Two major problems and a begging for help

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

Hello. I signed on to this forum in order to get help for my Sims2 problem.

I had no problem until I upgraded my system (now a 3.3 gHz processor plus hyperthreading with a full gig of RAM) and had to change my OS to WinXP. Now my Sims2 will last exactly sixty seconds from start to complete system crash. All the advice in the official website relating to crashes has been tried, all to no avail; the game will last only sixty seconds, then crash the computer, forcing me to reboot.

My second problem: I attempted to write to EA Games for advice, but they tried to make me register. When I attempted to register, their system said I was already registered. All attempts to get my password failed, resulting in their system trying to make me register again. So the EA Games system says I'm registered but refuses to admit I'm registered, thus I can get no help from them.

Anyone who can help with either of these problems will receive my eternal gratitude and a box of chocolates.

[surprised_by_witches]

I had the same stinking problem. There's something wrong with their registration system, I think. I had to wait until I bought an EP and register using that code, and then it worked OK.

They think I only own Uni now, not the original. Not sure how I'd manage that ...

Don't know anything about OS's, sorry, but thought I'd let you know you're not the only one who's had the official site problem.

[Mirelly]

UH lemme get this straight ...

You bought The Sims 2?

You installed it and it worked pretty darn fine?

You upgraded Windows to XP and now The Sims crashes?

If that is the case I am not surprised.

If so please confirm and I will talk you through a repair. If not please say what the exact situation is/was/will-be ... :rolleyes:

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

That is EXACTLY what happened.

I eagerly await your assistance ...:)

[Mirelly]

OK

Moved thread to Installation and Upgrades

The following advice assumes a certain degree of computer competence. If you have any doubts about your ability I strongly recommend seeking skilled help as messing this up will make matters worse ... a lot worse :eek:

First up. If you have neighborhoods full of sims and houses consider whether to start over (ie to scrap them all) something there may be corrupted and that might be causing the crash. If you're willing to give that a go then simply follow the first part of the advice in the link below, and then try restarting the game ... it will attempt to remake the missing game files. If that does not work then start the procedure over from the top and proceed to the end.

If you wish to try to keep the saved games files then you will have to find a way to save the folders in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ ... preferably on an optical data disc (got a DVD writer? cos the folders are too big to all fit on to a CD ROM).

My advice is scrap everything and start over. It is less hassle ... painful but the pain goes away ... eventually (done it myself so I know what I'm talking about :rolleyes: )

OK Then ... take a look at http://forums.worldsims.net/showpost.php?p=96548&postcount=7 and follow the directions there to utterly remove TS2 from your system.

Before reinstalling it is worth your while to take a few minutes to work through the basics (even the ones you already did!):

1) Windows Update
2) Drivers and Directx Update (http://forums.worldsims.org/showpost.php?p=94221&postcount=1)
3) Defrag
4) Run dxdiag to confirm the staus of Directx and Video drivers (see Drivers link above) I say this because Windows is quite capable of letting you think you're using an item without actually telling you that you aren't.

If all that fails we don't give up but you will need to publish your dxdiag report (just the main system parameters please :rolleyes:) before we can help further.

[Flameback777]

If TS2 was installed before you upgraded to XP it's registry file may have become corrupt when the XP CD upgraded it.

Try uninstalling the game and reinstalling it like Mirelly said.

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

Everything was done: slow manual uninstall, new drivers, reinstall, etc.

No change - it still crashes at the 60-second mark. Thanks for trying.

Here's the information ...

1. Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs; in practice runs at 3.3 GHz)
2. 894 MB RAM
3. Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600)
4. 39.2 GB free
5. 111 GB total
6. DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
7. ATI Raedeon Xpress 200 Video Card
8. ati2dvag.dll 6.14.0010.6599 (English), 1/24/2006 22:52:48
9. Total Video Memory 128 MB
10. Sims 2 DVD Version, no expansion packs

[Mirelly]

I'm not a hardware geek and know little about the ATI side of the industry but my understanding is that the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 was engineered for the AMD.

Say hello to the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset, ATI's surprisingly solid first stab at the AMD core logic market. See ati website (http://www.ati.com/products/radeonxpress200series/)
The fact that you're having such trouble seems to point to some serious hardware conflicts going on inside your chips.

Josh? Kat? Any thoughts?

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

I'm not a hardware geek and know little about the ATI side of the industry but my understanding is that the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 was engineered for the AMD.

The fact that you're having such trouble seems to point to some serious hardware conflicts going on inside your chips.


I'm not sure about that. The card is built into the motherboard, and I got the board and processor as a package when I built the computer, so I think the system would have been vetted for such things. I might be wrong, though.

[Flameback777]

The ATI Radeon Xpress 200 was built to be used in AMD 64bit computers.
What concerns me more is how a Pentium processor could fit into an AMD socket? :rolleyes:

Do you know the motherboards model number?

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

The motherboard is an Elitegroup RS-400A with a 775 socket. The computer has not given me any other problems except for this one game, which is part of the reason I don't think it's a hardware problem.

[Flameback777]

Yeah, after I did my research I found I was wrong.

What windows crash are you getting? Blue screen or does the whole computer shut off?

What other games are you playing?

ATM I'm guessing the PSU (Power Supply Unit) isn't good enough once everything wants it's power, and the computer shuts off. Do you know what PSU you have? Or how much power it takes in? (This should be on the back next to the PSU's fan or on the bottom of the PSU, in the case.)

