More Awesome Than You!

Cause my new freshly built computer that should be able to run this game without out any issues has crashed to the desktop at least 4 times!!! Not it the same day mine you  and it always start by the screen freezing up where nothing is clickable....then reboots itself while I sit there starting at the sucker in disbelief!  *screams and bangs head on desk* Here are my specs ..... should anyone with any devine knowledge have any ideas what the heck is going on , I would surely appreciate any info at all......

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
2.01 GHz, 1.00 GB of Ram

Windows XP home edition

Nvidia Geforce 7600 GT


I have 43 "hacks and fixes" most of which come from here.....If I need to I can provide the list....and also the last error log which just happened a few minutes ago.

I have all the patches, uni, nightlife and yeah..... :P....ofb.......tgdrysix

This could be your problem -- the latest versions of the nvidia drivers (pretty much any that start with an '8') have a problem with OFB, especially after the patch.  You get the blue screen a couple of times, and then the game crashes to the desktop, if you're lucky.  If you're not lucky, you get a 'blue screen of death' and have to reboot.

This was discussed here not long ago, though the threads have probably scrolled to page 2 or 3 by now. You need to roll back your nvidia drives to the Sept. 2005 version (available on the nvidia website archives).  I think they were '77.xx' or something like that.

Thanks will check into that....to see what version drivers I have and if by some miracle that will work....I don't think my head can take too much more of the banging! Tgdrysix

Hey gotta a link to that specific driver version....I can't roll mine back cause I have nothing to roll it back too! Thanks, tgdrysix

Will this (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_77.77.html) do?

They should be ok Venusy, I am using the 78.1 drivers with the 6200 with no problems.  You might want to check what the driver number that comes with your card is and just check that they aren't below that one. Scratch that last bit I should have read the damn thing first.

Blech. I'm using the 84.21 drivers  with my 7600 GT, and had my first Blue Screen of Death from it a few days ago (lost ALL my progress with my Legacy family, 4 toddlers trained, have to do it all over again sob), and when I tried to roll back my drivers, it said I had none to roll back to. So I went to download an older driver (from the 7 series) but no matter what I dl, it says it's not compatable with my system and shuts down. Am I stuck using the 84.21 driver then?

Oh wonderful!!! Thanks will give it a try to see if it will help.....tgdrysix

Okay your not giving me much hope... :-\ ;) :)....I haven't tried the older driver yet, have it booked marked for later.....keeping my fingers crossed.....hope you resolve your problem too!
My driver version is 8.3.9.1....I don't get a blue screen it just ups and reboots after the game freezes.....lost some stuff too that way.....it will sometimes even freeze when I'm in the process of saving!!!! *goes back to banging head on desk* tgdrysix

I'm having the same problems on the same type of computer you have except I have a Nvidia 6800 GS.

I have tried the older driver it didn't work for me.  Hopefully you will have better luck.

If I had known that OFB had such a problem with Nvidias I would have gone for The ATI Radeon.
Kind of sucks when you spend money to upgrade only to find out it doesn't help.

Just thought I'd add here that 7.7.7.7 is widely recommended for use with the Sims.  I switched to it from a later driver to get rid of some problems with my GeForce FX 5200, and kept it when I upgraded to a 6800 Ultra, and it still seems to work just fine.  Dunno what to suggest if a given PC refuses to accept an older driver, though...

It's pretty sad when even the people who sold you the computer and ordered the new video card say not to use the latest driver. :p

Did you try to completely uninstall your current driver before trying to load the new drivers?  That's what they recommend, but I gotta warn you that when I uninstalled my video drivers, my screen was so messed up it took me a while to find the downloaded (but uninstalled driver that I wanted cause I couldn't see the My Documents on my desktop (I have my desktop set to look like 98).  Anyway, for anyone that might want some help there is a great site that helps with a lot of things.  Here is a link http://tg.sims2techguide.net/
Hope this helps.

I am going to have to try this myself as I just installed OFB last night and was trying to play tonight and the screen kept suddenly going blue with the timer turning for ages.  But luckily, each time the screen did go back to normal eventually.  And yea, I just upgraded to the Nvidia GEforce 6600 about a month ago when I only had the first three games hoping that it would be better for when I installed OFB.  Sucks.  Even before I installed OFB, I was getting flourescent pillows and a few other weird graphic problems.  I hope I can install one of the 77. series and it fixes it.  I'll try to report back as to what happens.

Actually have you guys checked what wattage your PSU's are.  Someone else just upgraded their card with similar crashes and were trying to run their system on 250w, which doesn't work.

The power supply unit I'm running on this computer ( which is new) is a 450w NUUO series....(ATX 12v /  100~120 vac ac range ) by Sunbeamtech .....it's also nvidia sli ready....tgdrysix

 ;D yep that was me that ran with a 250w. Make sure you upgrade your power supply!

Tgdrysix (strains fingers whilst typing this): Well, I think NVidia has wisened up a bit regarding the 7xxx series and power demand (and thus, heat exhaustion), and AMDs are quite energy-saving, so I'd say your PSU is adequate.

