Game Turns computer off

[Juice]

Hello,

Couldn't find this anywhere else. I have just started having problems with my copy of EU2 version 1.05 with fix. I have had the game since it came out and never had this happen before but the last 4 games I have started have actually turned my computer off after 10-15 minutes of play time. I have already tried a reinstall and that didn't seem to help. I can run anything else without problems. This seems to be the only program that is having the problem. Here are my computer specs:

Win XP Home 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
RAM 512 MB
Pentium 4 2.0 GHz
Nvidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400

All my drivers are current. I have also done a virus check and there are none. Also HOI runs fine. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[unmerged(6777)]

When you say "turned it off" do you mean a full controlled power down process (sort of like you would when finished using it) or more like a sudden power failure or crash that is unrecoverable?

I think the first thing I'd look at is your current power configuration settings in case it is going into hibernation mode for some strange reason. Go to:

Start-->Control Panle-->Power Options

On the "Power Schemes" tab (the first one) make sure that all the drop-down menus in the left column (plugged in) are set to "never"; then click the "hibernate" tab (the last one) and disable hibernation by un-checking the "Enable Hibernation" tab.

If that doesn't work (or those are already your settings) then re-boot your computer and immediately after it starts the standard power-up procedure hit whatever key your system uses to enter your BIOS setup menus and look for the power schemes or power configuration settings controlled there. You may have a BIOS setting that is shutting you down since it thinks you're idle for 10 or 15 minutes since you haven't been directly accessing the BIOS.

The final thing that comes to mind immediately is the possibility that something strange is sitting there in your memory buffer and somehow gets triggered after a period of time (maybe when the history log has grown to a certain point). You might see it go away if you disable the Bink players by going to the EU2 filder and renaming the avi folder to avi_old. This will turn off the starting video clip but might resolve the problem.

If none of the above work, could you test a game by setting autosave to "yearly" and then play until it happens. As soon as it does, start the game up again and load your autosave game and then start playing again. Does it crash almost immediately or does it allow you to play for another 10-15 minutes?

Also...do you have any save games from a time before this problem started? If os, play one of those for a bit and see if you have any problems.

Let me know how that workd out and we'll take it from there.

 

[Juice]

Thanks for helping here goes.

When you say "turned it off" do you mean a full controlled power down process (sort of like you would when finished using it) or more like a sudden power failure or crash that is unrecoverable?

It seems to be going into hibernation, by the color that shows on the power button. (I have the hibernation turned off though) The biggest problem is that I then can't bring it out of hibernation. I have to actually either turn off the surge protector or unplug it from the wall then I can reboot the computer.

I think the first thing I'd look at is your current power configuration settings in case it is going into hibernation mode for some strange reason. Go to:

I did this and all my settings are what you said they should be.

If that doesn't work (or those are already your settings) then re-boot your computer and immediately after it starts the standard power-up procedure hit whatever key your system uses to enter your BIOS setup menus and look for the power schemes or power configuration settings controlled there. You may have a BIOS setting that is shutting you down since it thinks you're idle for 10 or 15 minutes since you haven't been directly accessing the BIOS.

I entered the bios and there are no settings that would turn the computer off. I set the one that asks what to do if there is a power failure and set it to go to last state. I wanted to see if it was a radom power failure I was getting that doesn't seem to be the problem.

The final thing that comes to mind immediately is the possibility that something strange is sitting there in your memory buffer and somehow gets triggered after a period of time (maybe when the history log has grown to a certain point). You might see it go away if you disable the Bink players by going to the EU2 filder and renaming the avi folder to avi_old. This will turn off the starting video clip but might resolve the problem

I did this and it doesn't seem to help.

If none of the above work, could you test a game by setting autosave to "yearly" and then play until it happens. As soon as it does, start the game up again and load your autosave game and then start playing again. Does it crash almost immediately or does it allow you to play for another 10-15 minutes?

OK, I started a new game and played for about 5 years at the fastest speed then it happened again. So I then started the game with the autosave and this time got about 7 game years completed.

The last time I was adjusting the the stability slider when it happened.

Like I said the game has worked for as long as it has been out, I rarely have any CTD's.

Any additional ideas.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

Well I just reloaded the autosave and was able to play for 11 years without any problems. I have no idea what is going on.

Jesse

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Hmmmm. Me neither - it's a new problem that I don't recall seeing before. I know it will be a nuisance, but keep playing and see if you can identify any sort of pattern or common action that you are doing when it crashes. Since it looks as though it's a "hibernate" type issue, maybe doing a manual save every 5-10 years would resolve the problem.

Could you also send me a save game (compressed please, e-mail in sig.) from one of your crashes and I'll try playing it for an hour or two to see if I can get it to crash on my system in case there's something that's related to a save file corruption. I doubt it though...

Have you added any hardware component or done any significant OS/DirectX upgrade recently that could somehow be causing this?

 

[Juice]

Have you added any hardware component or done any significant OS/DirectX upgrade recently that could somehow be causing this?

I had to install a new CD/RW drive from Gateway as the eye went bad on it but I doubt that causes the problem, as that is not the CD drive I am using. I have not installed the new DirectX yet but was gonna, I will now wait until this is ironed out as I don't want to add confussion to the already unknown issue.

Could you also send me a save game (compressed please, e-mail in sig.) from one of your crashes and I'll try playing it for an hour or two to see if I can get it to crash on my system in case there's something that's related to a save file corruption. I doubt it though...

I will as soon as the problem happens again I will send you a copy of the autosave. Like I said I was able to get 11 years last time and manually saved as I had to stop for the day. I am praying it is just some kind of glitch that will go away but something tells me that I won't be that lucky.

