ToMI Chapter 4 crashes!

[lawler]

Hi,

I got a problem with ToMI Chapter 4. My computer crashes completely after playing a few seconds up to a few minutes. The screen freezes, my computer doesn't react to anything but a reset and my Mainboard makes a high-pitched sound until I hit the reset button (I think it's my Mainboard, because my speakers don't make that sound).
I updated my graphic drivers and Direct X but it didn't solve the problem.
[SPOILER WARNING]I don't know if it helps but I just got all the information from the voodoo Lady about La Espogna Grande after she has been sent to prison.[SPOILER WARNING]
Up to that point I had no problems with the game. I had the same computer crashes with chapter 1-3 but only about 2-4 for all 3 chapters.

My computer:
ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe
Pentium 4 @ 3,2GHz
ASUS Radeon X850XT-PE
Windows XP 32bit

I don't know if it's important but I purchased the game on steam.
I really hope you can help me, thank you so much in advance for your help.

Greets

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by lawler

My computer crashes completely after playing a few seconds up to a few minutes. The screen freezes, my computer doesn't react to anything but a reset and my Mainboard makes a high-pitched sound until I hit the reset button (I think it's my Mainboard, because my speakers don't make that sound).

That sounds like a heat problem and your mainboard warns you above a certain temperature.

Make sure that your cooling system (Processor, Graphics card, whatever else) is free of dust and that all fans are running.

If that doesn't solve it, we can do some tests.

The easiest one is logging the temperatures while the game is running. I wrote a tutorial for that once:

Logging your CPU and GPU Temperatures

CPU: Download Core Temp. Start it and activate logging in the menu under "Tools/Logging on".

The log file created is called similar to "CT-Log [TIME][DATE].csv".

GPU: Download GPU-Z.
Start it, select the "sensors" tab, and activate "Log to File" at the bottom of the window.

The log file created is called "gpu-temperature.xml".

Let the game run until it crashes and then upload the log files.

Then e.g. zip the file and attach it to a message.

[lawler]

Thanks for the help.
Here are the log files:
http://www.filedropper.com/gpu-zsensorlog
http://www.filedropper.com/gpu-zsensorlog2

The readme of core temp said that Pentium 4 CPUs are not supported, so I only got GPU logfiles for 2 crashes. The first crash was after 1 sec, the second one after 1 minute approximately.
This time the crashes were a little bit different. There was no high-pitched sound. At the first crash was no sound at all and at the second crash the last sound in the game was repeating in an endless loop until I hit the reset button.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by lawler

Thanks for the help.
Here are the log files:
http://www.filedropper.com/gpu-zsensorlog
http://www.filedropper.com/gpu-zsensorlog2

The links don't seem to work. Can you .zip and attach them?
Have you checked the your cooling solution as i mentioned above?

[bobdevis]

Open your case. Clean the fans of dust. Especially the fans on the CPU and the graphics card. Turn on the PC on while it is open to make sure all fans are working.
If you don't understand these instructions or find them to scary, have someone do this for you.


It would surprise me VERY much if this was not an overheating problem.

[lawler]

I don't have the log files any more but I know that the temperatures were between 72°C (idle) and 74°C (in game).
I cleaned the fans and checked if they are working. The fans were pretty dusty and one fan (at the back of my case) didn't work but this fan has not been working ever since I bought my computer.
After I cleaned all the fans I tried to play ToMI again. The game crashed after 2 seconds and my mainboard was making the high-pitched sound again.
So, unfortunately no change after cleaning the fans

[DjNDB]

72°C is a pretty high idle temperature for a graphics card. Is there a fan on it too and does it work?

You might be able to see the CPU temperature with Asus PC Probe. If you can see it, then you can run the game in window mode (Alt-Enter) and monitor the temperature. If it can log as well, you can run the game in full screen of course.

If that doesn't give you a result, then we can provoke some CPU and GPU stress artificially to see whether it makes your system crash the same way. Be aware that overheating can cause damage to your hardware and you do the tests at your own risk.
The Processor test should be quite safe though, because the Pentium 4 has thermal throttling and shuts down if it gets to hot. That's what we assume happens here.

