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Author Topic:   Blue screen crashes

Zun posted 06-05-99 07:17 PM ET
Ok, the thing is that SMAC sometimes make a bluescrren error with the message "Disk error. Cannot write to disk C: File or data may be lost" every now and then, the thing is that it has no problems reading or writing. (my savegames get saved, and the game continues). Anyway, this error sends a message to Windows telling it that something is rong. So the next time i start my machine Scandisk begin claiming that there might have comed bad sectors on my HD. after many hours scanning my disk surface, it jumps to the conclusion that my disk is clean. It does this every time. So i started ignoring it. I thought "no damage done, weird program" I quited using the scandisk check every time the error has occuered(that is EVERY time i play SMAC or run the install)
Then one day scandisk saaid that my top folder (C:\) was damaged. Later my machine wouldnt boot. My MBR was destroyd. I couldnt format drive C: I couldnt reinstall windows i couldnt do anything. Luvkily Fdisk has a cure for that. I reinstalled the everything on my PC, and havent played SMAC since. Due to the bluescreen error that also occures under the install.
I have talked to some Support, but all they could say was "look for updates on the terren issue" Come on! i cant even use a patch, since i cant install the god damn game without "unistalling" my HD.
What do i do?
Rackam posted 06-05-99 08:39 PM ET
This looks suspiciously like Chernobl. What virus scanner do you use, and when did you last do a scan?
~Rackam
Zun posted 06-10-99 11:22 AM ET
I did reformat my harddrive and did a clean install so no virus!
I use McAfee with the newest definition files
The problem still exist...!
Rackam posted 06-11-99 07:45 AM ET
You could have a hardware problem and it could be anything from a malfunctionng memory chip to a faulty cpu to a problem with the controller on your HD. Anything.
Btw, AVP is a better anti-virus scanner.
~Rackam
Zun posted 06-12-99 06:30 PM ET
Rackman, if its anything, then why is "anything" only conflicting with Smac???
Im keeping the smac cd long away from my cd drive, and the program form my hd. no problems. As soon as i put the cd in, problem.
I think its pretty much Smac that has a problem.
Rackam posted 06-13-99 10:39 AM ET
I'm not quite sure how to say this. SMAC runs perfectly on my comp, in fact, it's the most stable directX game I've ever played with or without the v3.0 patch.
My comp
PII-400mhz on an ASUS P2B-F
128mb ram
Diamond Viper v330 graphics card
Diamond MX-300 sound card
2 x 6.2g Seagate Medallist pro's (each partitioned into 3x2g)
32x Mitsubishi CD-ROM
All in a full tower case with an extra 2 fans for cooling with two slot covers removed to allow extra air flow over the processors on the voodoo2's which have an unused slot between them.
I don't run resource hungry apps in the background when playing. Avp and the control apps for the sound and graphics cards. Plus, I do a full re-install of windose every 2 months (btw, I run 95c) and I do scan/defrag/regclean at least once a week and my swap file runs dynamically on drive H.
Speed tweaks are limiting vcache to 24meg along with some other things
Contents of config.sys [the parts that apply to windows ]
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE /NOEMS RAM=E000-EFFF
DOS=HIGH,UMB
Contents of Autoexec.bat
@ECHO OFF
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4
LH C:\WINDOWS\AU30DOS.COM
~Rackam
Zun posted 06-18-99 07:05 PM ET
I dont think you fully get it.
Anything that has to do with the smac cd is doing that blue screen error.
I have never used the v3.0 patch, since the error comes as soon as i start the install.
very simple. It wouldnt help if i reinstalled windows every 2. months, thats simply weird.
congratulations with your machine, and thanks for showing off. my smac still doesnt work...
and at last, you dont play many games do you??? -"most stabil directX game" you know that it is practicly impossible to get a game today that isnt directX?
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-19-99 02:38 AM ET
Zun -
It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame.
BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes.
SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-19-99 02:38 AM ET
Zun -
It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame.
BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes.
SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-19-99 02:39 AM ET
Zun -
It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame.
BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes.
SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-19-99 02:39 AM ET
Zun -
It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame.
BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes.
SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
Rackam posted 06-19-99 10:30 AM ET
Just one comment, I play a lot of games, RPG's, Space sims, Strategy and others.
