CD HOT - screen frozen

[kacidama]

I think a few of you know that I have had probs loading the game since having a new hard drive.
I've tried every which way and it won't get past the neighbourhood screen.
I removed all cc (literally the other night after one too many smirnoff ice and a very tired and swollen finger which pressed *Y* instead of *N* - feel free to point and laugh at this point as I accidentally overwrote the saved games and lost the backup - don't ask how )
We had spent 3 days solid downloading 000's of lovely items and *poof* all gone - well I know they were retrievable and I managed to get them all back but that isn't the problem.  (I know I'm rambling but after the week I've had and today just topped it but that's another story )
I have looked at previous similar threads but none of the solutions work

OK - I have a AMD Duron processor 1.3ghz and 512mb RAM
                   
                   ATI Radeon 9600 and updated drivers version 6.14
                   C:\30GB  Windows XP Pro installed and all programme files
                   F:\160GB My Documents only
All EP's and packs are installed and I have patched OFB and FFP.

I have tested display and sound with dxdiag and everything is ok
I have run the hack conflict and it reported 7 possibles - rpshack.package and comm-skilling.package so I don't think it is there.

I am worried that the CD gets very hot quickly - I thought at first it was the fan not working but I had it tested and the temp was within the normal range.

I tested running the game in both CD drives and the same thing happens.  SC4 is ok in either though Bodyshop freezes too

I think that is all so if anyone has any other ideas what it could be....


I miss my simmies  *sobs*

[nectere]

I would try mounting it and running it through dameon tools then.

[lindaetterlee]

nectere are you running a mounted one. I am and it seems the load time from start of game to the point that the blue screen comes up has increased with the mounted image. This is taking into account that i removed all custom content before testing load times. Does anyone with the cd's actually have this problem?

[Orbit]

It sound like your computer & computer chips are getting old.  If you reformatted your hard drive, then this could have excellerated the aging of your chips, causing them to slowly stop working.  You can tell if your computer is getting old if the OS starts running slowly, or if Sims 2 runs more slowly the more times you start it up.  If you're running on a brand new computer I can't tell you why this is happening.  As for the CD getting hot, this should be a cause for concern because your CD drive could be putting so much stress on your CD that it could cause it to break.

[nectere]

lindaetterlee:

No I havent noticed any slowdown at all. Without CC it literaly takes seconds to get to the hood selection screen. Something like 20 seconds at most I believe I recall.

[DrBeast]

Can you please define what you mean by "having problems loading the game since having a new hard drive [installed]"?
Does it load then crash, does it refuse to load, does it load painstakingly slow?

Also, can you tell us the Wattage of the computer's power supply unit?

[kacidama]

Wattage of the computer's power supply unit - 350w total output


When I had the extra hdd installed I made a program files folder on the F:\ drive but windoze created another folder on the C:\ drive for D&S.  I wanted the download files on the F:\ drive because it had a larger capacity and ended up with duplicate folders.  In my searches (and discussions with BlueSoup) I thought that the duplicated folders could be the problem so I uninstalled Sims2 completely and reinstalled on the C:\ drive so Windoze could create the D&S folders on the F:\ drive.

I started the game having moved all cc to the desktop and managed to get past the neighbourhood selection screen.  I chose PV because the other hoods aren't complete but as soon as the pop-up asking about linking uni/downtown/shopping districts appeared the screen froze, the mouse and keyboard were disabled so I had to turn off the power supply to exit.
With cc enabled I was only able to get as far as the neighbourhood selection screen.
I have tried each maxis hood and even tried the custom hood but it doesn't get past the selection screen or very soon after loading the neighbourhood.
The same thing happens in Bodyshop - and we really want to see the cc we downloaded last week!

[DrBeast]

Hmm...I'm pretty clueless right now. I'll think of it though, maybe I'll get a flash of inspiration later in the day! Do you have any other games installed you might try and see if they work?

[kacidama]

I tried SC4 and that worked ok - I might try reloading the sims to see if that works - and my daughter has Evolution GT installed which has no probs (most of her games are on her laptop)

[DrBeast]

Are all those games installed in the new drive?

[kacidama]

No.  The program files are on the C:\ drive.


While I was waiting for you to thunk, I had another go at running the sims 2 and in my impatience, I didn't replace the side cover of the CPU, and the game loaded perfectly.  I did testingcheatsenabled and got no error screen, so fook knows what it was. 

Perhaps it was your magic touch, lol.

Can you diagnose my cat from a distance too?  There is a woman on tv here who will communicate with your pet telepathically, if you send her a photo.

[DrBeast]

Hmm...now this is beginning to sound like an overheating problem...
Leaving the case open doesn't improve the air flow of course, but if there's no air flow to begin with then it's better than nothing. Maybe adding a couple of fans will help (one at the front sucking air into the case, one at the rear to push the air out).

Heh, sorry, telediagnosis is not my specialty.