BSOD with FfH 2?

[schmere]

Hi! I've been playing Civ 4 BTS for over a year now, no problems at all. Recently, I installed FfH2, and it gave me a BSOD straight away. I tried again to load the game, same problem.

OK - clearly, don't play that mod. Fine. However, now I get regular Civ (well, BTS) giving me a BSOD around 100 AD! For a few turns before the crash, I'll get flickering on the monitor, which suggests something's wrong, then - gone. I've never had that problem with Civ 4 before.

I deleted the folder for FfH2, but no help. I can't figure out what is happening to cause this problem.

BTW, my configuration is:
Intel Core2 Duo, 4 GB RAM (4 DIMMs), Win 7 32-bit

Any ideas? Thanks!

Update: After receiving a couple more BSODs, I did some more hunting for generic issues that could cause this problem. First, I looked at my Event Viewer, and noticed this error:

"The system has rebooted from a bugcheck". So, I googled this, and found the following page: http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/2565-crashing-daily-computer-has-rebooted-bugcheck.html

On here they gave two possible solutions:
1) increase voltage to MCB, FSB and RAM by 1 notch in BIOS
2) turn on hibernation

Both of these are power-related error-fixes. As number 2 was easier to do (go to the command prompt & Type the following:
powercfg -h on

I did this, then ran Civ IV BTS again. Played for a while, got some flickering of the screen, and it did eventually crash, but this time it crashed to the desktop, not a complete reset of the system. Moderate improvement. Next, I'll try #1 and see what happens.

 

[ori]

is the game running with admin rights?
is it patched?
is there an error message when it crashes, please post the whole message?

Welcome to CFC

 

[schmere]

Thanks, Ori.

I'm not running with Admin rights - never had to before; but I can certainly try that.

I've had the whole gamut of memory error messages - IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL; MEMORY_MANAGEMENT; PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGE_AREA, followed by the usual comments. Here are some of the bugchecks:

0x0000000a (0xc0802380, 0x00000000, 0x00000001, 0x82cd8e2a)
0x0000000a (0xc0384c4c, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x82cf17dc)
0x00000050 (0x6d6e0000, 0x00000000, 0x82cace9e, 0x00000008)
0x00000050 (0x0b730000, 0x00000000, 0x779cbcfe, 0x00000008)

I'm not sure how to read this - would appreciate any direction you have.

BTW, I've tried rolling back the video driver (NVidea EVGA 9800GT). Core temp is around 62C, about the same for the video card. I've also run memtest, with no errors reported. Also changed the configuration of the RAM modules.

Now, the RAM modules were bought separately, about 3 years apart. I started with 2 1GB modules, then added 2 more 1GB recently. The system seems to be recognizing them well, and I didn't have any problem until installing FfH2.

 

[ori]

those are memory errors. Try running as admin anyways. Also: have you reinstalled the game yet?
how long did you run memtest for?

 

[schmere]

Ori,

Yeah, I figured they were memory errors - now I'm trying to figure out why.

Ran as admin - the screen was less choppy (actually, not choppy at all!) but still got a BSOD after about 10 turns.

Ran memtest overnight. Zero errors.

I should mention - the base Civ 4 is v1.74; BTS is 3.19.

I'll do the reinstall now. Thanks. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[ori]

it could also be a memory error that had to do with your graphics driver - if the reinstall doesn't help: look for a newer or older one and try that.

 

[schmere]

Thanks! I'll check that out too.

BTW, I reinstalled Civ 4, then patch 1.74, then BTW 3.19. Opened up a new game, changed some settings, loaded the game and it instantly CTD'd. Nuts.

Here's the Event Viewer response to that issue:
Faulting application name: Civ4BeyondSword.exe, version: 3.1.9.0, time stamp: 0x4a0c27e6
Faulting module name: msxml3.dll, version: 8.110.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bda78
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000062ad
Faulting process id: 0x124c
Faulting application start time: 0x01cb1bb01fc755e4
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\msxml3.dll
Report Id: d2f12fc8-87a3-11df-b8de-00173171bfff

 

[schmere]

Ori,

Thanks very much for your help. Don't have it fixed yet, but it's really great to have someone to discuss this with.

So, I found a newer (June 10, 2010) driver for my graphics card (EVGA 9800GT). I loaded that, and was able to run BTS for about 10 turns or so, then had a CTD, followed about 5 seconds later by a BSOD. Here's the Event from the Application log:

Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: PCA2
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: Civ4BeyondSword.exe
P2: 3.1.9.0
P3: Sid Meier's Civilization 4 : Beyond The Sword
P4: Sid Meier's Civilization 4 : Beyond The Sword
P5: Firaxis Games
P6: 200
P7: -1
P8:
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\Rick\AppData\Local\Temp\{110f94dd-6458-4edc-b608-7810b59976fc}\appcompat.txt
C:\Users\Rick\AppData\Local\Temp\Tab531E.tmp

These files may be available here:


Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: cf1f0c78-87c9-11df-b8d7-00173171bfff
Report Status: 0

It's all Greek to me; any ideas?

 

[ori]

PCA2 apparently refers to compatibility problems and comes up often when a program that needs admin rights doesn't have them. Are you running this with admin rights? Was this the only error created by the crash?

 

[schmere]

Ori,

I ran with admin rights (to be specific, I set the properties for the program to "Run with Admin rights" then ran it, rather than using the context menu approach).

That's the only application error. After reboot, the following Admin event was posted:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000001a (0x00041790, 0xc0402170, 0x0000ffff, 0x00000000). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 070410-16801-01.

I didn't attach the MEMORY.DMP because the file is 332MB. I've never checked out that file before, but that seems really, really big.

 

[ori]

did it say what file caused the bugcheck?
this is certainly a memory problem.
there is a post here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com...e/thread/d2eb62e3-46f7-4d94-8ff7-db0543855b56
that explains how to make a small memory dump instead of the insanely large one, try posting that.
also, this thread might be helpful: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/46318-stop-0x0000001a-memory_management-bsod.html

 

[schmere]

Ori,

I removed my new RAM, and was able to progress further (good) but had lots of visual frapping, followed by the BSOD. I've also been getting CTDs from other graphics-intensive programs. I think maybe either my power is low or something else is out of whack. Thanks for those two links - they certainly gave me a lot to think about.

I think I'll close this now; I'll need to wait a bit & do some upgrades on the computer. Thanks so much for all your help.