Computer restarts while playing Sims--HELP!

[Emma]

LOL! I thought I was the only person who played Theme Hospital

[witch]

Hi, my name is witch and I play Theme Hospital.

Ha ha, I just pulled it out the other week - have never clocked it, keep getting stuck around 6, 7, 8 somewhere. Takes me too long, then I can never build up enough reputation. And that's with money cheats too. 

[J. M. Pescado]

Now I have to get this game, just so I can make fun of you and your lack of awesomeness.

[witch]

You'll be coding a hack to limit the vomiting before you're many levels in I reckon. 

[Ness]

Theme hospital is great!  I should drag it out again some time...

Only hassle is that it's way too easy to finish all the levels, and then there's nothing to do. 

[witch]

Only hassle is that it's way too easy to finish all the levels...

Well a great fat raspberry to you!

I spent 3 evenings some weeks ago trying to get past one particular level before I gave up. Maybe it's a bug, yes, that must be what it is, I'll find a patch and then I will win.  Mwahahaha

I love the humour of the game, particularly the outraged announcement over the tannoy, 'the hospital administrator is cheating, the hospital administrator is cheating!'

[Ness]

hehe...  there is a patch, from memory!  I never knew any of the cheat codes, so I've never heard that particular announcement.

I just loved all the diseases...  bloated head, the squits...  dammit!  Can't remember the others, I'm gonna have to play it now, when I return from the horror that is Christmas shopping!

[witch]

The floppy tongue one that has to be cut off, yeah I can't remember offhand the others but they're all quite funny. I might have to play again over the holidays now. It holds up well for an old game I thought, still got good strategy and not too buggy - despite what I said before.

Edit: Slack tongue!

[Ness]

I liked the ones that came in dressed as Elvis and needed to see the psychiatrist!  King syndrome?

[Emma]

Hairyitis was my favourite Aww I gotta go play it now!

[aimlesscoyote]

LOL you guys are crazy.   I've gotta find this Hospital game just to see what you're talking about!


Anyway, I know I'm coming in a bit late coming in on this conversation, but I wanted to add my two cents.  For months I had a very similar problem with Windows restarting during Sims.  I went around and around with tech support trying to figure out wtf was going on.

As it turned out, part of the problem was an HP issue with the BIOS, for which there's now a patch on the HP site.

The other issue was the graphics card.  I too have an ATI (Radeon Xpress 200, if you're curious) and apparently there was a conflict with the display adapter driver (?) and Direct X 9.  (Forgive my uncertainty; I'm not a technowizard.)

Anyway, the outcome of the story was this: ATI told me to update my drivers, and HP told me to update my BIOS.  You might want to do the same, and check for updates to your drivers, BIOS, etc.  After I did that, my computer stopped exploding.



...Maybe now would be a good time to knock on wood?

[jrd]

Theme Hospital was good. Still got it on my craptop. I liked Bullfrog's other games too... Theme Park, and Dungeon Keeper I and II.

[bluecatvon]

hi i'm back!

eh...i should be happy to get my hubby (computer) back (yes i'm married to my computer, his name is Leo :p) but what a heck of money i used for his surgery! it turned out that my chipset was burnt. oh joy. the stupid technician that i bought Leo from was on crack while building my computer. this new technician said the old one mixed everything up. even the side of the casing was assemblied wrong. go figure. something bout liquid oozing out of my chipsets, so...i bought a new motherboard. and a new processor. and a new ram. oh and a new graphic card. oh a new sata drive too. joy. the old ones cannot support this new motherboard. and i'm not planning to buy an obselete motherboard just to cater to the all those parts.

so my lesson is: don't buy whatever crap the shop assistants try to sell you.

talking bout hospital, hehe, it's my favorite game after Sims 2! haha, i can win through easily too. i love simulation games!

hey witch! how come i never heard that announcement too?

[witch]

I guess you never cheated?
There are many cheats for the game, and when these are applied the receptionist states over PA "The hospital administrator is cheating!" or "Warning! A cheat is running the hospital!" repeatedly and shrilly.

