Computer locks up in the middle of play

[sdrga]

I heard somewhere before I started playing HOI that you could play without the CD. That sounded convenient, so I tried it. Don't jump to conclusions: I own the game, and have a CD. I wanted to
mention that (playing with no CD) up-front in case you guys thought it was a big no-no.

I have searched the support forum, read your stickys, etc. etc. I have not made radical and time-consuming changes to my system such as reinstalling my OS (system specs below). I'm a software developer myself, so I know these things are sometimes impossible to replicate.

Anyway, here is my problem: I would be playing happily along, everything would be working fine and then all of a sudden, the music would abruptly stop, and the mouse pointer would freeze up. I couldn't reboot, the system was totally locked up. Powering off was the only option. This happened the first time after about 20 minutes (game paused 90% of the time) and a similar amount of time the 2ed time with the game paused about 50% of the time.

After this happened twice, I changed two things: I put the CD back in, and I went into the HOI settings application and changed the setting to "Music Enabled"; it was set to "Disabled" even though the music had been playing loud and clear. I played for about 45 more minutes without any lockup, but I'm not sure I really fixed it.

I think I know what you guys need to know to help me and I understand that correlating the occurance with some game play spot would be very helpful. However, I cannot see any readily apparent correlation: I was in two totally separate parts of the game. First time I was in the ledger looking at the location of my naval assets, second time I was setting research priorities.

Specific system information:

Publisher: Strategy First.
Patch: 1.03B
OS: Window ME
DirectX 8.1 4.08.01.0881
Update Status: I run windows update every month or so and specifically look for new driver versions

System Hardware
CPU: Presario P3/667/256MB/40GB w/10GB free
Video: Voodoo 5500PCI 64MB 3dfxvs.dll version = 5.00.2195.0142 w 1.16 video bios (latest before they went out of business). Running in "Single Chip" mode

Sound: ESS Allegro PCI 5.12.1.1171

Just in case you're wondering if I really own it, the CD case has three small graphics of screen-shots on the back and I believe the CD itself has graphic rendition of several rounds of small-arms ammo. I'm at work so I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance!

 

[sdrga]

Oops! Here's correct driver info...

Sorry on the driver info on the last post: I was looking at dxdiag on my Windows 2000 system (I have a dual-boot system, but on two totally seperate hard drives)

When I rebooted onto my Win ME hard drive and reran dxdiag, here were the results

Sound ESS Allegro 5.12.01.1159

DirectX 8.1 build 4.08.01.0901

Video 3dfxvs.vxd 4.12.01.0584

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Do you have the same problem when launching on both OS's? Both reports you list have ME as the OS...just wondering if you get the same crash under 2k...

Also...have you tried knocking back your hardware acceleration on the sound card (or turing it off completely)? 256MB is only borderline for Win2k, regardless of what Uncle Bill would have you believe...

 

[sdrga]

camels

Nope. W2K is relatively stable. These mouse freeze-up problems are relatively new and somewhat coincide with an error I'm getting a lot on start-up (In ME). I do my real job all day on the W2K side with no problems.

I'll sometimes get a blue screen error referring to WSOCK(02) and then when I finally get rebooted, I'll get an Illegal Op involving NDetect and Kernel32. I'm seeing relevant posts on Google and following those... any ideas from you guys would be much appreciated

In addition, last night, I had the freeze up in another game, (Combat Mission, BB), so I don't think it has anything to do with HOI, it just so happens that I was playing HOI when I first noticed it. BTW, I was playing HOI last night and it locked up once again. I really love that game and I'm just starting to get the hang of it.

I also noticed in my Device Manager that I've got two drivers showing for my Logitech Optical Mouse, one of which has the dreaded yellow exclamation point, but when I try to remove the bad one, ME insists on reinstalling it (still bad). Latest mouse drivers give the same result

 

[unmerged(15513)]

Windows Patches

sdrga,
uninstall all of the mouse drivers, reboot, and let windows detect the mouse, but I dont think that is causing your problem. If you haven't already, run Windows Update and download and install all of the critical updates.

mushen

 

[Castellon]

I say it maybe time to do a complete reinstall of your operating system.