I found one possible reason for sh4 crashing..

[viper771]

I put in omega drivers for my ATI mobility 9600 pro.. and those are working fine. I also dled speed fan, to see what my comps temp was..

Well the temp is 167 Degs F (this is with CPU usage at 4%)!!!!!!!!!! :sunny: I think thats why my computer crashes after a few mins of game play. Is there anything I can do to fix this? It is an alienware area 51m laptop (could you imagine using this thing on your lap?). I opened it up but didn't see any clumps of dust on anything. I would really like to play this game for a bit since I am to go to iraq here soon :( Any help would be great. thanks in advance!

[Cap'n Crabs]

Dang! I'm surprised you system isn't going into auto shutdown with those temps.

I'm not terribly familiar with laptop innards. Is the cpu fan running, possibly defective, not running full rpms?
Not sure what else to suggest.


Btw, be careful over there. :yep:

[NEON DEON]

Viper,

I believe laptops have a different heat threshold than desktops. Probably becuase they have no fans and the chips are designed to take more heat.

However, heat will kill the cpu.

Have you tried elevating the laptop off the ground? That might give it enough air flow underneath it to work.

If that does not work you could try and underclock the video card a bit.

[viper771]

Actually, my laptop has been elevated for awhile now.. I thought of that first thing, because of the crappy design, there really isn't any air going into the compy.

The blue screen reboot has just started recently.. I was reading some other forums, and maybe some of it is due to the thermal paste drying out :( I am going to take the comp apart again and see if any dust is clogging up anything. Right now the temp is at 167 degs F.. and that seems QUITE hot to me. CPU is at 7%..

Humm underclocking the graphics card.. didn't think about that. I could give that a try. I am not sure how to do that though. I never really messed with that kind of thing.. something else to research.

I could always try to play my computer inside a walk in freezer.. :)

The fans are working, I can hear both spinning. The heat prob was there even with a regular VGA driver.

Anyway thank you for the help!!! I will try just about anything at this point. I don't think re installing XP will help this prob since its more of a hardware prob.

Once I get back from iraq, i am buying a NON Alienware computer. By then Silent hunter 5 may be in the works hehe.. ;)

[doggydoggo]

You could try a Chill Mat, which is a platform with two fans built in. Plugs into USB port and draws heat away from your rig. After a couple hours, my laptop is only half as warm as usual.

Another thought for you. SH4 kept crashing on me after 10 minutes until I disabled write combining. To do this, go to your display settings, choose Setting tab, click Advanced, then Troubleshoot tab. At the bottom will be a check box to enable or disable write combining. Once I disabled it, SH4 hasn't crashed on me yet and she runs 3x better. BTW, I am running an ATI 9800 and just getting the card to work was a pain!

[Cap'n Crabs]

Doggy's got a real point about write combinging. Enabling that with an ATI card is a definite no no. Forgot all about that one. Some systems, you can also disable it in the system bios as well as display properties.

I've had it disabled for so long, it totally slipped my mind, but now I can remember a few years ago having games crashing due to it being on.

[shad43]

You could try a Chill Mat, which is a platform with two fans built in. Plugs into USB port and draws heat away from your rig. After a couple hours, my laptop is only half as warm as usual.

Another thought for you. SH4 kept crashing on me after 10 minutes until I disabled write combining. To do this, go to your display settings, choose Setting tab, click Advanced, then Troubleshoot tab. At the bottom will be a check box to enable or disable write combining. Once I disabled it, SH4 hasn't crashed on me yet and she runs 3x better. BTW, I am running an ATI 9800 and just getting the card to work was a pain!

Amazing...it's true, you can learn something new everyday :up:

I have to admit I have no idea what "write combining" is or does,
and I don't have a problem with SH4 crashing but I have an x1600
so I thought "what the heck maybe my system will run better"
Guess what...I think it helped.
Thanks for tip :D

[John Channing]

What people forget is the SH4 is cutting edge in both graphics and processor usage. The graphics are obvious, but people forget that SH4 maps and tracks thousands of objects every microsecond, and that leads to processor overheating. The map for SH4 isn't a few sq miles like Battlefield 2 with a few hundred objects to track, it's millions of sq. miles, with thousands of objects.

When I installed SH3 on my P3 3.6 + 9800 Pro I was getting constant crashes. I installed SpeedFan and discovered that the thing was running hot enough to heat my house. I swapped everything out for a larger case with 4 fans and no more crashes.

I don't think it is a coincidence that, with the introduction of FSAA and higher resolutions, we are seeing a lot more CTD's. People are stressing out the CPU's & GPU's to the point they are shutting down, and then blaming the game.

JCC

[fredbass]

People need to learn to tune down their game settings and gpu settings, as well as keeping their system running as efficiently as possible, using good drivers, of course. Sometimes older systems just need reformated because after some point in time, they just won't run as well as when it was new, no matter what you do to make it better. FYI

And turn off all that crap that you see down in right side of your taskbar. The only thing I keep on is my security stuff and that's only because I have good rig with a dual core processor, otherwise that would be turned off too.

The one thing I don't use in the game, unfortunately, is the volumetric fog because it is a real killer as far as frame rates are concerned.

[TDK1044]

I agree, John. I have a GeForce 7600GT. It's idle temp is 47c/117f. On my other loaded game, it peaks at 58c/136f and on Silent Hunter 4 it gets to 68c/154f.

These temps are all well within tolereance for the card though and I've yet to have a CTD on my system which I've had for just over a year.

[viper771]

Ok thanks for the info! I turned off that setting for the vid card.. I had no idea what it was either.. new to me.

Yep, I already took all the crap out of the lower right hand cornder, defraged the system, etc. The comp is shutting down on all my games now, not just sh4. Even with the game 1946 it will shut down and reboot after awhile.


The thing is, my computer didn't do that before. I am going to crack the case open and clean it up a bit. Maybe there is some dust down in there I can't see.

I would like to get that cooling pad that goes under the laptop. I will prob have to order that since they don't sell good stuff like that on base :)

Thanks again everyone!!!