Hey - do you not have any insurance or fair trading act or something in your country that applies to your first wrongly-assembled computer?

ETA: Damn, seeing as everyone else found it so easy, I'll have to go back and try that level again!

[blubug]

My computer came back from the shop (after 3 months, as I mentioned before) and the crackheads didn't screw the processor fan in correctly, apparently it was hanging off. The pc kept shutting down in the time of a few hours, and back then I was a bit uneducated and scared to open it up and check. But  I checked from the BIOS and saw the processor was overheating (A LOT) so I took it back and insisted they take another look, as I had paid a lot of money.

The guy asked me if I studied computer engineering afterwards, he said 'how did you know, we screwed the fan in all wrong, hehehe, it's a good thing you noticed and brought it back in before it melted'. The nerve of that guy. I just said it's not that hard to figure out, you should've seen it when you kept it in for an extra week for 'extensive checking'.

[ZiggyDoodle]

I cannot understand a three-month wait - that's unconscionable.  Our local computer shop has a 24-hour turnover.

As to the crappy work, I hope you demanded to meet with the owner/manager to discuss the incompetence of the staff.  I would make a lot of noise over that.

[blubug]

I did speak to the manager and said I would never bring anything there if it was the last shop in the world, even their guarantee isn't worth it. I didn't yell (I was pretty shy girl) but I wrote a letter of my complaint to a big newspaper's customer complaints column with copies of the pc's first entering-slip (with date) and the bill and received-dated-slip. (In Turkey, it's pretty hard to get things done quickly, but nothing should take so long!)

I also told everyone I know never to go there, and most of the people at work saw my frustration as I called every day to check if it was done yet. If I was the person I am now, I'd have bitten their heads off the first week!

They said it took long because the motherboard had to be changed and they had to send it to the company for testing (in the same city). I know that company has a three day turnover, and I was on the phone to them too, every two days. But the repair shop (so-called computer hospital) was just too lazy to send them in. And if I took the pc out before they did anything, I'd have to pay a $75 detection fee. (and I didn't know of anywhere else I could get it fixed, the guy who supplied me with the pc parts and set it up went to South America-somewhere and we lost contact, so I learned everything the HARD way). Now I can do almost anything mechanic, I even fixed my radio! And light fittings! And my video card! And chain saw! Haha
 

[bluecatvon]

wow blubug, your experience is worse than mine. i can't possibly imagine being apart from my computer for 3 months! i will never go back to that shop again, and have told everyone not to go there as well. lesson learnt!

witch, i don't know about any insurances or policies here. never heard anyone else talk about it. and thanks for the link! i never knew there is an award for selling the most drinks!

[witch]

Sorry, I meant something like our Consumers Guarantees Act, where goods have to be fit for the purpose and true to the ads and you have a right of return within 14 days if these conditions aren't met etc etc etc Like, you would have a case about faulty assembly/goods here in NZ, as long as it wasn't too long after the original purchase. I don't know the Act well, I just know it's some protection for consumers. We also have a small claims court for civil issues under $5,000

[bluecatvon]

Well i don't know about that. Plus it was months after my computer started breaking down. I'll have to be wiser in my future choices, I guess.

I can play the game now, and having a lot of fun! though my graphics still boggles me. I remember reading in a thread somewhere that his/her pool went white in the neighbourhood screen after she played the house. Other houses she hadn't play were still blue. Now I have the same problem. Plus whenever my sims move, the background keeps on breaking up. Also I keep seeing the swimming pool right thru the wall, which wasn't suppose to happen. Tried installing the latest driver but it says it doesn't support my current windows XP Pro SP2 but an older version. It's still playable, so it's just a minor problem. i'll try to find older drivers that work.

i never noticed how pretty the pool is haha. i used to see it in blue, with no light effects on it.

[witch]

When I had an nvidia card, I had to use drivers around 78? I think it was. They worked OK. Don't know about old Radeon drivers, I use the current ones and it's fine.

Glad you have a new PC!

[bluecatvon]

haha, haven't found a suitable driver yet. but thanks all!