Fallout2 is not stable. Neither is Baldur's Gate, European Air War, WC Prophecy, and a lot of others. HOMM3 comes close as does Simcity 3k, but even they have crashed a few times.
SMAC on the other hand will run on my machine for hours without even a single problem. Not even a graphics glitch which a lot of games are prone.
Concerning reinstalling windose. Every time you install a program, it adds .dll's .ocx's .vxd's etc to the c:\windows\system directory, and sometimes they will over write existing files. Even if an existing file is newer, some install routines will overwrite the newer file with it's old version. Also, some software vendors have their own version of a system file which can cause errors in other programs.
All these changes/errors build up in windose until one day, it wont boot because a critical system file has been corrupted by a crash/install/etc. By re-installing windows, I return the system directory to it's initial and stable state. Windose does have bugs, but badly written software can magnify those bugs to the point where windose becomes slow and crash prone.
Also, when your computer crashes, that is not shut down properly, errors can creep into the registry. They are very small and insignificant at first, but every crash will add more and more. It's like adding a cup of blue dye an olympic sized pool, it will not change colour at first, but keep adding the dye and soon, the water will be blue.
~Rackam
Lothar Harris posted 06-19-99 11:08 AM ET
I agree that most blue screens during install are OS/hardware/configuration related. Having said that, Does anyone have any ideas about the Terran.exe illegal operation or invalid page fault problem? It does not occur on my old P100 machine but the new P400 crashes randomly in any where from 5 to 30 min of play. Other games work fine. The Mfr of the machine trouble shot it with me and after we did everything possible, he said it was due to a poorly written game. One thing I did notice - If I dissable the pipeline cache, the game runs horribly slow but it will not crash!! So now what?? I'm stuck between the game vendor and the CPU. Not as bad as a rock and a hard place but damn close!
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Author	Topic: Blue screen crashes
Zun	posted 06-05-99 07:17 PM ET Ok, the thing is that SMAC sometimes make a bluescrren error with the message "Disk error. Cannot write to disk C: File or data may be lost" every now and then, the thing is that it has no problems reading or writing. (my savegames get saved, and the game continues). Anyway, this error sends a message to Windows telling it that something is rong. So the next time i start my machine Scandisk begin claiming that there might have comed bad sectors on my HD. after many hours scanning my disk surface, it jumps to the conclusion that my disk is clean. It does this every time. So i started ignoring it. I thought "no damage done, weird program" I quited using the scandisk check every time the error has occuered(that is EVERY time i play SMAC or run the install) Then one day scandisk saaid that my top folder (C:\) was damaged. Later my machine wouldnt boot. My MBR was destroyd. I couldnt format drive C: I couldnt reinstall windows i couldnt do anything. Luvkily Fdisk has a cure for that. I reinstalled the everything on my PC, and havent played SMAC since. Due to the bluescreen error that also occures under the install. I have talked to some Support, but all they could say was "look for updates on the terren issue" Come on! i cant even use a patch, since i cant install the god damn game without "unistalling" my HD. What do i do?
Rackam	posted 06-05-99 08:39 PM ET This looks suspiciously like Chernobl. What virus scanner do you use, and when did you last do a scan? ~Rackam
Zun	posted 06-10-99 11:22 AM ET I did reformat my harddrive and did a clean install so no virus! I use McAfee with the newest definition files The problem still exist...!
Rackam	posted 06-11-99 07:45 AM ET You could have a hardware problem and it could be anything from a malfunctionng memory chip to a faulty cpu to a problem with the controller on your HD. Anything. Btw, AVP is a better anti-virus scanner. ~Rackam
Zun	posted 06-12-99 06:30 PM ET Rackman, if its anything, then why is "anything" only conflicting with Smac??? Im keeping the smac cd long away from my cd drive, and the program form my hd. no problems. As soon as i put the cd in, problem. I think its pretty much Smac that has a problem.
