Grief, woe, despair and hideous black screens
MrsH:
OK. I've searched for this and found nothing that exactly matches the troubles I'm having right now. If any awesome person can offer some help or advice or even just ranting rights ... please.
I installed a dashing new NVidia GE Force 7600 graphics card about a month ago. From that moment on I've been able to load and play Sims 2 perfectly for 40 minutes and no more. At the magic witching hour, the screen goes black and I can do exactly nothing but pull the plug on the whole PC.
I have downloaded and installed/uninstalled/reinstalled more drivers, soundcard updates, directx versions than I can remember or wish to think about. I have uninstalled my game and reinstalled my game (I feel like Eeyore and his balloon at this point). I have removed every download and replaced everything one tiny piece at a time. I've been in contact with EA who were communicative but ultimately unhelpful. Nothing makes any difference.
I've removed the side of my PC and blown fans at it. Banned cats from the room, hoovered madly and now I've run out of ideas and given up. If anyone has any bright ideas that don't involve sledgehammers (my current favoured option) could you let me know?
I have all expansions, but no stuff packs.
Bruce Banner:
:-\ How much memory and what processor does your computer have ? :-\
Berg:
Could it be the drivers for your card?
My game used to hate the (then) newest drivers for my ATI card, causing everything to freeze after 20-30 minutes of play. I got an old version of an Omega driver which I use to this day and never had a problem.
I have an ATI card though, and know absolutely nothing about these things so you shouldn't pay too much attention to me, I'm probably just trying to confuse you :P
Annette:
I have that card (the 7600) and run problem free. Not very helpful am I :P Seiously though, when I had it installed I ran a defrag and then reinstalled the game. Which it seems you have done.
I have a Pentium 4 3.2ghz with 1 gig Ram and am using the 91.31 drivers.
Possibly the only thing I am doing differently to most is that the machine I use for simming is not connected to the internet, so I have no antivirus running in the background. I do remember being unable to install Uni on the family machine until my Norton's was turned off.
So my winning formula is 1gig ram, 91.31 driver and no anti virus :) If you have tried all this then I guess we have to wait for a tech expert.....I'm sure one will show up soon.
Have you seen this http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,5832.0.html it is about a different card but has a driver cleaner link and another driver link that might be of interest.
eevilcat:
Is it just Sims2 that causes the problem? Or does any game that is processor/graphics intensive result in the same blackout?
My only experiences of this have been hardware temperature related - I've seen both CPUs and graphics cards overheat to the point where the screen blacks out. Check out the nVidia website forum and their support - I think they have a temperature monitoring feature built into their drivers. You might need to run the game windowed (add -w to the shortcut command line) so that you can keep an eye on the temperature monitor. This should give you a pretty quick answer as to whether it's an overheating problem.
Another thing to consider, is whether the PSU on you computer can provide enough power - check the wattage rating compared to the requirements of your new graphics card versus your old graphics card. You might need to upgrade the PSU as well if it can't supply enough oomph to power the entire system (including fans) properly.
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