My Game is Bork, but I'm pretty sure it's not my fault.

[Gastfyr]

I have been so frustrated with the Sims 2 lately.  I can't even play because it takes about 5-10 mins to even load up the stupid game (that's just to the neighbourhood selection screen btw) and then when I finally manage to get into a lot, I can play for maybe 5 mins and then one of 4 things happen:
1. I get "The application has crashed.  The application will now terminate"
2. The game just "blinks" out of existance sending me back to the desktop with no popup or anything, just the game closing itself for no apparent reason.
3. I get the Blue Screen of Death and have to restart my entire computer
4. My computer simply restarts itself, skipping the BSD entirely.

Today I was at my wits end, so I decided to try to see if CC was the problem, even though I was pretty sure it wasn't.  I have been having this problem forever, it just gets worse sometimes.  So I was pretty sure none of the hacks were at fault, but maybe some really old clothing or hair mesh was?  So I took my entire Downloads folder and put it on the desktop, then put a new empty downloads folder where it used to be and moved only the 100% Awesome AL approved hacks (including the newest version of AL fixes) into that folder.  So I had no custom hair/clothes/objects or anything.  Not even simple recolurs of Maxis stuff.

I started up the game.  Timed it, btw; 5 mins from clicking "play" on the launcher until it finally got to "OMG u haz Hax in Ur Game!!11" (you know the pop-up I mean; the one that asks if I'm 100% sure I want to allow this CC to be enabled and all that).  I went into a lot I was building, had to chagelotzoning to res from apt, exited the lot and didn't even get to go back in because #2 happend (see above).

Now, obviously, I am not awesome, so I could be wrong, but from this test I concluded that none of my CC is at fault since the only CC in my game were Awesomeware and the stupid game is still bork.

Can anyone help me or at least point me in the right direction?

ETA: Here are my computer's specs

It has 2 gigs of RAM.
AMD Athlon XP 2200 processor
Nvidia GeForce 7600 ST video card
1 80 gig and 1 250 gig harddrives
eta (again): I'm using Window's XP Service Pack 3

[SJActress]

It sounds to me like your game isn't the problem, but your computer trying to handle the game IS.

I'm not awesome, so I can't tell you WHICH part of your computer...

Could we maybe get some specs?   Anyone who could help you here will certainly need them.

ETA:  If I'm not mistaken, the minimum specs were raised with AL.

[Gastfyr]

ETA:  If I'm not mistaken, the minimum specs were raised with AL.

That would make sense; it's been so much worse since installin AL.

My husband is the computer geek; I really know very little about computers.
This is what he says:

It has 2 gigs of RAM.
AMD Athlon XP 2200 processor
Nvidia GeForce 7600 ST video card
1 80 gig and 1 250 gig harddrives

That's all he says.  If I need to give more info; I'll have to pry it out of him since even getting that much was difficult.   

[vecki]

NVIDIA = BSOD.  That's one thing.  I also hear tales about Win XP SP3 having problems?  But I don't think I ever had SP3 so I can't confirm.  I shall search.

ETA - general discussion of SP3 here but no mention of Sims problems.

Something that might be more likely here.

[Annan]

Is this not the nVidia crasch bug, then?

Just guessing, but seeing as the game crashes, and you have an nVidia card...

Next time you get the Blue Screen of Death, make sure to note down the error message. It might tell you what is wrong, or at least what your computer was doing before it died. Remember to turn off auto-restart (ask hubbs for help or google how, I don't know it by heart) so you actually have a chance at reading the BSoD.

[Zazazu]

To stop the automatic restart, do this.

Start---Control Panel---System
Advanced Tab
Under "Startup and Recovery" click Settings
Last checkbox, uncheck "Automatically restart"

[Solowren]

Could it be an overheating issue? I'm no expert, but I assume it's worth considering.

[Gastfyr]

To stop the automatic restart, do this.

Start---Control Panel---System
Advanced Tab
Under "Startup and Recovery" click Settings
Last checkbox, uncheck "Automatically restart"

Ok, did that.  Thanks for the step-by-step.

I hadn't heard of the nVidia crash bug.  Apparently neither had my husband.   

I suppose it could be overheating.  We had problems during the summer with both computers (my husband's and mine) overheating quite regularly (we don't have air conditioning in our apartment).  Since it's been fall, though, I guess I wasn't thinking of that.  Not sure how to solve it if it is; in the summer, we just turned the computers off during the hottest parts of the day and hoped for the best when we did use them.

