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

[Annette]

I have that card (the 7600) and run problem free. Not very helpful am I  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.

[Orikes]

I actually experience a somewhat similar problem, though it's not clockwork like yours. Sometimes I can play for hours upon hours without a problem, and sometimes it'll freeze up 30 minutes in. I've gotten into the habit of saving regularly.

What happens is that everything on screen will freeze, but I can still hear the sounds. Then a moment later, the screen will go black, then that Sims blue. I'll get the Sims hourglass turning and everything will pretty much be frozen. Occasionally I'll get the error noise. Once in a great while, I'll get an error about the display adapters that vanishes too quick to be fully read. The only solution is to hold in the power button and shut it off, waite five seconds, and start again.

Sims2 is the heaviest graphic game I play right now, so I don't know if this would do it with anything else. Neverwinter Nights 1 runs just fine.

[ElfPuddle]

Mine does the same as Orikes....see the other threads.
I wish I had a solution for you, Mrs. H., but "saving frequently" (as in every sims 1/2 hour) is the best I've come up with. Strangely, this didn't happen with my old crappy card & driver. I upgraded because it couldn't handle OFB. *sighs and shrugs*

[J. M. Pescado]

Try putting the old card back?

[ElfPuddle]

As strange as it sounds, I'd rather deal with the BlackSODs than the old card of crappola.

[Scratch]

I has a similar problem. The game would minimize to the desktop after about 20 mins... almost every 20 mins... I gradually figured out it was my power management settings.

So, i opened up my control panel, went to the power settings and saw that my monitor was configured to turn off after 20 mins... so, i turned off all my power settings, hibernation, standby, etc. and chose "never" for my hardware settings. Fixed my problem.

Even though the monitor wasn't going off and i was playing the game, the stupid pooter had a mind of it's own. Take a look at your power settings and change everything to "never" and then play the game.... if that helps your problem, turn it all back on and see if the prob comes back...

just a thought....good luck

[ilikefishfood]

Had problems with my NVIDIA card as well; except I'd get a blue screen.  Tried everything, including updating drivers, back-dating them, adding more RAM.  Eventually came across some threads in various forums where others were having issues with some series of NVIDIA cards (Maxis actually quietly removed some of them from their "ok" list that had originally been given the green light.)....Finally, bit the bullet and bought a Radeon, and have not had a single problem since. THe issue disappeared immeidately.

[Orikes]

Finally, bit the bullet and bought a Radeon, and have not had a single problem since. THe issue disappeared immeidately.

I've considered that, but I just got this card (and whole 'puter) back in April and I really need to deal with my car situation before I consider throwing more money at my computer. It's a frustrating situation, but the 'crash' isn't frequent enough to give me too much grief at this point. I can deal with saving regularly and just rebooting after the crash as long as I get a good chunk of play time in between crashes. I finally gave up on my old computer when I couldn't even play NWN for five minutes without it crashing.

[J. M. Pescado]

Try eBaying it.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Are the problem cards primarily nVidia?

I recently installed an ATI Radeon X850XT - plus a second card fan - system runs beautifully.  Never did had problems with the first one either though (also an ATI).

MrsH, have you contacted nVidia about the problem?

[gethane]

there is a huge problem with nvidia cards post OFB

see here:
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=117748

After screwing with this for 7 months, I bought an ATI. I tried asking nvidia at their forums -- 5 weeks and no response, status is "researching."

[coricaman]

those cards have a habit of doing that, try buying a new one.  I think its an overheating problem

[MrsH]

Thank you so much for the replies.  At least I'm not alone.

I have an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.20Ghz processor, with 1024 RAM so in theory it should run my entire house without blinking. 

The black screen thingyness doesn't affect anything else at all - not even my beloved point and click graphics heavy adventures (I'm an old-fashioned girl - I love my point and clicks - they are why I shelled out for the new card in the first place). 

I'm thinking at this point that it probably is some kind of overheating problem, but I'm blowed if I know how to solve it.  Short of deep freezing, I can't see much I can do to cool it down.

NVidia have indeed been contacted (at length) and haven't been able to solve it.

For the time being I'll stick to the "save after every sim shower" method that's become my best friend and routine driver updates.  It's true that at least the BSOD is marginally less annoying than random flops to desktop but not by very much.

[jefrir]

Orikes, I get the same problem, but mine's because I'm playing on a laptop. A little note hidden somewhere in the readme says the game may or may not work with laptop video cards - so basically my computer's allergic to the Sims. And many no-cd cracks for other games, too. Saving every sim-day seems to be the only solution.

[ilikefishfood]

Don't mean to be the voice of doom and gloom, but I tried all the fixes for overheating (that's one of the things that was suggested to me); went as far as to buy a floor standing fan, take the side of my cpu and have the fan aimed at the inside.  I also found the blank screen problem began to crop up more frequently.  But hey, I'm glad you've found a work-around.

I was able to sell my NVIDIA to a friend.  It gave no problems with other games; it was just TS2 (after I installed OFB).  I was a firm believer in NVIDIA, but after I invested in a Radeon, I was astounded at the quality of the graphics in TS2.  I had no idea the water (ponds and pools) was so amazingly reflective!  Certainly 'more awesome' (lame pun intended)

[Orikes]

Out of curiosity, what Radeon card did you get? Or, what non Nvidia cards do people recommend?

[MrsH]

Plop.  This is not sounding good for my NVidia.  Like Orikes, I'm curious about what non-Nvidia's people are recommending.

[ZiggyDoodle]

For card recommendations, do read the thread titled:       Building/Upgrading a PC for TS2 - Update, 08 September 2006   

Based on the advice given there, I installed the ATI Radeon X850XT card and have been very happy with it.  In fact, that card introduced all sorts of new graphic details I had not seen before in the game. 

I also added a new PSU (power supply unit) to my system to power the card, the new card fan, two DVD drives, and other stuff.

That brings me to a question:  Have those having problems with the nVidia cards checked the wattage of those cards against the wattage of their PSU?  Could it be that the power supply units are lacking in wattage?  Most mfgs will tell you how large a PSU you must have to power a particular card.

Anway, I've been very happy with ATI and would never consider switching brands.

[simposiast]

It's not only nVidia cards that go black screen. 

I have an HP Pavilion media pc with dual processor 3.4mhz and x600 ATI graphics and it regularly black screens on me. I have tried everything I can think of and everything suggested above, even playing 800x600 with lowest graphics settings and no sound and it still crashes. As it's intermittent, I keep thinking I've fixed it until the next time it crashes.

My laptop doesn't look so pretty, but has never once crashed.

[ilikefishfood]

Plop.  This is not sounding good for my NVidia.  Like Orikes, I'm curious about what non-Nvidia's people are recommending.

My Radeon is a 9600.

The NVIDIA that I had to ditch was a 6800, which as I mentioned, was orignally on Maxis' "ok" list when OFB came out.  After the they were flooded with complaints, that and a couple of other NVIDIA's were just one day, no longer on their list (no explanaiton) *snort*

[gethane]

I have an x1900 GT and it plays the Sims beautifully.