Game hangs system even on completely fresh install

[ToonGeneral]

Hi guys,

I had Civ4 pre-ordered for it's UK release date and was awaiting it soooo eargerly, so it's been devastating to find the game completely unplayable on my machine (See bottom of post for specs)

Basically somewhere in the region of every 20-40mins the entire system will just hang, no mouse or keyboard control, and the picture freezes. The only way to get control back is to reboot the machine.

So I set about trying to track down the problem. At first there seemed to be no discernable pattern, so I started with my GPU, I put several thermometers everywhere thinking maybe it was getting too hot and cutting out (happened to me before) While Civ4 does push my card extremely hard and it can get up to 60C, it would drop out at 40, 50, or 60 degrees so it wasnt that.

It was about here I noticed that before every dropout a HDD would spin up and the IDE light comes on full... and never goes off again. A few seconds later, the system hangs. Ok so it's got to be an IDE access issue, surely?

Next I turned to my PSU, cos my system runs 4x200GB HDDS and one 120GB(with the OS on). Although there were some slightly more extreme voltage fluctuations there was no pattern with the dropouts, but I took all but 2 drives offline anyway and the probelm persisted. Not that then.

So I created a fresh partition and reinstalled the game there on it's own, still the same issues, so it can't have been the HDD the game was installed on. Finally running out of things to try I removed my main OS HDD as well, leaving one drive which has an empty partition of 45GB on it and I installed a fresh copy of XP on it. Without a SP2 disc that takes a while. Anyway, once it was done I was confident the game would run, we're talking a completly fresh XP install on my most basic hardware, Mobo, Gfx and one HDD. I only installed Mobo drivers, Gfx drivers, and mouse and keyboard drivers, and of course all the updates.

I fire the game up, it doesnt even get past the world building screen this time. This is ABSOLUTELY RIDCULOUS.

So to summise;
I have tried removing everything that could be eating power.
I have tried running all 5 case fans to keep the GPU temp down to acceptable levels
I have tried BOTH of my DVD writers
I have tried running with just one HDD, i have tried running the OS on two different physical discs, and the same with the game itself.

Put quite simply, Civ IV will not run on my basic hardware set up and with an entirely fresh XP install. WTH is that about Firaxis??

I have been playing Civ since the original, I LOVE it, more than anyother game, ever, period. It's because of that that i've gone to such lengths trying to get it stable, and why I am prepared to stick by it and wait for a patch, but my patience is wearing thin.

I'm glad to hear a patch is on its way, but there seem to be far too many people waiting for it, and will it even fix my problem?

Not very impressed at all.

Si

Specs
-----------------------------
ASUS N7N8X nForce2 Deluxe
AMD Athlon 2400+
1GB DDR400
nVidia GForce 5950Ultra 256MB
Enermax 550W PSU
NEC 3520A DVD Re-Writer
120GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax 9
2x200GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax 9
2x200GB SATA Maxtor DiamondMax 10

 

[VimesUK]

Hello....

so I started with my GPU, I put several thermometers everywhere thinking maybe it was getting too hot and cutting out (happened to me before) While Civ4 does push my card extremely hard and it can get up to 60C, it would drop out at 40, 50, or 60 degrees so it wasnt that.

I wouldn't be too sure about that not being the cause. As you have written in the above....

happened to me before

So it could well be likely that your GPU is getting too hot - those boards do run very hot. You could try out a utility to UNDERCLOCK the board to see if that has any effect on the locking up of your PC.

You write that you are using 1GB of memory, what make is the memory and what memory timings are you using...? Have you tried to lower those timings AND then run memtest (leave it looping for a few hours) AND then run OCCT to test out the machines stability in Windows.
Are you overclocking your PC at all, FSB, CPU or RAM....?

IF you can run the above two tests please post back your results.

BTW :

and I installed a fresh copy of XP on it. Without a SP2 disc that takes a while.

Not sure what you mean by that - I assume that you installed SP2...?

Good luck.

 

[gunnergoz]

And your drivers are all up to snuff, one assumes? You might also try the nVidia utility to ramp down your video to "performance" over quality. I successfully used the NVHardPage utility to set the shader/render to 1.1 level and that helped. I deleted the game's cache also, before launching the game. On the subject of drivers: The latest release of the nVidia driver is optimized for DirectX 9.0C and seems to play much better.
Finally, one question...are you running the DVD or CD version? There may be issues to do with DVD burners that could impact you, you might check other threads here as some have reported this.