[vecki]

Open the cases up and blow out any dust.  Dust caused some crashing problems I had a while back because it meant the fan couldn't work properly - not quite the same as yours though.

Here's info on the NVIDIA crash bug: http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:nVidia_Blue_Screen_Issue

[dragoness]

Generally if it's an overheating problem, you won't get the "application will now terminate" or the random vanishing of programs in use, only the BSOD or shutdown depending on your motherboard. (I live in the desert, I've been through overheating issues on a wide variety of systems at this point.) That suggests to me that either a) it's not overheating or b) you have multiple issues going on. But a can of air and a thorough dusting is an easy fix and a good thing to do anyway.

That said...

After dusting, things I would check: (Or get your husband to check, if you don't know how and he's the resident tech)

1. Make sure your memory and video card are seated properly. It's an easy fix, and if either of those are ever so vaguely out of their slot, it causes wierdness.
2. Make sure your video drivers are up to date.
3. Run a memory test to check for bad sectors. If part of your memory is bad, the system will run with no indication of a problem until it tries to write to that bit of memory, then BOOM, BSOD. Then it'll restart quite happily and leave you scratching your head.

It's weird, because BSOD/Shutdown/Reboot behavior is usually hardware based, but phantom disappearing applications? That I'm less sure of but it sounds more like software issues. Which if it was me and my luck, I would immediately say there's more than one problem here. 

Now to go check out this "nVidia crashing bug" thing, as I have an nVidia card and have never had an issue with crashes... hmm...

[HomeschooledByTards]

Is your card still listed as being supported?

My old video card was an ATI 7500 series card. It worked great for the base game and University. However, when they released Nightlife they dropped support for the 7500 series. It took me a while to figure out what exactly the problem was too. 

[bekka]

I had a similar problem several EPs back and it was my power supply.  Make sure it's sufficient to run everything you have.  Could be something worth checking anyway.

[trlaavh]

Or the problem could be strictly related to game stoop1dn3ss. No, really:

worker dude 1: *making discs* I'm Bored! *whines and pouts*
worker dude 2: Heh heh! Start borking disceses! Then we can reads about its on teh internet!
worker dude 1: YAYz! Dats teh Goodest idea! *Writes random code about a flying purple hamster onto the AL game that you happened to get*


Seriously, would anyone be surprised???
I had a Sims 1 Complete edition disc with a that-disc-only glitch where everything could burn. By everything I mean walls, wallpaper, flooring, windows, ceiling lights, and already-burned-ash.

[Yecats]

Trlaavh: All you need now is the fire-breathing toddler!

I only get a BSOD while using bitlord.  Bittorrent and Limewire freeze my system to a standstill.
The Sims on the other hand, works fine.

For safety, I suggest getting an external HDD that is equal or greater than the space of your current HDD system.  Do regular backups onto the external so that if your computer DOES die in a spectacular way, you still have your backups.  Save all your iso's and no-cd cracks onto it in case something happens. 

Also, in event of fire, external portables are easier to grab than the whole box.

[Zazazu]

In the event of fire, the last thing you are going to be worrying about is your computer. Trust me.

[trlaavh]

Haha, yeah, except for that I meant that the walls and stuff of my sims' homes could burn. Not mine! Gah, that would SUCK!!! lolz.

They left they're computers, and just screamed at the flames.

[Zazazu]

Haha, yeah, except for that I meant that the walls and stuff of my sims' homes could burn. Not mine! Gah, that would SUCK!!! lolz.

They left they're computers, and just screamed at the flames.

And I was responding to Yecats, not you.

[Gastfyr]

Thanks everyone for your advice.  So far, my husband and are are pretty sure it's not the nVidia crasch bug, since that apparently goes to an empty bule screen, but my BSOD always has writing on it.  We updated our drivers anyway.

We also did a full defrag of both harddrives and then ran a test for bad memory sectors.  That memory test took all day and all night because it kept resarting once it was finnished.  Eventually, we just exited out of it, because it was just going on and on forever with no end in sight.  Not sure what it means, but it had found over 700 errors when we finally stopped it.   

As hilarious as that post about random disk borkeness is, I'm not sure if that could really be my problem.  My husband downloaded the cracked version of Sims2 and all EPs/Sps, so if we have a randomly borken version, then so does everyone else who downloaded that same cracked version, right?

