Hey everyone! I have a quick question regarding a really weird problem I'm having with Half Life 2.

Whenever I start it up, the Valve splash screen plays out all right, but then the game crashes to desktop with a "HL2 is not responding" error message, here are the details:

Code:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	APPCRASH
  Application Name:	hl2.exe
  Application Version:	0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:	4445c334
 [B] Fault Module Name:	StackHash_abcc[/B] <------ [I][U](This seems important..?)[/U][/I]
  Fault Module Version:	0.0.0.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:	00000000
  Exception Code:	c0000005
  Exception Offset:	74ece2d4
  OS Version:	6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
  Locale ID:	1033
  Additional Information 1:	abcc
  Additional Information 2:	abcc8f7853b48d9807d6d51eb1fa5df9
  Additional Information 3:	abcc
  Additional Information 4:	abcc8f7853b48d9807d6d51eb1fa5df9

The reason this error is so baffling to me is that the game ran fine less than a day ago. Nothing has been changed except for my location, which shouldn't matter as far as I know.

One fix I've thought about using was to simply run the game in windowed mode, however I can't seem to do so. Does anyone know how to make this happen? I've tried adding the -W argument on the shortcut that launches HL2, but it still runs in fullscreen...?

Anyways, any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

EDIT : My computer is a Alienware M17 laptop, the specs far exceed the minimum reqs. for HL2, I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate. Drivers, DirectX, etc are all updated.

hey Danny09,
welcome to TS!

I think the firts think you need to try and do is re-set your location to where you were before restart valve and see if that helps in any way

James

Try verifying the game files by following these steps

1. From the Library section, right-click on the game and select Properties from the menu.
2. Select the Local files tab and click the Verify integrity of game cache... button.
3. Steam will verify the game's files - this process may take several minutes.

this will make sure all game files are uncorrupted and in working condition. If any files are corrupted they will be redownloaded automatically

Oh crud, sorry I forgot to mention I'm running a no-steam version I got from a friend. Is there any way of doing the equivalent of a file verification type thingy without steam? Maybe a fresh reinstall?
Thanks in advance!