game causes my PC to reboot

[jensen5007]

I am a HUGE fan of the civ games. I just got Civ 4 about 3 weeks ago and am having big problems with it. One day i can play for how ever long i wish and its fine. The next i can play for a few min. and the game resets my pc. I have called the tech support several times and still they cant help. can anyone out there help me??????????? PLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks

 

[Zanmato]

Try checking the 'Event Viewer' in the Windows Admin folder and see if it is recording the error that is causing the reboots. It might give you an idea of where to start looking. A couple of things that spring to mind as possible causes are a faulty RAM chip, overheating, inadequate power supply and of course, buggy game code.

 

[Brian Boru]

What are your PC specs, esp CPU, graphics, PSU, RAM and mobo?

Zanmato identified some likely culprits. Easy way to test for overheating is to remove the case of your PC. If problem stops, then it's likely heat. Clean the ventilation ducts and fans as a first step.

If you're comfy rooting around inside your PC, disconnect and reconnect all your cables and power connections and reseat your RAM and cards. This probably won't help, as I assume the PC is not behaving erratically with any other program? However, I guess Civ stresses the CPU and graphics, so maybe...

Another possibility is some other program running in the background. Can you think of anything you had going on the bad days, but not on the good? Do the crashes happen around the same time of day--maybe some scheduled update or scan interrupts? Try turning off all other programs, especially anti-virus and any monitoring utilities, before playing.

 

[jensen5007]

Ok first to Zanmato i looked in the 'Event Viewer and it does show that i had a problem when it happens but i don’t know what to look at or even for when it comes to the computer. All the #'s they tell me don’t mean nothing to me. lol 2nd my ram and my graphics card is new just got them a week before I got the game. They could be faulty for all I know but how can I find out? as far as over heating I have tried to play with the cover off and it still reset that was my first thought!

Now as far as Mike Feury my specs are -GRAPHICS- NVIDIA Geforce 5700LE Graphics card with a total mem of 256mb -RAM- 384mb -and as far as the esp CPU, PSU, and mobo I have no clue what u mean or what they are. i know a little computer lingo but not much. if one of those is processor then i have an ADM Athlon(tm) XP 2400+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.0GHz
as far as another program running in the background no that’s not it ether. the tech support had me turn all that sh** off and restart the computer and try again but still.......RESET! I love this game and i really don’t want to use it as a Frisbee

Thanks

 

[jensen5007]

If this works the way I think?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Here is my DXDIAG if that will help.

 

[Zanmato]

You can test the RAM with 'Memtest86', google for it and you should be able to find it. It's free and runs off a floppy at bootup.
Your memory spec is pretty low, 1Gb is really needed for Civ4. But you could up the pagefile with no problem. With your machine I would up to around 1.5Gb-2Gb to start with then see how it goes with that setting.

If you're unsure how to do this, go to the 'System' control panel, Advanced tab, Performance options. The bottom half of this window deals with the VM pagefile, from there just click the 'Change' button and enter the numbers needed, something like '1536' for both boxes. It helps to keep the VM to a static size. This is with Win2k but I think it would be more or less the same for XP.

 

[jensen5007]

i have changed the pageing file but wont be able to play till tonight. and i will try the memtest86 when i get a floppy.

Thanks

 

[jensen5007]

Well Thank you both for your input!!! I did a little research today and found that my problem is not in lack of RAM, or in faulty hardware BUT in lack of power!! My PSU is only 250 w. I guess my computer just couldn’t give my graphics card the power that it needed and stay running at the same time. So if you see any other people that are having problems like this one pass on the PSU spec of 350 w or better.

Thanks Again for your input

 

[jensen5007]

Well everyone as far as my post about 350w psu stopin the reboots……. I was wrong!! I tried to play a huge map last night and what do u know it crashed about 10 min later. I guess I will just have to wait for tech support to fix this problem. I just wish the makers of this game wouldn’t have rushed out the game and made sure the damn thing would work properly on all set ups!

 

[jensen5007]

I got a gig of ram today and put it in but that still didnt help. still had a crash. I wish i could get this thing to work

 

[auldian]

Some things to consider doing that may help (I had the rebooting issue initially as well):