[Kungfu Joe]

If flame is right and its your power core, that is a pretty cheap upgrade (20-40 bucks I'd say).

Pardon my French, but the whole Sims series has been really *****y about video cards (REALLY). Even if it shouldnt be, 3:1 in my book says video card. But because everything checks out on your end, heres my advice

First
Try what Flame said (yeah, i know, money, but thats what it is gonna come down to for this game). Buy a power source (I'd recommend) at Best Buy. Get their "Return for any reason for a year" warranty (just in case this thing dosnt actually fix the problem). Installing a power core is pretty straight forward. Once you take the old one off (and unplug everything, KEEP TRACK), you just put the new one on the same way, and plug everything back in.

Second
If numero uno dosnt work, I'd recommend getting an old video card via Ebay. you could probably pick up a Radeon 8000 for under $20. Yeah, its got less juice, but it'll work (maybe).

All in all, as far as user-friendlyness, I give the Sims 2 series like a 2 out of 10. Its bad. But depending on how desperate you are to play it, this may work

[Flameback777]

If flame is right and its your power core, that is a pretty cheap upgrade (20-40 bucks I'd say).
I would advise against this. Cheap PSUs are known to actually blow up hardware if the line voltages change, and very rarely give out the specified power.

Installing a power core is pretty straight forward. Once you take the old one off (and unplug everything, KEEP TRACK), you just put the new one on the same way, and plug everything back in.
Most cables can only fit in one way anyway, but I would keep track of everything and perhaps take a photo with the digital camera to see where everything goes.
Second
If numero uno dosnt work, I'd recommend getting an old video card via Ebay. you could probably pick up a Radeon 8000 for under $20. Yeah, its got less juice, but it'll work (maybe).
I still doubt that it's the video card that's causing the problem.

[ManagerJosh]

I'm rather curious about the 894 MB RAM. I still have yet to been able to add up the right amount of DRAMs to properlymake it 894MB.

[Flameback777]

1022MB RAM (directx does this to me too)
- 128MB for the graphics card
= 894MB of RAM

[ManagerJosh]

Hmm..okay, then I'm definitely loosing my marbles.

Anyhow, another thing I noticed too is the Xpress 200 chipsets are designed for AMD. I'm not sure how you got it to work for Intel.....

[Mirelly]

LOL Me too, Josh.

894 + the 128 video makes 1022 which is still 2 shy of the gigabyte that was quoted right at the top of the thread.

Kungfu Joe is rather harsh in his comments about the game, I thought. Maxis said, right up front that game performance was going to require some serious graphics handling capability. Phrases like: the more [video] memory the better ought to make anyone who actually reads the minimum system requirements sit up, take notice and perform a double-take.

[ManagerJosh]

Well from an end-user standpoint, arguable he can say his logic is sound. However I think Joe needs to take into account all the additional rendering that's going on. Technically the game's pretty optimized for lower end machines as best as it could be, since the game's specs could be far higher with all the AI functions, graphics rendering, object rendering, animations, and even standard background apps.

Getting something to run on 1GHz is really hard nowadays.

[Flameback777]

Getting Windows to start on 1GHz is hard.

Anyways, Intel uses the chipset also. Here (http://www.ati.com/buy/promotions/IntelD101GGC/)

Do I win the geekiest award? Or the award for the most free time? :P

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

When I built the computer, I got a 550 watt power supply - 100 watts over whet the system needs. And no other program or function give me any problems like this - only Sims2.

I have a spare graphics card - Raedon 9200SE - but I'm reluctant to install a graphics card in a motherboard with a card already installed. In the past, I've had difficulties with that setup.

[Flameback777]

When I built the computer, I got a 550 watt power supply - 100 watts over whet the system needs. And no other program or function give me any problems like this - only Sims2.

I have a spare graphics card - Raedon 9200SE - but I'm reluctant to install a graphics card in a motherboard with a card already installed. In the past, I've had difficulties with that setup.
A cheap PSU may not be supplying that amount of power, even though it says that on the case.

You HAVE a graphics card, yet you use an onboard one?
Try installing the card (There should be an orange slot with AGP Express written above it.), install all the drivers and junk, disable the onboard graphics in BIOS and test the game. This will take strain off the CPU and the RAM.

Also, can I ask what are the other games you're playing?

[Kungfu Joe]

Yeah, I am being harsh, but i'm just bitter that I cant get Nightlife to work. I just find it odd that if you look around the forums, there are tons of people with problems that seem to be related to hardware, even when their computer should be well up to snuff. I mean, J here could probably run Battlefield 2 without much trouble on his system. Sims 2 just seems to requiere

[jstaik1043@earthlink]

Update ...

As a desperation measure, I reinstalled my Raedon 9500SE video card. After a couple of days of difficulty (NEVER casually tamper with your BIOS, people!), the game now works perfectly. It was hardware conflict after all.

It occured to me afterwards that I had acquired the 9500SE card in the first place in order to play Sims2.

Thanks for the help, folks. Now to get Nightlife and the new Business expansion ... not to mention re-downloading all my favorite stuff ...

[Mirelly]

Thanks for letting us know, JS. Glad there was a happy ending ... pity we didn't know about the 9500 to begin with tho ... :rolleyes: