minidump question . computer just reset.

[gingerbill]

hi . i installed SP2 yesterday , and tried out my games and applications to make sure they all worked . everything seemed ok . Then i was playing the sims 2 (just got it yesterday) for a few hours and my computer suddenly reset itself . When it booted back up it said "windows has recovered from a serious error , a minidump has been created" . ive found the minidumps , but cant read them as they are in .DMP form . Been using the PC today ok today , but im paraniod about what caused it .

1)how do i read the minidump ??? doesnt it appear as a text file as well??

2)think it might have ben caused by SP2 ?? , seems a coincidence ive never had a crash till a few hours after installing SP2 .

3)Could it have been the sims2 tht caused the computer to reset and display this error ??

4) is it as serious as it sounds ?? or possibly a one off??

 

[Nodsu]

1) Minidump is pretty much useless to any normal person. Read it only if you are really good at debugging and know how a CPU works.

2) yes

3) yes

4) Just wait and see if it happens again. Running a memory test on your computers is a good idea. Also configure Windows not to restart at bluescreen - so you see what actually happened and not to create a memory dump - those are useless.

 

[gingerbill]

thanks for the reply . how do i configure windows not to restart on bluescreen??

can u suggest any programs to use for memory test.?

 

[Nodsu]

Right click My Computer->Properties. "Advanced" tab, "Settings" button under startup and recovery. Under "System failure" untick "Automatically restart". Set "Write debugging information" to "none".

www.memtest.org

 

[gingerbill]

thanks again . Ive used the computer alot , and its only happened once more , and that was when playing the sims2 again , im not sure for definite but i think it happens when ive been playing sims 2 for 4 hours or more . maye a memory leak in the game??

 

[Nodsu]

You can see about the memory leak by checking the Task Manager once in a while.

You could also check the system temperature right after the crash (go into BIOS setup and see the PC healt status).

 

[gingerbill]

computer hasnt crashed since , except when i play sims 2 for longer than about 3.5 hours , if i save and exit and then load it up it works ok . so it must have been the sims 2 causing it . I left computer on for about 8 hours with dark age of camelot running and it was fine , and i got rome total war on saturday and played that all day with no trouble.

thanks for your help

 

[tcurtin]

Sims2 and minidump

Its really interesting to me that my system is doing the exact thing, except its continuing to reboot after loading. My order was slightly different. Sims2 first.. all good for a week, then SP2.

 

[Woman-On-Edge]

My sims2 is doing the same thing i get the blue screen or it just restarts itself or i get that error message. I really dont know how to stop it nothing seems to work