It should be enough to run each of these tests for less than 2 minutes until it crashes.

Testing your processor:
Download prime95 for 32-bit Windows and run it. If you see a "welcome to gimps" window choose "just stress testing".
In the "run a torture Test" window just press ok.
To stop it use "Test/Stop" in the Menu.

Testing your graphics card:
Download FurMark to stress test your graphics card. Start it, select "Stability Test", "Xtreme Burning Mode" and "Log GPU Temperature". Now start the test by pressing "Go!".
While running you should be able to monitor the temperature at the bottom of the screen.
You can abort the test with escape.

[lawler]

I tried ASUS PC Probe and it worked. I was able to monitor the temperature and the voltage of the CPU and the mainboard. I was able to play the game without a crash this time. So I played for 10 minutes and then quit the game.
The CPU was at 52-55°C in idle and at a maximum of 66°C in game. The mainboard was at 35°C in idle and at 37°C in game.
I was also checking the voltage monitor and discovered something that may cause the problem or another problem.
ASUS PC Probe monitors +12V, +5V, +3,3V and Vcore. Everything was stable except the +3,3V values. While I was playing the game, the voltage dropped to +2,7V for 4 times and ASUS PC Probe was making an error sound and the voltage monitor was flashing.
Should I still do the stress tests?

Thanks again for your help!

[DjNDB]

It's a bit strange that the game worked for so long this time.
Was the PC still cool before you started the game this time?

The ATX specification allows a tolerance of +/- 5% for the +3.3VDC Voltage rail, which means 3.135V-3.465V. Therefore the warning would be justified.
It is possible that your PSU doesn't work properly, but we can't be sure of that yet.

You can run the stress tests with PC Probe active and watch the voltages and the temperatures, to find out what makes your pc crash.

[lawler]

I started the game with the CPU at 55°C.

Here are the results of the stress tests:

CPU stress test:
I was running the test for 10 minutes. The temperature went up to a maximum of 68°C (most of the time 64-66°C). The voltage was stable at about 3,1V most of the time. It only went down to 2,7V once for about 2 seconds.

GPU stress test:
I did run the stress test like you said but I did not see the temperatures. I was running the test for 5 minutes.

The PC did not crash during one of the tests. Do I have to run the tests longer?
I hope the results are helpful.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by lawler

The PC did not crash during one of the tests. Do I have to run the tests longer?
I hope the results are helpful.

They are helpful.
I almost said you did plenty of testing, but you could run both tests at once. Maybe that will drain enough power from your PSU and make it crash. It should be enough to do that for 1 minute.

Preparing for a different approach, please post a dxdiag log.

dxdiag
Windows XP: Go to your start menu and click on run. Type in "dxdiag" and hit enter
Windows Vista / 7: Press the windows key on your keyboard or click on the start menu. Type in "dxdiag" and hit enter.

Now click on the button that says "save all information".
It will prompt you to save a file. Save it where you can find it.


Now you have two options to make it accessible to us. Pick the one that works best for you:

1. If you know how, you can zip the file and attach it to a message.
   
2. You can upload it to RapidShare and copy the link to the file into a new message.

[lawler]

I did run both tests for 2 minutes and the PC didn't crash.

I hope you can find something in the dxdiag file.

http://rapidshare.com/files/307448363/DxDiag.txt.html

I really appreciate your help, thanks!

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by lawler

I did run both tests for 2 minutes and the PC didn't crash.

That sounds good. Can you still get the game to crash at all?

Description: SoundMAX Digital Audio
Date and Size: 6/2/2003 12:42:14, 578304 bytes

This sound device with really old drivers... You don't use it i assume?
You could disable it in the BIOS (or at least in the device manager).

That's the only oddity i see in your dxdiag.

[Leak]

Originally Posted by DjNDB

72°C is a pretty high idle temperature for a graphics card.