• Completely Uninstall the game removing any folders from the three trees CIV creates manually if needed. There are other posts in this forum about them.
• Reinstall CIV.
• Patch the game to 1.52.
• Delete all of the game's internal cache in the hidden folder "C:\Documents and Settings\<your logon>\Application Data\My Games\CivIV\cache" by deleting the entire contents of \cache, if any. This is NOT the same "My Games" you see in "My Documents".
• Verify your graphic card's options are all at "normal" or "recommended". Do nothing fancy there for CIV.
• Reset the computer's configuration data (sometimes called the ESCD) in the BIOS to reinforce the RAM changes to windows. Tapping F12 or DEL during bootup (the "beeping" period) should open the BIOS. Others may remember Compaqs better than I; please correct me if needed. While you're in there, verify your AGP aperture is 64 or 128.
• Uninstall programs you no longer use to free disk space. Do this from the Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.
• Double-click the Event Viewer errors and there is a [button] to copy-to-clipboard. Post a "paste" of the most recent 1 or 3 here. My reboots did NOT produce an event error.
• Update to the February 2006 version of DirectX 9.0c. There's a web link buried at www.microsoft.com you may need to search for.
• Reinstall your audio, video, and chipset drivers once more. Note your chipset will likely NOT require the most recent VIA drivers, but rather the older 4.43v series. Follow all procedures found in their respective readme.txt files.
• In "My Computer" right-click the C: and D: partitions, choose properties, perform [Disk Cleanup] on the general tab. Do [Error Checking] with both options checked from the [Tools] tab (will require a reboot and much time).
• Run the [Defragment now] from that same [Tools] tab used for [Error Checking].
• Lastly, if you've adopted a state religion, pray

 

[DJ2003]

I have a similar problem, but my computer doesn't reboot...it just shuts off completely like the power went out or something. I've tried everything you guys have said and it still does it at random times during a game. It didn't happen on my other computer though. So I'm thinking this game is incompatible with some hardware possibly. I've e-mailed tech support, but they didn't really help me. I wish they would resolve this issue because it's impossible for me to play now!

 

[jensen5007]

Reinstall your audio, video, and chipset drivers once more. Note your chipset will likely NOT require the most recent VIA drivers, but rather the older 4.43v series. Follow all procedures found in their respective readme.txt files

OK what the heck is a chipset and how can i update it?? i dont know much about the inside of the pc. But both my audio and Video are up to date. I seen in other posts about the VIA chip set but never seen how or where to go to update it. So alittle more on that would help plz.
thankz

 

[auldian]

OK what the heck is a chipset and how can i update it?? i dont know much about the inside of the pc. But both my audio and Video are up to date. I seen in other posts about the VIA chip set but never seen how or where to go to update it. So alittle more on that would help plz.
thankz

The VIA pages are HERE. I've seen it recommended that audio/video be reinstalled after the chipset's updated; that's the reason I suggested them as well. Your mileage may vary.
Read up on the VIA Arena site. They're pretty simple to update ... usually
Good luck.

 

[Zanmato]

I have a similar problem, but my computer doesn't reboot...it just shuts off completely like the power went out or something. I've tried everything you guys have said and it still does it at random times during a game. It didn't happen on my other computer though. So I'm thinking this game is incompatible with some hardware possibly. I've e-mailed tech support, but they didn't really help me. I wish they would resolve this issue because it's impossible for me to play now!

If it's shutting off completely, I would say that the CPU or video card is overheating. Check the temps if you can while playing Civ4.

While you're in there, verify your AGP aperture is 64 or 128.

Great suggestions so far. Looking at your DxDiag, jensen. It says AGP status disabled so is your video card PCI??

 

[jensen5007]

I dont know what "PCI" is. PLZ explain.
also here is the new DXDiag with my new ram set so check it over see if u see anything wrong plz. thanks

 

[Underseer]

[...]

Zanmato identified some likely culprits. Easy way to test for overheating is to remove the case of your PC.

[...]

According to tests I've seen at hardware sites, removing the cover doesn't always lower the temperature. Sometimes it does, but sometimes removing the cover can actually raise the temperature of your CPU and/or video accelerator.

 

[DJ2003]

I know my computer can't possibly be overheating since I also play Battlefield 2 which I would say requires even more cpu/video processing power and my computer is fine for hours with it going. Play Civ4 for 10 minutes or some other random time and the computer shuts off. I will try the AGP aperture though. I have a Radeon 9800 128MB and I think my agp aperture is set to 256. My CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+, MSI motherboard, 1GB of Dual Channel memory. Power supply is 450W CoolMax. I'm baffled.

 

[auldian]

I'm baffled.

Don't be. It's also flaky software that just seems to run like poo on a few really nice computers.
That said ... the clean reinstalls of the game+patch after updating all drivers, DirectX, performing disk maintenance and such seem to help on good boxes in a lot of cases. My game plays. Most of the time. I pan across the screen in a racing blimp yearning for the slick scrolling I'm fond of. Your mileage may vary.
Good luck all. Mansa built some cities to "gift" to me. *closes browser and launches game once more*

 

[Zanmato]

also here is the new DXDiag with my new ram set so check it over see if u see anything wrong plz. thanks

Everything looks ok to me. It should work but for some reason or other it's not. I'm out of ideas really, sorry...