Rackam	posted 06-13-99 10:39 AM ET I'm not quite sure how to say this. SMAC runs perfectly on my comp, in fact, it's the most stable directX game I've ever played with or without the v3.0 patch. My comp PII-400mhz on an ASUS P2B-F 128mb ram Diamond Viper v330 graphics card Diamond MX-300 sound card 2 x 6.2g Seagate Medallist pro's (each partitioned into 3x2g) 32x Mitsubishi CD-ROM All in a full tower case with an extra 2 fans for cooling with two slot covers removed to allow extra air flow over the processors on the voodoo2's which have an unused slot between them. I don't run resource hungry apps in the background when playing. Avp and the control apps for the sound and graphics cards. Plus, I do a full re-install of windose every 2 months (btw, I run 95c) and I do scan/defrag/regclean at least once a week and my swap file runs dynamically on drive H. Speed tweaks are limiting vcache to 24meg along with some other things Contents of config.sys [the parts that apply to windows ] DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE /NOEMS RAM=E000-EFFF DOS=HIGH,UMB Contents of Autoexec.bat @ECHO OFF SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4 LH C:\WINDOWS\AU30DOS.COM ~Rackam
Zun	posted 06-18-99 07:05 PM ET I dont think you fully get it. Anything that has to do with the smac cd is doing that blue screen error. I have never used the v3.0 patch, since the error comes as soon as i start the install. very simple. It wouldnt help if i reinstalled windows every 2. months, thats simply weird. congratulations with your machine, and thanks for showing off. my smac still doesnt work... and at last, you dont play many games do you??? -"most stabil directX game" you know that it is practicly impossible to get a game today that isnt directX?
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-19-99 02:38 AM ET Zun - It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame. BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes. SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-19-99 02:38 AM ET Zun - It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame. BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes. SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-19-99 02:39 AM ET Zun - It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame. BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes. SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-19-99 02:39 AM ET Zun - It doesn't matter if all the games out are IndirectX, if SMAC is one of the most stable, it's one of the most stable, regardless of whether there are two or a thousand IndirectX games out there, so you're comment to Rackam is lame. BSOD's (bluescreens) are ALWAYS OS generated - the conflict is with some system configuration issue on your machine, period. I've never generated a BSOD from SMAC, but in accessing memory or writing a .sav or temp file, SMAC (or any Windoze app) does not directly address RAM or the hard drive. It makes calls to the Win API (application programming interface), and then Windoze processes the API calls and handles the I/O reads and writes. SMAC is resource greedy, but the question is not SMAC, but what else are you running as device drivers, TSR's etc in the background, and whether you use Windoze "features" like hyperactive desktop (tm).
Rackam	posted 06-19-99 10:30 AM ET Just one comment, I play a lot of games, RPG's, Space sims, Strategy and others. Fallout2 is not stable. Neither is Baldur's Gate, European Air War, WC Prophecy, and a lot of others. HOMM3 comes close as does Simcity 3k, but even they have crashed a few times. SMAC on the other hand will run on my machine for hours without even a single problem. Not even a graphics glitch which a lot of games are prone. Concerning reinstalling windose. Every time you install a program, it adds .dll's .ocx's .vxd's etc to the c:\windows\system directory, and sometimes they will over write existing files. Even if an existing file is newer, some install routines will overwrite the newer file with it's old version. Also, some software vendors have their own version of a system file which can cause errors in other programs. All these changes/errors build up in windose until one day, it wont boot because a critical system file has been corrupted by a crash/install/etc. By re-installing windows, I return the system directory to it's initial and stable state. Windose does have bugs, but badly written software can magnify those bugs to the point where windose becomes slow and crash prone. Also, when your computer crashes, that is not shut down properly, errors can creep into the registry. They are very small and insignificant at first, but every crash will add more and more. It's like adding a cup of blue dye an olympic sized pool, it will not change colour at first, but keep adding the dye and soon, the water will be blue. ~Rackam
Lothar Harris	posted 06-19-99 11:08 AM ET I agree that most blue screens during install are OS/hardware/configuration related. Having said that, Does anyone have any ideas about the Terran.exe illegal operation or invalid page fault problem? It does not occur on my old P100 machine but the new P400 crashes randomly in any where from 5 to 30 min of play. Other games work fine. The Mfr of the machine trouble shot it with me and after we did everything possible, he said it was due to a poorly written game. One thing I did notice - If I dissable the pipeline cache, the game runs horribly slow but it will not crash!! So now what?? I'm stuck between the game vendor and the CPU. Not as bad as a rock and a hard place but damn close!