More Awesome Than You!

and now I can't play my game never mind even being able to run my computer... :'( ....I waited soooo long to install this lastest expansion pack....got everything updated...well except my maty fixes cause well the site was down...I disabled all hacks/fixes and installed the game....eveything seem to go well....thought I had clear sailing ahead....left cc enabled figured if it was going to blow my houses and sims were going to look good going out....never imagined it would take my computer out with it!!!! I was in bluewater village ( which should have been spelled BLEW as in blew-up)....making my normal changes to the buildings...in other words getting rid of the maxis tacky decor....when all of a sudden while in the neighborhood view I hear this noise like a rumbling kind of sound come out of my tower and then the monitor goes black.... :o.....I hurried and shut down the computer not really in a panic yet until I turned it back on and still the black very blank screen.....now I panic....I got on the phone with tech support and you know I've seen more of my computer today than I ever have in the 3 yrs. I've had it....still not working...tech support will be coming to pay me a visit in a day or two....some card with the fan thingy on it is suppose to be the issue....I just can't believe this game can cause so many problems....talk about getting rid of my sims addiction....I'm almost afraid if/when my computer gets fixed to have the nerve to even put the game in and play....I'm really not sure if this game is worth this kind of hassle....and it's not just me having issues....my sister had to re-install cause when she added ofb her game kept crashing...lost all her cc....which she is replacing but not me I had to lose my whole f***in computer....I could just scream.....I know this isn't really a help me post but I just needed to let off some steam where I know people understand the frustrations this game can and does put on you....thanks everyone I'll be going though withdrawals now....espically since I have to resort to using my husband's laptop or my kids computer that is upstairs  :P....not the best choices but beggars can't be choosy.....tgdrysix :P

Most likely it wasn't the game's fault, it sounds like your hardware may have overheated. This may have been caused by running The Sims, but from the sound of things it would have worn out running any resource heavy game at that point. Computers are like everything else, sometimes they just wear out or break.

Tgd, it wasn't the game. I reinstalled OFB almost 4-5 times (each time a different reason), nothing happened - neither  to the game, nor to the computer.

Liegens is right...:)

Can always tell the noobs by their "The game killed my computer" nonsense  ::)

Computers are notorious for giving problems at year 3 or whenever the warranty runs out, if it is before then...
I'd love to hear what Tech Support says tomorrow, maybe the game is not to blame after all!

Probably something like your motherboard is fried. Nuthin' to do with OFB except possibly overheating but like liegenschonheit said, any resource-intensive process coulda' tipped it over the edge.

Open For Business killed my computer as well.

OK, it was merely a coincidence that my video card and motherboard went *poof* shortly after. Or was it?
Call me a noob and I'll kick you.

*cue Twilight Zone music*

 ^ Noob! <covers tush!>

Wait... rumbling sound? Erk... that could have been a hard drive crash. Nevertheless, it was certainly a hardware failure, and NOT caused by the game. Software can't magically tell things to overheat or platters to crash into each other or whatever.

Software can incorrectly identify hardware and utilize it badly, such as using features on video cards that push the hardware beyond its limits. It's rare, but fully possible.

*kicks DMDye*

Yeah, you're right, I had forgotten about that. Games and applications, though, not so much.

Well it may not have been the game that killed my computer but it was what I was doing at the time and had no other indication before that anything was even remotely wrong or  going to go wrong ....other than that sound and then a blank screen....and my computer is still sitting silent and dark :-\....boy talk about a humdinger of a coincidence....my computer is "only" 3 yrs old....that doesn't seem to be old enough for stuff to start breaking in the darn thing but then I don't know that much about computers and their inner workings....I've added memory to it and a new video card maybe 4 or 6 months ago, other than that it has the rest of it's orginal parts....I just think that I should have had some prior indication that the thing was going to blow before installing ofb....something anything...... ???....tgdrysix

Just out of curiosity, what video card were you using?

nvidia geforce fx 5700 ve 256 mb ddr ...  gave me no issues and ran the game with most settings on med and high....that is till yesterday....now it doesn't run squat....do  I sound bitter?......tgdrysix

I ask because I'm using an Nvidia card as well and with the recent 8x series drivers from Nvidia, the card likes to reset over and over.

Are you/were you using the new Nvidia drivers?

If you flick on a light switch and there is an earth quake right at that moment, did flicking the switch cause the earth quake?

Associate is not causation. 

Not all computer problems announce themselves politely ahead of time.  Some of them happen just suddenly out of the blue...

The fact you heard a rumbling sound indicates some kind of mechanical failure.  So the fan sounds about right. 

A game, or any (normal) software for that matter cannot cause a computer to blow up.  At most, it can put stress on a component that's borderline and finally cause it to fail.  Just like over-exertion can trigger a heart attack...but only if your heart is sick to begin with.

Software doesn't kill computers; hardware failures do and most of the time you get no notice.  The age of the computer makes no difference.  The hard drive on my employer's computer has had to be replaced twice - mainly, I think, because he is computer illiterate and doesn't shut it down properly at the end of the day.  His computer was a bit over a year old at the first crash.

Like cars, computers also have to be maintained and there are various utilities for that.  Defragging, clearing your cache regularly, etc.

If you made a backup of your game files to a CD before the installation, you've really lost nothing but some time.

I'm Polly Paranoia and back up important stuff regularly to DVDs.  Of course, I learned that the hard way when the hard drive on my office system (same brand as my employer's) crashed and burned...... 

Ziggy, regular maintenance such as you describe, will help keep maintain your computer performance, but it does nothing to cause or prevent hardware failures.

However one type of maintenance can prevent hardware failure.  Making sure your computer is not directly on the floor, and keeping it free of dust.  Dust can cause overheating, and hardware failure. 