Anyway, I was just running the Sims 2 and was in CAS.  Got a BSOD, and what it said was total gibberish to me, but maybe it means something to some of you?  After the same speell it always says about restarting your computer and safe mode and stuff, it said this:

*** Stop: 0x0000008E, 0x80505902, 0xBA730C88, 0X00000000

That's the only part of the BSOD that ever changes, so yeah.  Didn't mean anything to me or my husband.

[witch]

Try googling just the string of numbers, or even just the middle two groups, or one of those at at time. Often this will lead to a Microsoft knowledge article or other useful internet links. These are codes that mean something and you can search them.

PS I don't like the look of all the disk errors, sometimes the things have a few bad sectors and it stays that way for ages, then they suddenly start cascading throughout your hard drive. If I were you, I would be devoting my day to making sure you have a backup of all your essential data onto an external hard drive or DVD or whatever. Especially drivers.

PPS On re-reading your post, I'm not sure whether you are referring to a disk scan - for hard drives, or a memory test - for RAM. If it was the disk scan for hard drives, then what I said above applies. Backups are always a good strategy anyway, when a machine is playing up, it's saved my butt on more than one occasion.

Thanks everyone for your advice.  So far, my husband and are are pretty sure it's not the nVidia crasch bug, since that apparently goes to an empty bule screen, but my BSOD always has writing on it.  We updated our drivers anyway.

My NVidia crashes did not go to an empty screen. I used to get errors like yours with the hex numbers. Often they had dx (I think it was dx, it was a while ago) somewhere which usually indicates video issues. Just upgrading the driver isn't always the answer to NVidia problems either, sometimes you have to go back a driver or two to find one that works.

[snowbawl]

I googled because I am bored.  Stop: 0x0000008E errors are most likely RAM-related.  If you were receiving umptimillion errors while doing a memory check...then...yeah.  But go ahead and google for yourself, there are many hits, and many different causes/solutions; research to find which best suits your situation.  Oh, and I would definitely heed witch's advice.

[witch]

Yeah, memory test for RAM should throw no errors at all. Have you recently added to your RAM, or replaced a stick or changed the config in any way?

Usually I run a memtest for 24 hours and expect no errors if the RAM is OK.

[trlaavh]

Haha, yeah, except for that I meant that the walls and stuff of my sims' homes could burn. Not mine! Gah, that would SUCK!!! lolz.

They left they're computers, and just screamed at the flames.

And I was responding to Yecats, not you.

I know. I was responding to both, and applying my situation to Gastfyr's, and stating how much better my situation had been. 

[Skadi]

Also AMD + SP3 = evil. Can you roll your windows back to SP2 at all?

[Gastfyr]

Sorry for the confusion.  It was a test of RAM, not the hardrive that came up with 700+ errors.

My husband looked up that error message as you suggested and found some forum posts where someone suggested a program called RegCure, so he decided to try that.  It came up with over 1000 errors in the registry when he ran that program, and it said it fixed those errors too.  Anyway, it didn't fix my problem, or at least didn't fix all the problems, sicne I just loaded up the Sims 2 and tried to do a little building (I am still working on the same freaking apt lot, since I never can get it done before some crash or other inturupts).  I was actually thinking, "Wow, this seems to be letting me actually do stuff and it hasn't crashed yet," when I got a "The aplication has crashed..." 

So anyway, my husband thinks we need to buy more ram.  He seems to think more ram might fix the problem entirely.  Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, since I don't think it's possible to have "too much" RAM.  lol

The weird thing is he has the exact same Sims 2 game (exact copy of the same CDs) on his computer and it never crashes.  I mean, maybe once in a blue moon, but nothing either of us remembers.  He has different computer specs, of course, but the same amount of RAM.

[witch]

You can't just willy-nilly buy RAM. One of the reasons I asked if you'd changed your RAM configuration is because you can have mismatched RAM. Different speeds, types between RAM sticks can conflict. I suggest you take your current RAM into the shop and tell them what your motherboard is, before you purchase any more RAM. Although this is risky as a lot of salespeople don't have any idea.

In fact, you could look up the specs online for your make and model of motherboard, see what RAM it takes and how much RAM it can handle. Better to go armed with the knowledge yourselves.

RAM can also go bad, you might have to throw away your current RAM.