I will keep you posted and thank you very much for your help, I hope I can figure it out. I am also gonna call Gateway and see if they have ever seen this.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

Just a short update. I have tried a few things that may have helped as I haven't had a shutdown playing 20 years.

1. In response to your comment about the log and getting to a certain point, I have eliminated most of the messages that are going into the log, I'm not doing any AARs so this isn't a big loss.

2. I have started manually saving every 5 years or so.

Could these actually cause something like this to happen all of the sudden. Like I said I have had this game forever and played for 4-5 hours at a time in MP and sessions that could last 10-15 in SP without these problems.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[unmerged(6777)]

I agree with you that the CD/RW is unlikely to be the cause of the problem...although it may have its own power management subsystem that is somehow involved in triggering a hibernation request.

I'm just thinking of possible reasons why it might be causing problems and since Windows is usually allowed to control DMA/VM itself even some minor system changes could cause significant adjustments to the way it handles memory allocation. This becomes more and more of an issue as the memory buffer fills up so reducing the size of the history log should reduce the rate at which the buffer fills up and possible give Windows a little more time to do the necessary allocations.

The reason I suggested manual saves periodically is that this will be a manual "wake up" signal for the BIOS so if there's some reason Windows is going into hibernate mode in spite of your settings, this should "remind" it that you're still there and prevent it from doing so. Playing MP should be using the BIOS on a regular basis so it wouldn't come into play in those situations.

As I said above, I haven't seen this problem before so I'm just doing some guesswork and testing a few hypotheses. Only prolonged observation will determine whether the things I'm suggesting are related, and certainly please do keep me informed of any sort of common action or cause that you happen to notice as you continue playing. Also, if you have any thoughts as to what might be involved then don't hesitate to voice them.

Another idea that just occured to me is that it might somehow be tied into your screen saver. Have you made any changes recently to its settings? If so, try turning it off.

 

[Juice]

Another idea that just occured to me is that it might somehow be tied into your screen saver. Have you made any changes recently to its settings? If so, try turning it off.

I don't have a screen saver turned on.

Well I contacted Gateway and they had me do a system restore. Well the first restore worked except that it wiped out my CD Rom Drivers so I had to do a undo.

Now I have done another restore and this time I had to uninstall on EU as it somehow got messed up during the restores.

Now comes the kicker, about 15% into the install it sends my computer into hibernate stage. I have done this 3 times and all three time it has happened.

First I am gonna go back and undo the restore. And then I am gonna try the second copy of EU I had bought for my laptop and see if maybe my disk has gone bad for some reason.

I had been keeping track of what was happening when this was occuring and it seems to be totally random. Here is my list:

Had a normal CTD on reload after Castile to Spain event.

Then had the hibernate crash on the Spain/Aragon vassallage event.

Then I couldn't even get the game to start as it kept going into hibernate state when trying to load the game.

The last is when I decided to try Gateway support.

Back to the drawing board. Has anyone else reported any problems after installing the recent updates to XP. I installed a bunch on Jan 4 and then more on Jan 10.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

Well, I have now tried installing it with both copies of EU2 I own and they are both putting my computer into hibernate state at 11% during the install.

This really sucks as before at least I could play a little now I can't even get it to install.

I was gonna try to uninstall HOI and reinstall it but that makes me fear that I won't be able to get it to install again either.

Help me please I am now getting desperate.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

Ok, got the game to install, it has something to do with my Norton antivirus software on the install. Disabled it and it installed fine. Now lets see if it will run with this turned off. The only thing I can think of now is when I did my virus update the other day, it is thinking something that EU is doing while running is a virus. It has never been a problem in the past. I have no clue I will update you.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

Well it isn't the virus software as it is turned off and still causes the hibernation. What is worse is that the last crash occured only a few months after a manual save.

Well that isn't the way to make it work, any other ideas?

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[unmerged(6777)]

I think that you must have something running that you aren't aware of and it's somehow triggering this. Halt all non-critical system processes and then see if you still have the same problem.

WinXP critical processes: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

 

[Castellon]

Does WinXP have task manager, could it be triggering something?

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Originally posted by Castellon
Does WinXP have task manager, could it be triggering something?

Yep. "System Processes" is XP's version of earlier task manager - accessed by ctrl+alt+del. That's what I'm thinking too, but it's far more similar to NT4/Win2k so there are quite a few more bits and pieces that need to be running.

 

[Juice]

I am back from a night out and a little slow this morning but I will start trying to eliminate the things I don't need. The last Gateway tech I had was trying to eliminate items from my startup procedures but that didn't seem to help. Do you know on a system restore if the new virus definitions I downloaded will be removed or do they work just like the emails and saved data with no change?

That stuff is pretty big from the XP link you gave me so this could take awhile.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

I just made the changes that Black Viper recommended, wish me luck.

Thanks,
Jesse

Edit: It didn't work so then I eliminated all processes that weren't needed in the task manager and that didn't help either.

Still looking for a solution.

Jesse

 

[Castellon]

And this only happens when you are running EU2?

 

[Juice]

Well after a very long day of reinstalling my operating system and software the problem still is there only this time I can't install HOI either.

After talking to Gateway for the 100th time the last rep I spoke with thinks that my motherboard could be going bad, but he wasn't sure. That is crap as this computer isn't even a year old yet.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[Juice]

Well, another update, Gateway had me take my cover off my tower and unplug and plug back in some jumpers and at least I was able to get the game to install. Now I will apply the patch and see if it is gonna run.

Everyone pray for me.

Thanks,
Jesse