Not neccessarily - the two one-slot ATI Radeon 4850's I have idle at about 82°C each, but they don't go above more then 95°C either - and the hard shut-off temperature for those GPUs as set by ATI are 125°C...

(The same of course doesn't go for older cards...)

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Leak

Not neccessarily - the two one-slot ATI Radeon 4850's I have idle at about 82°C each, but they don't go above more then 95°C either - and the hard shut-off temperature for those GPUs as set by ATI are 125°C...

(The same of course doesn't go for older cards...)

For my taste it is a high temperature. Not meaning that the chip won't survive it, but that it's way more than i expect for idling, but that depends on the requirements.

My 4850 is just passively cooled and idles at 50°C due to it's rather big heatsink and by providing a decent but still quite silent airflow.

Your system however is designed to allow two cards on little space at the expense of effective cooling. It's a different goal and therefore reasonable as well.

In this case I saw the temperature as an indicator for a questionable or defective cooling solution. As the stress tests showed it's not as bad as it seemed, since it at least works without causing a crash. It would have felt better to know the temperatures during that test though.

In some test the X850XT-PE idles at 40°C btw.

[lawler]

Originally Posted by DjNDB

This sound device with really old drivers... You don't use it i assume?
You could disable it in the BIOS (or at least in the device manager).

That's the only oddity i see in your dxdiag.

I use a Soundblaster Audigy 2 for my surround speakers and the onboard sound you mentioned only for my headset for Teamspeak because I don't have to switch the plugs with the 2 soundcards, if I want to use Teamspeak.
I did not find any new drivers on the asus homepage for the soundcard.
Do you think that might cause a crash?

I'll try later if the game is still crashing.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by lawler

I did not find any new drivers on the asus homepage for the soundcard.
Do you think that might cause a crash?

I would try anything at the moment, because that one is not trivial to track down. I still think that hardware issues are very likely as well.

If you have some time you should run a memory test.

Testing your memory:
Bad memory is often the reason for random crashes. In order to test your memory download http://www.memtest.org/ and make a bootable cd or disk. Start your system from that medium to run the memory test.

It is probably enough to run it for one pass. Look at the lower table that looks like this after one pass is finished:

Test Pass Errors
---- ---- ------
Std     1      0

If there are errors they are showed in red as in this example:

[lawler]

I did run the memory test for 1 pass without any errors.

I'll test if the game is still crashing tomorrow. If it crashes, I'll disable the onboard sound in the BIOS.

[lawler]

I just tried to play the game. It crashed after 1 minute. Then I disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS. The game crashed after 3 minutes.

The only thing that doesn't work properly in my computer and I know about is my DVD burner.
I can read/burn CDs and I can read DVDs, but I can't burn DVDs anymore.
The drive can't read the DVD-Rs anymore.
The only thing I did that could cause a problem was an update of the burning software (I am using http://www.cdburnerxp.se/).
I downgraded to the older version I was using before after it didn't work but that didn't solve the problem.
But I don't think that has anything to do with my computer crashing or at least I can't imagine.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by lawler

But I don't think that has anything to do with my computer crashing or at least I can't imagine.

I think so too. DVD Drives break every now and then.

I am starting to run out of reasonable ideas.

Do you always start a save game to test if it crashes or have you tried a new game too?

One more thing you should try is a clean boot.

Booting clean in Windows XP:
To Boot Clean in Windows XP

1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG --> Click OK
2. On the General tab, choose Selective Startup
3. Uncheck Process SYSTEM.INI file
4. Uncheck Process WIN.INI file
5. Uncheck Load Startup Items
6. Click on the Services tab
7. At the bottom, check Hide All Microsoft Services
8. Uncheck all boxes in the window or click the button labeled Disable All
6. Click OK
7. Click Restart
8. After reboot, run the game to see if it works.

After performing the necessary steps, restore your system by doing the following:

1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG--> Click OK
2. On the General tab, choose Normal Startup
3. Click OK
4. Click YES, when asked to restart your computer

Based on Will's post