Oblivion/HL2 rebooting my computer

[sergiomahiti]

Hello,

I've encountered a problem I haven't been able to find a solution for on the message boards around the internet. Hope you all can help-

I'm trying to play two games, Half Life 2 and Oblivion, but HL2 reboots my computer when a new game is loaded and Oblivion will play through the tutorial (sewers) up until the point when you exit the sewer, when my computer reboots. I have previously played both games on the same computer, I think the only hardware change was adding a second hard drive and a new psu. I'm annoyed and can't figure out what to do. I found this forum because I can't figure out how to read my minidump files and it seems like the answer may be in them. 5 minidumps/Specs:

windows xp home (no updates, formatted a few days ago)
asus a7n8x deluxe motherboard (updated today)
amd athlon 3200+
1gig ddr ram
ati radeon x1300 (drivers updated today)

 

[Route44]

All five of your minidumps cite 0x8E errors: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

As defined by auhma.org this means a kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch. These are nearly always hardware compatibility issues (which sometimes means a driver issue or a need for a BIOS upgrade).

The driver cited in the probable cause in all five is atiduag.dll which is an ATI driver.

Some of my research suggests that this is a common problem on ASUS motherboards (but a lot of onters have issues with this driver). Bad RAM is a frequent cause.

1. Some advice is to update the BIOS, or assure you have current. Is this what you did or was the update chipset drivers only?

2. Download latest ATI drivers so you have them handy.

3. Dowload and install Drive Cleaner Pro. It is free and it will guide you to either Nvidia or ATI when engaged. However, it can only be used is Safe Mode. Keep reading.

5.. Remove all ATI software through Add/Remove under Control Panel.

6. Boot in safemode. Find DCPro and let it search and find any remaining ATI software/drivers. If it doesn't find anything that is okay.

7. Reboot. Windows will want to install drivers it but don't let it. Install drivers yourself. Now reboot.

8. If stability returns, great. If not run Memtest from www.memtest.org. Let it run for a minimum of passes, or four hours, whichever takes longer.

* If I may, I suggest another gig of RAM. Also, get all the updates installed.

Both those games are graphic intensive and your X1300 card is being pushed as well as your cpu (I have that 3200+ in another system and it is a good one).

 

[sergiomahiti]

Ding!

Thanks a bunch Route44, upgrading my BIOS fixed the problem. Never would have thought of doing that otherwise. A million thanks for the informative, quick reply!

-sergio

 

[Route44]

Excellent! Thanks for checking back with us and telling us it has been resolved and how it was resolved. By doing so it will help others as well.

 

[sergiomahiti]

It's happening again!

Err,

Been enjoying playing oblivion again for the past few days and all of the sudden the computer has begun to restart upon exiting a dungeon! I've tried different saved games and it happens coming out from different dungeons. Must be something about the "outside" world that my computer doesn't like, but not sure yet. It's too late for me to try experimenting tonight, but maybe I just need to lower the graphical settings more. I've attached 5 more minidumps, if anyone can read them, is it giving me the same error as before? This is so strange!!

sergio

 

[Route44]

All minidumps cite 0x8E errors and all point to the ati3duag.dll which is a graphics driver.

See my first response about ATI drivers and updating. I would also suggest, agian, another gig of RAM for gaming purposes.