"Tech Support" Post
Oct. 20th, 2007 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMy computer turned one year old this Thursday, October 18th.
I regret ever buying this FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.
. . . Well, maybe I'm being too hard on it. Could be just the video card is a fucking piece of shit. Or maybe it's just Bon Voyage. Damned if I know.
All right, the dirty details. As you may know, on Thursday, I attempted to play Sims again, figuring I might as well try and claim a head start on Eureka!Emmett. The game loaded fine (I'd been having trouble with the computer claiming it was a backup disk), and I went to choose Eureka and Mad Hill Valley (where that Emmett is currently living). Mad Hill Valley went through the loading sequence --
Then the screen went black. The music in the background began to skip, and I got a Blue Screen of Death informing me that there had been a problem and Windows had been shut down. I didn't copy down the full error message, but I did write down that the problem was the "device driver got stuck in an infinite loop," having something to do with a file called "atidvag," and that I should check for driver updates. There was also this, which I assume was the code or something:
STOP: 0x000000EA
(0x84DC75E8
0x86397B50
0xF7A47CBC
0x00000001)
I have to restart my computer via the powerstrip -- luckily nothing else appears to have been affected. As you probably remember from my previous entry, I'm pissed off. I go to the ATI site, download the new drivers, and install them once I finish online.
Yesterday I didn't do anything with Sims, but today I decided to try again. Game loads. I pick Eureka proper, to see what'll happen. Game goes through loading procedure. Then I hear the distinct sound of my game crashing --
And my screen starts flashing.
I'm baffled -- I can see my desktop and icons, plus the failing program, but my screen keeps flashing from that to black. I can still move the mouse, luckily. I manage to bring up the "This application has crashed. The application will now terminate" message and click on "OK" -- once I do that, the game shuts down and my screen stops flashing.
All right, I am ANGRY now. I don't have much of a chance to act on my anger though, as I'm called down to dinner shortly afterward. As is my wont, I leave my computer alone during this time.
I come back up after dinner, to discover my screen is black. Nothing too unusual about that -- it does that if I'm away for long periods. I jiggle the mouse, expecting my desktop to come back up. The computer makes a few odd noises --
And my screen comes back up -- with black and white horizontal stripes across it.
Mind you, I can still see my icons and everything -- they're just on these stripes. WTFing, I open up my start menu. That's black and white striped too, but moving my cursor around it reveals my icons. I click on "turn off computer."
No go -- I wait a while, nothing. I try again. Again, no go. And now I can't even access the start menu. Powerstrip reboot again. Computer comes back on, desktop is back to normal.
I have the ATI control center on my computer, so I check out the system logs. There's a whole line of errors around 5:48-5:49 P.M. (when the screen flashing occurred) from "ati2mtag" with the description "CRT invalid display type." There was an identical error at 7:05 (which was when I came up, I believe, maybe a bit before).
I really have no idea what the hell to do. My card is an ATI Radeon X1050 -- underpowered for Bon Voyage, yes, but I've been playing fine for almost a MONTH! Why would it throw a shit fit NOW?! I consulted EA games online tech support and checked out what I could about graphics cards -- not much help. Though bringing up my DirectX program did reveal that apparently the new driver didn't go through -- the newest driver, 7.10 was posted on October 11th. The driver my system says its using is 6.14.0010.6727 and was updated on September 28th, 2007.
WTF do I do? Do I try to update the driver again? Should I see about a new video card (which will probably mean a new power supply to boot, I had to upgrade the first time I changed it)? Uninstall Bon Voyage? Save my files and chuck the whole stupid thing out the window?
You see, this is why I need a three day weekend. Not even my Saturdays are anywhere near relaxing anymore. *growl*
I regret ever buying this FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.
. . . Well, maybe I'm being too hard on it. Could be just the video card is a fucking piece of shit. Or maybe it's just Bon Voyage. Damned if I know.
All right, the dirty details. As you may know, on Thursday, I attempted to play Sims again, figuring I might as well try and claim a head start on Eureka!Emmett. The game loaded fine (I'd been having trouble with the computer claiming it was a backup disk), and I went to choose Eureka and Mad Hill Valley (where that Emmett is currently living). Mad Hill Valley went through the loading sequence --
Then the screen went black. The music in the background began to skip, and I got a Blue Screen of Death informing me that there had been a problem and Windows had been shut down. I didn't copy down the full error message, but I did write down that the problem was the "device driver got stuck in an infinite loop," having something to do with a file called "atidvag," and that I should check for driver updates. There was also this, which I assume was the code or something:
STOP: 0x000000EA
(0x84DC75E8
0x86397B50
0xF7A47CBC
0x00000001)
I have to restart my computer via the powerstrip -- luckily nothing else appears to have been affected. As you probably remember from my previous entry, I'm pissed off. I go to the ATI site, download the new drivers, and install them once I finish online.
Yesterday I didn't do anything with Sims, but today I decided to try again. Game loads. I pick Eureka proper, to see what'll happen. Game goes through loading procedure. Then I hear the distinct sound of my game crashing --
And my screen starts flashing.
I'm baffled -- I can see my desktop and icons, plus the failing program, but my screen keeps flashing from that to black. I can still move the mouse, luckily. I manage to bring up the "This application has crashed. The application will now terminate" message and click on "OK" -- once I do that, the game shuts down and my screen stops flashing.
All right, I am ANGRY now. I don't have much of a chance to act on my anger though, as I'm called down to dinner shortly afterward. As is my wont, I leave my computer alone during this time.
I come back up after dinner, to discover my screen is black. Nothing too unusual about that -- it does that if I'm away for long periods. I jiggle the mouse, expecting my desktop to come back up. The computer makes a few odd noises --
And my screen comes back up -- with black and white horizontal stripes across it.
Mind you, I can still see my icons and everything -- they're just on these stripes. WTFing, I open up my start menu. That's black and white striped too, but moving my cursor around it reveals my icons. I click on "turn off computer."
No go -- I wait a while, nothing. I try again. Again, no go. And now I can't even access the start menu. Powerstrip reboot again. Computer comes back on, desktop is back to normal.
I have the ATI control center on my computer, so I check out the system logs. There's a whole line of errors around 5:48-5:49 P.M. (when the screen flashing occurred) from "ati2mtag" with the description "CRT invalid display type." There was an identical error at 7:05 (which was when I came up, I believe, maybe a bit before).
I really have no idea what the hell to do. My card is an ATI Radeon X1050 -- underpowered for Bon Voyage, yes, but I've been playing fine for almost a MONTH! Why would it throw a shit fit NOW?! I consulted EA games online tech support and checked out what I could about graphics cards -- not much help. Though bringing up my DirectX program did reveal that apparently the new driver didn't go through -- the newest driver, 7.10 was posted on October 11th. The driver my system says its using is 6.14.0010.6727 and was updated on September 28th, 2007.
WTF do I do? Do I try to update the driver again? Should I see about a new video card (which will probably mean a new power supply to boot, I had to upgrade the first time I changed it)? Uninstall Bon Voyage? Save my files and chuck the whole stupid thing out the window?
You see, this is why I need a three day weekend. Not even my Saturdays are anywhere near relaxing anymore. *growl*
