Civ IV fried my video card!!!

[Zydor]

It was without running the game. I do tend to get idle at times with stuff in the Sys Tray, end up having a purge every now and then, but it usually ends up creeping back in ...

Gave it a whirl, zapped the lot down to nothing but MS, ran Civ IV and still had my old mates "The Flying Geometrics" - wouldnt be a bad name for a Pop Group come to think of it ....

Many Thanks for the suggestion tho

I am always all ears to learn and try new things on any topic, not just Civ IV.

"Life's a ***** then you die" as they say

Regards
Zy

 

[Zydor]

Loaded Supreme Ruler 2010 tonight - exactly the same issues, so it really does look like I have a major PC config issue lurking. That'll keep the sawdust between my ears busy for a while .....

Regards
Zy

 

[markh]

Your computer may not be running properly after playing Civ4 because if it's causing reboots etc you may be slowly corrupting data on your drive. Also, if it's not exiting properly there may be stuff left in memory or whatever that's causing issues for the other programs.
My computer starts getting a bit flaky if I run Civ4 a few times in a row with CTDs... have to reboot every now and then. Never had to do this before Civ4.

My computer runs fine as long as I do not play CIV 4. Luckily I did not have reboots. I was just thrown back to desktop. This should not be that bad. Also other games I played after playing CIV 4 just crashed to desktop. No reboots. When I was exited from another game I got a message from Windows that this failure might be caused by overheated hardware. Since then I did not play CIV 4 again. I maybe played CIV 4 7 or 8 times. I gave up for the time being. I have to check my ventilation again, but I am quite sure that the ventilation in my PC is ok. Maybe not for this game, but for all others. I build my PCs myself and I always keep an eye on that. Upto now I did not have any problems with overheating, but I am almost sure that it is an overheating issue for me playing CIV 4. As long as the game runs it is running fine. No problems. Just after a certain period of time it starts to crash. This message from Windows and even my big tower case heating up just made me think that way. My case never got that warm running any other software.

 

[Roach]

I took a look at you dxdiag.

When you ran dxdiag was that with or without the game running?

If was without, try turning off all the that stuff you have running in the background.

Start/run/

Type MSconfig

Startup tab: disable all

Services tab: check the box marked hide all ms services.

Make sure ms-services are hidden(if you dont bad things could happen) then disable all

apply

Re-start computer and try running the game.

Just be aware when you do this you may be disabling your Firewall and Anti Virus if they are in your startup.

 

[Esjay]

Well I finally was able to get a new video card. Installed it last night and ran Civ IV for about an hour with no problems. Was scared to go any further so I exited and shut down my computer. So far so good.

 

[Neon Deon]

It was without running the game. I do tend to get idle at times with stuff in the Sys Tray, end up having a purge every now and then, but it usually ends up creeping back in ...

Gave it a whirl, zapped the lot down to nothing but MS, ran Civ IV and still had my old mates "The Flying Geometrics" - wouldnt be a bad name for a Pop Group come to think of it ....

Many Thanks for the suggestion tho

I am always all ears to learn and try new things on any topic, not just Civ IV.

"Life's a ***** then you die" as they say

Regards
Zy

Ratz!
Well Zy that is just FUBAR!

Most of the time (not all) graphic anomalies could mean your card is going bye bye or, at the least, overheated. However, it could be something really silly like a bad cable or fan.

So if you have the time, I would perform some hardware checks. Assuming you have already nuked the old video driver and re-installed it.

1) Open your case up and start up your computer. Open a 3d game and then check your video card to see if the fan is working.
2) If the fan is working, shut down the system and verify weather or not the AGP slot has a lock and that it is in the locked in position. Even if it has a lock, unlock it and pull the card out (clean the contacts if you r real ambitious) then re-seat and lock the card in. Re-start your computer and try your 3d apps. Again.
3) Still not working. Beg borrow or steal a monitor cable you know works and try that.
4) Now the hard part. Since none of the above worked borrow a video card, nuke your drivers (hopefully a radeon), load the drivers for that card and see if that works in your system.
5) If that fixes your problem, then time to get a new video card. If that fails to work, then your Viewsonic PT775 might be going belly up and now you would need to have an extra monitor to check that out.
6) I don’t have a six.)

Barring the hardware checking part you could always try under clocking your video portion of the computer to see if running it below spec will get it to work.

This works easiest when you use Omega 2675a drivers.
Turn off fast write, write combining, and Vsync. Reduce your agp port from 4x to 2x. Put all the omega driver 3D and Open Gl settings to performance. Using the Omega control settings. Change appeture size in the bios down to 32 in bios. Underclock your graphics card cpu by 10 or 15 %. Might need some extra software to do that last one.

Now, if you are rich and dont suffer fro OCD, you could just go out and buy a video card first trusting that that is the problem.

 

[Zydor]

I have already gutted it and put it all back in, cleaned, fans checked, connections sorted.

