Computer restarts all the time

[velkan919]

Hi!

I've bought civ4 and the warlords expansion and everything went ok with the installation, but now my computer restarts all the time in the exact same part everytime (while opening the city screen).
It also happens in the tutorial, in the expansion, and even in the the civ4 demo!
It just restarts like if i had pushed the reset button, no error message before, during or after... I've only found this:

[Jan 02, 2009 - 03:31:49] Messages while processing 'Resource/Themes/Civ4.thm'

Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:401, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_Italic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:402, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_BoldItalic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:408, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Window.thm', Ln:3048, Col:9) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found


Help?

 

[ori]

Welcome to CFC

please open the windows event manager and look for errors there. Also just to make sure - the computer turns off and restarts and it is not just a crash to desktop, right?

 

[velkan919]

Yes, it turns off and restarts, no CTD. In the events manager, there is an error log in "System" at the exact time of one of the game reboots:
(translated from portuguese) "Failed loading the following drivers to initiate start-up or system start: i8042prt"
Origin: Service Control Manager / Category: none

PS- The only errors i have logged must be from game reboots, i just checked the dates and time.

 

[ori]

this error is a driver error for certain keyboards - weird, I am not sure it should be the cause of a shutdown.

set windows to not automatically restart:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/russel_02may13.mspx

then cause a crash it should then give you a blue screen with more details on the crash (and then you'll have to manually restart). Maybe that gives more information...

 

[velkan919]

Deactivated the automatic restart and caused a crash, but no BSOD apeared, it just restartet like usual...

I'm trying to fix it by doing this:
http://ca4c9cda.linkbucks.com/

Tried those solutions but it didn't solve anything, still crashes randomly, but only in Civ4! Not in any other game.

 

[velkan919]

OK, I solved the i8042prt error (I did both those solutions and it worked), it doesn't appear anymore when the computer restarts. The problem is that it continues to reboot, i solved the error but didn't solve the problem with Civ4.

I can play many turns in a normal game without rebooting (it does, eventually), but in the tutorial, it always reboots randomly, i have never been able to finish a tutorial game... Any idea what this might be?

 

[ori]

this sounds like a component overheating then - is this a pc or a laptop?

 

[J-man]

Does it also happen with other games? Or only Civ 4?
Perhaps this is the result of a corrupt hardware driver?

 

[velkan919]

Its a PC. I don't think so, the fan is almost new, the graphics also, 8600 GTS with pipe heat cooling.
Besides, i play Crysis and Far Cry 2 at 1280 x 1024, with High Settings without any problems whatsoever. The only game that is giving me problems is Civ4, rebooting like this...

 

[oynaz]

Civ4 is, due to some abysmal programming, very adept at heating up graphics componets. Still, I do not think overheating is the culprit here.

Try a Memtest86 run.

 

[velkan919]

A friend of mine lend me Civ4: Colonization (he has a lesser pc and never had any trouble with Civ4s), and the game works! No reboots, no errors, perfect. Maybe because it's a stand-alone expansion... But why doesn't Civ4 and Warlords work?

Downloaded memtest86 and burnt the image, now what "test" am i supposed to run? (never used this before)

 

[ori]

you should be able to boot from it and then choose memory testing (or similar - the version differ a bit there) - you would want to let it run overnight...