character creation screen for Dragons age, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Atlantica online, Sid Meyer's Civ IV , Warlord's Battlecry III, beta versions of one current mmorpg that I downloaded but cant remember the name... BUT not World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online... I crash, get a black video screen, andthe sound locks up and repeats. The only other time that itll crash is when Ive had the computer running for days and it overheats at the base of the moniter AND while its running anything with sound (while its running hot) like winamp, a game, or a video play playing a basic avi file. Ive updated my nvidia and directx drivers/files, my games are up to date, and I run avg and avast antivirus. Ive had my video card replaced and my moniter replaced (qosmio laptop) by toshiba, but the problems still exist. Ive even had the heat sinks replaced. Im beginning to think that this is purely vista software related. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Toshiba Qosmio 305x or something
Vista Home Premium 32bit
4 gigs ram
Geforce 9800 something video
intel core duo 2.2 2.2(i think thats the speeds)
I dont know how to see if the video card has dedicated memory if that even matters.

 

[richc46]

You may want to troubleshoot using these suggestions.

Tips on Troubleshooting Game Issues - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Corey Ardwin]

Unfortunately, I've gone through all of those suggestions before. None of that helps. It isn't an issue with just ONE game either, so most of those problems are N/A with me. Its a problem with a vast majority of games I play. I go to the character select / character creation screen and it just blacks out, makes a brbrbrbrbrbrrbrbr noise with whatever sounds going, and crashes. And I don't mean a crash I can alt+F4 from, the screen doesn't have light behind it, it just dies and the sound locks up. I have to force restart to get anywhere.

 

[richc46]

Im GUESSING overheating or memory or graphics card.
Check graphics card in device manager.

 

[Corey Ardwin]

I know for a fact that it isnt overheating causing the problem. Even after replacing heat sinks and cleaning it out it crashed... and I have had it shut down for days and it would crash immediately after start up and trying out a game. Its not video card either. Its working fine and shows up in device manager with current drivers. Even had a peer double check all drivers. As far as memory goes, that sounds plausible, but how would I check? And why ONLY on character screens? I can make a character on my wifes computer for online games and skip the crashes, such as Atlantica online... but games like civ 4 where you have to choose a country/ leader, it always crashes on character select. Same with dragon's age and warlords. But like with Atlantica Online, if I make a character on my wifes computer first then I can skip character creation on my comp and play the game.

 

[richc46]

Download memtest86 and test RAM
www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

 

[Corey Ardwin]

Any way to do this without a flash / cd? I'm currently out of town on work and don't have access to those.

 

[richc46]

Sorry it has to be on CD or maybe Flash, too.
You can buy a memtest DVD.

http://www.memtest86.com/

 

[Corey Ardwin]

I ran memtest like your link said via a jumpdrive and ran it for 20 hours overnight and while I was at work. I came back and it was still only on Test #6, but it was at 72% pass and said something along the lines of *****Passed. No errors Detected. Hit Escape to restart***** So, now what do I try?

 

[richc46]

Do you have a friend, with a computer similar in RAM etc, that you can test the games?

If not did these games ever work on your computer?

 

[Corey Ardwin]

Nope, i've never met a person with another Qosmio like mine. I always here "Dude, I always wanted one of those when they came out!" My wife has a laptop with lower specs than my own, and it runs any and every game I have trouble with. All I know is that its a toshiba satellite with similar harman/kardon speakers built into it like the Qosmio. Built for gaming, but an older model pre-Qosmio. She also has a monstrous desktop computer that we had built on Tiger Direct, which also runs windows vista 32, and it doesn't have these problems.

As far as asking me if these games ever worked on this computer? Yes, but only when I first got the computer. After I had the computer for a few months is when it first started doing it. But I can't verify that for all of the games, just one or two. And even then, it was intermittent and usually occurred after using the laptop for extended periods of time. And after I recieved the computer back from toshiba and they did all their moniter / video / ram / speaker / keyboard replacements it would work for a few months again, but then start crashing after extended use. Now, since my warranty has run out, I am unable to send it in for repairs without paying a large enough bill to just buy a new computer. Since the last repair and crash sequence has started I have bought games like civ 4 and downloaded beta test games and tried playing Atlantica online on my computer, and not once have they gotten past character select screens. Dragon's Age will get past the character select / creation screen about 75% of the time and always has been hit or miss while playing it.

 

[richc46]

First the easy part
Play a game

Bit more difficult
If there is a crash, type "event viewer" in search. Go to the event viewer and look for all errors that happened at the time of the crash.

Hard Part
We have to figure out what caused the errors.

Luck my friend.

 

[Corey Ardwin]

Sorry, missed the page 2. Wouldn't you know. I've uninstalled all of the games that crash instantly, and the games that sometimes crash won't crash for me right now... I'm working on it though.

 

[Corey Ardwin]

AHA! Success! If you can call complete system shut down a success... Here are the errors I recieved in the Event Viewer.

1) Windows Firewall was unable to notify the user that it blocked an application from accepting incoming connections on the network.

Error Code: 2

2) The previous system shutdown at 8:21:15 PM on 9/9/2010 was unexpected.

And since I've been typing, these are the other errors that have shown up directly after start up.

1) Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

2) The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Launch permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{C97FCC79-E628-407D-AE68-A06AD6D8B4D1}
to the user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM SID (S-1-5-18) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

3) Windows (2868) Windows: The database engine is initiating recovery steps.

... I can't find anything under any tab (except the long list of windows event folders that will take forever to go through) that even mentions the exact time that I had to force shut down the computer listed above as an unexpected shutdown.

Is there a way to make a save file of the events in the last hour so that I can post them to be sifted through?

 

[richc46]

Is this partially an online game?

 

[richc46]

Right click on the particular error and then save as.

 

[Corey Ardwin]

The game I just crashed it with was civ 4. It doesnt require a log in or internet to play, but you can have online multiplayer campaigns.

 

[richc46]

Let me rephase, are you online during the crashes?

 

[Corey Ardwin]

No, not on this game. The mmorpg games that crash at character select do require that Im online. But Dragons Age, civ 4 etc do not.

 

[richc46]

The first error that happened during the game was that the firewall stopped some internet activity.
Download and run malwarebytes
Run your antivirus scan
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

If negative shut down the intenet and try the game, see if it is any better.

I expect very little from this, but want to be 100% sure it is not some sort of malware problem. Dont like that firewall error.