1 & 2 done that - no joy
3. Dont need to its a dual monitor setup, a 19" (P95f) & a 17" (the PT775), tried both together, individually and with separate cables
4. Easy part - have reloaded drivers already, went back to V4.12, tried the omega, no joy

Additional things - already reloaded the bios, updated the chipset, updated motherboard drivers, tried the various hardware pin settings on the motherboard, updated/reloaded USB drivers, checked for driver contention in the scanner, laser printer, ink-jetprinter, video camera, even the laptop connection which is indirectly connected via a USB setup (although that usually comes in via the house wireless LAN), checked out the 3 USB hubs in the room & the house wireless LAN - I only put that in a year ago, doubt its that.

its not heat, I regularly use the Motherboard Monitor utility programme, its been underclocked - overclocked - threatened with death by flamethrower it didnt listen

The 2D side of life is fine - goes like greased lighting, great benchmarks, so on the face of it the hardware seems ok. 3D tests are hopeless of course 1636 3DMark05 & 1-12fps). Whether it is Civ IV or something in my system is hard to pinpoint, get the same symptoms in Supreme Ruler 2010, so there is something lurking on the 3D side of life which is me not Civ IV.

re the card - I dont trust thats the problem, which is why I am now waiting for the first stable Civ IV release, only 15% of time with the PC is on games as I work at home from a home office so I am in no huge rush. I am On Site a lot (I am an IT Programme Manager) so time is limited as such to keep gutting and re-gutting the beast. I still think there is something amis in the software setup on the PC.

Didnt go that far with the Omega drivers - I'll give that a whirl, thanks for that I missed that one

Regards
Zy

 

[Mollyoko]

Civ 4 sh*e programming is the problem. Everything else works fine on my machine, hl2, bf2, etc..

and when i play civ4 with all patches, new bios, drivers and memory fixes etc.. it still fries my machine after about 20mins, tower is piping hot and just shuts down. Not f**king good.

Firaxis/2k have much to answer for.

 

[spyder77777]

Here is an update for anyone who has been following this thread. I appreciate all the responses, they have helped a lot.

eVGA finally sent my replacement video card. Although it was obviously not new, it works great and everything is back to normal. I have run Civ4 quite a bit and have not had one crash whatsoever. I've taken several bits of advice though in order to avoid another RMA'd card.

First, I took the AA down to 2x...many people with nVidia cards claim this helps considerably with stability and performance. Second, I haven't been running anything other than system monitors while running the game. I was running iTunes a few times while playing and it may have bogged my system down. I did (as noted earlier) an entire system install, including Windows and all new chipset, video, and system drivers. There may have been issues preventing Civ4 from running ideally with my previous configuration.

Despite the fact that I have had no crashes whatsoever, the game seems to be running more sluggishly now (compared to before my video card was fried). If anything, it should run much better, but I can't complain too much since I'd much rather have a stable game that runs a bit sluggishly than one running quicker with scattered crashing.

Obvoiusly, there are still tons of issues with the game and the reality is that a lot of the "fun factor" has been affected by technical issues for far too many people. That is unfortunate and I agree that Firaxis should exercise much more caution in the future. They also need to release a patch [ASAP] that fixes the majority of the issues that are blatently software related.

Good luck everyone.

 

[Zydor]

Harky's patch did wonder's for me in the end,better memory management, less work = less heat.

Unfortunately my card went bang for reasons not connected with the Civ IV saga, waiting for the new one. Meanwhile if you are also getting slow play - CTDs- long turn times - large save files - give Harkys patch a go, it has been very successful, and has had feedback on cooler cards in some cases.

Its not a fix-it-all - but its so easy to install and deinstall, its crazy not to give it a go.

Regards
Zy

 

[narsil]

Zydor and all those changing drivers should also use driver cleaner pro from here
http://www.drivercleaner.net/

not so important if ugrading drivers but IMHO essential if rolling back

you could also get atitool to scan for artifacts to see if ure gfx card ok. if getting lots artifacts u can underclock your card to see if they stop. if they dont them permanent damage to your pipes is possible
i forget the link but google will point the way no doubt

we as owners of pcs can expect a certain amount of hassles when trying a new game but this game goes above and beyond and while nothing has been proved it definetly is not doing your setup any good wotsoever. thank good not all games perform like this or its time for a console....

ps- good to hear everything ok for u now spyder, my card in hands of retailer tech guys so hope to here verdict soon. wotever happens i still not repurchasing civ4 till another official patch is out

EDIT didnt read page 4 when i wrote this LOL ...guess advice for zyder irrelevant, i leave it there case someone else find it useful

 

[Zydor]

I get large numbers of "flying geometrics" (good name for a pop group!), and afair number of white lines converging across the screen from an edge (the edge varies) into the screen centre (or thereabouts). Also combined with large triangles overlaying the whole mess, the apex of which converge on the centre of the screen as part of elongated triangles. Kind of pretty in a painful sort of way

I get exactly the same symptoms in 3DMark5 (ends up with 1636 score - yuck), the dirigible flying down the valley is a site to behold as its dive bombed by the "flying geometrics, fps then is 1 fps .... Also get it on any demo game of any make, sometimes with less intensity.

So all in all came to conclusion its time for a new one. Although I am all ears if anyone has suggestions (done the driver reload bit - omega as well including cleaning disc manually of all old driver traces prior to reload). I'll give the de-clock a whirl. Works very well on 2D, goes like lightning, using it as I type (P4, 512MB, Radeon 9800Pro 128Mb)

Regards
Zy