You might want to read this article:  The most common ways of killing a computer.  Rather interesting.  http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1720

No mention of OFB that I can see :)

Didn't say it did - was just pointing out that computer benefit from maintenance.  And if you have the appropriate utilities, in some cases you can prevent total hardware meltdown by determining there is a problem and fixing it.

They're much more complicated than the Vic-20 I started out with. ::)

This isn't a pissing contest. Most Vic 20's outlive modern systems but that's beside the point.

Chances are there was some faulty hardware and OFB happened to push said hardware over the edge (three years is old for a gaming PC). In essence, OFB caused the failure by working as it was supposed to. If the game was never played, something else would have caused the failure. This is called computer use and it will eventually cause the computer to fail, just as using your car will cause wear and tear.

Eh you could have been doing anything on it and it could have blown itself up.
My last computer decided to die during install of TS2 base game.  Talk about crappy timing.  That was the base game.  The Sims 2 I had anxiously been awaiting for so long and after I had it in my greedy lil paws I then had to wait to get a new computer heh
We never did find out what was wrong with ours.  Just got another instead of having it repaired...the old one had seen it's day anyways.

You are all probably right...I'm sure ofb didn't actually kill my computer it just held the knife.... :o....anyway the computer tech is suppose to be coming this afternoon to see if she can resurrect my computer from the great beyond...keeping my fingers crossed....tgdrysix

lol *prays to the PC gods*

I just rebult mine. To hell with paying other geeks, I am a geek. :P

angelyne makes a very good point about dirt and dust building up - especially around the fan area.  A friend had a system which was making quite a loud sound when it ran.  Turned out there was about two inches of dust covering the fan.  The inside was a mess as well.  Once cleaned up, the unit ran quietly.

And a heck of a lot cooler.

Yeah when I had to open it up there were quite a few dust bunnies living in there and I did evict them but how do you keep the suckers out....you know what a pain it was to even get the thing openned....wires every where.... I can't imagine having to do that on a regular basis....I hate dusting as it is, I sure as hell don't want to have to dust an area that I can't even see, never mind get to easily.... :P ....tgdrysix

Get yourself a big can of compressed air for electrical components and blow it out every three months or so to keep it from building up too much in the future. :)

Wow I had no IDEA ofb was so almighty powerful it could fry your hardware. That noise  from what Ive heard before sounds like a piece of equipment just got fried.  Ive had my computer 2 years and I have had a motherboard and heatsink replaced, hard drive  and modem as well...so its time to get that thing in the shop.  What a noob.

I buy them in packs of twos.....guess I have to add computer dusting to my list of things to keep clean..... :(....tgdrysix :(

IT'S ALIVE.....but barely..... :-\....my less than one year old geforce card will have to be replaced....luckily it is still under warranty so I'll get a replacement but it will take  a good 2 weeks.... :(....I'm back to my orginal graphics card....64 mb from a 256 mb....and sadly it doesn't seem to run ofb....it hangs up on bluewaters' loading screen....so I'll be really going through sims withdrawal..... :P....but with light at the end of the tunnel I'm hoping to make it till the replacement comes in.....that's life I guess....tgdrysix

That really sucks about your video card, but as far as failures go, I would be relieved! A motherboard crash or (god forbid) a hard drive crash is like the PC equivalent of the appocolypse. Does the model videocard you bought come with an onboard fan? If not, be careful about playing any graphic intensive game (like the sims) for more than a couple hours or so at a time. They tend to overheat if you play for too long. Also, save alot, because if your computer overheats, it's failsafe is to turn off or restart itself, often without warning and that can be frustrating to say the least!

Tgdrysix, another possibility is that your PC's cooling setup and/or its power supply may not have been adequate after you installed the new components, and something just chose that moment to overload, overheat or give out.  Always check first to make sure your current hardware can handle any upgrades you plan to install!

Good luck in getting your machine up and running again...

The card that "Blew-the-Hell-Up" actually had a fan...the old one that was orginal to my computer doesn't....it has a coil (?) thingy....anyway it won't run ofb.....I made it through loading up the game, picking a neighborhood and then picking bluewater at which point it just hung up and the screen went blue but the music still played....I've sent off the geforce and will now have to wait patiently for it's replacement....hope the new replacement one will be able to handle ofb for more than 10 minutes.....but at least I got my computer up and running and didn't really lose anything so I'm thankful for that much..... :-\.....tgdrysix

At least, you did *not* get my tushy!

I'm glad it was your video card - and not actually something the game did!  ;D
Sorry it's going to take you a couple of weeks to get a replacement, but at least it won't cost you anything.

I leave my case open and as it sits on the floor under my desk, it's raised up by one of those tacky Maxis bookcases aka cinder blocks to allow air to flow underneath, that way if it overheats too much I can quickly cool it down by using external fan pointed at it. 

I wanted to add my own anecdote here.
I  couldn't play the Sims for a few months earlier this year because, off and on my comp would overheat. The processor ran hardest for the Sims, since i don't have any other processor-intensice games.  Anyway, i have a 3-year waranty with Dell (expires in Aug.), and so i make them fix it everytime. This April, they told me that the overheating had become a safety hazard, so they wouldn't fix it anymore. They insisted on replacing it. i wasn't to happy about this, 'cause the only computers they still had with the same spec. would be old and refurbished (3 years is a long time, tech wise). My new comp came, and it was refurbished, but it is comparable to the value of my first one when I bought it. I now worship the almighty waranty when not playing the Sims 2 with my dual core processor and 1 GB of RAM (I had 256 MB before). I had never realized that the Sims didn't take 15 mins to load every new screen for everyone.
Anyway, my point:
1. Computer hardware errors cause overheating
2. Always buy the extended waranty.
3. I don't think I'm spelling waranty right.