ETA: To make sure it's a TS2 - graphics drivers clash and not a generic (read: hardware) problem, try running another graphics-demanding game. It you get freezes and reboots again, it's probably a hardware problem. If not, good luck hunting down a set of drivers that work!  :)

Sigh. Well, I tired everything the link above said, and I tried every graphics driver on the nvidia page. The only driver my computer will install is the 84.21, everything else produced an error. I guess I better get used to my game crashing constantly. I'll have to save every minute or so.

Or you could contact the actual tech support for your video card or your computer.

Ok the one other thing I can think of, and I'm not sure if it is an issue any more, but when I was looking for new ram some 8mths ago I almost bought some high density ram however after reading through the info on it, it stated that it was not suitable for Nvidia or Intel chipsets, that they both required low density ram.  Maybe its worth checking out because when I did more checking it seemed the nforce drivers (with Nvidia) caused a crashing conflict when it was put under load with 3d but would opererate ok with normal 2d operation.

Laylei and Tgdrysix, as I posted earlier, I was having similar problems.  Anyway, after I read this topic I read another topic on this site titled, Need some advice or Help...Please.  Way down the page someone named Hegelian posted a link to a site that will completely remove your video drivers.  Apparently, especially with Nvidia drivers, they are not completely removed using Add/Remove function on your computer.  Here is the link he/she posted:

http://www.3dchipset.com/utilities/nvidia/driver_removal/index.php

Anyway, if you get the utility, make sure you read the readme file and do it just like it says.  I was able to then load a 77.77 which after a few hours of testing has worked beautifully for me.  Course, you may need a different, older or newer driver as you have different video cards than I do (I have the Nvidia GeForce 6600.)

I just thought that maybe the reason Laylei's computer refuses to accept an older version is due to the fact that there were still traces of the current version left on your computer after you just used the Add/Remove function.

I also wanted to ask anyone here who may know, how do I find out what kind of power supply unit is in my computer?  I am not very knowledgable regarding computers and if it wasn't for others on this site, I wouldn't have been able to change my video drivers.  Anyway, just in case I get the "Blue Screen of Death" or crashes again, I would like to be able to find out about the power supply unit but don't have a clue where to look.

Here Simsane

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4266.0

Which version of this utility did you use?  The Driver Cleaner Professional Edition 1.5? I hate choices.....why can't anything be simple?  Thanks, Tgdrysix

Yep, the top one listed - 1.5.  And when you read the readme file it tells you to do everything in a numerical step-by-step order, on Step No. 7 it says to run Cab Cleaner, the Cab Cleaner is part of the Driver Cleaner Professional Edition 1.5.  (I read the readme first and started looking all over for a Cab Cleaner utility, not realizing that it comes with 1.5 - so I thought I'd add this to save you the time. ;))

Oh, one other thing, Step No. 3 tells you to reboot in safe mode and it even says that means to hit the F8 key during bootup, but I didn't know when to hit the key and my computer didn't say it was in safe mode (like 98 always used to say safe mode) but I did everything else just like the readme and it still worked.  (Don't laugh at me people, I have already admitted I'm an idiot when it comes to computers! Lol!)

Simlover, thanks for the link.  I read the whole topic and I'll have to ask my son or hubby sometime when I get the chance.  I have a feeling my problem was just the video drivers as my computer never actually shut down, just gave be the blue screen (with a slowly turning timer)  for a few minutes before the game would show again and play normally again for a while.  Plus, both my husband and son have built several computers (my husband has been an electronic technician all his life -- even before computers, lol) and my son seems to have inherited his fathers talents and they were the ones who got together and decided to put in this video card for me.  Also, I played the first three (Sims2, Uni and Nightlife) for 6 to 9 weeks with no problems except things like flourescent pillows, weird tracers thingies, etc. but no blue screen until I installed OFB so that leads me to believe it probably is not the PSU wattage.  But, you never know for sure, it could be that either they (hubby & son) don't know about it or that they didn't think to check. :)

Simsane...thanks for the info....off to see if I can get the drivers rolled back! Tgdrysix

I had similar problems, but it turned out to be one or the other of two non-awesome hacks I got from the other place, something to stop kicky bag and pillow fights.  No more crashes since I removed them.

mmholt, yea, it very well could be hacks that were poorly made or conflicting with other hacks.  I have had my game messed up (crashing -- but no blue screen first) from that.  Now I am very picky about which hacks I put in and where they come from.  But we all have to learn in our own way and for someone like me (basically knows nothing about computers) we sometimes must learn the hard way.  I just thought I'd pass on what worked for me this time.  But your idea is a good one if nothing else works. ;)

Well, I've had only one crash since OFB and I play for hours every day!  When my PC did crash, ir was unlike a normal sims2 crash which tends to take a while to get back to the desktop, one second everything was fine and the next I was staring at the desktop.  But I got a Windows error message, and the link to Microsoft told me it was a video driver critical error, and to follow a link to upgrade - which I did, though not without a few glitches with the install.  But afterwards not only have I had no further problems, but my game has speeded up and is generally more enjoyable.

But the main problem I had was that when I uninstalled the NVidia driver, I somehow also wiped the connection to DirectX, and when I tried to load the game I was unable to do so for that reason.  So I then got the latest version, and evejntually managed to get everything working (in the process I found an enormous amount of obsolete DirectX installs and was able to clear out at least 3 Gigs of hard drive space!)

So, if you haven't done so, I'd recommend installing the most up-to-date version of Direct X.