AOE and XP Pro HELP

Hello,

Heres my problem. I have read as many posts as I can find on this subject but so far nothing seems to help. I am trying to run AOE gold (brand new disk) it seems to install fine. But when I try to play it, it makes it fine through the intro movies and option screens but freezes somewhere between 5-15 seconds later, requiring a soft boot to get control of the computer back. I have downloaded the update 1.0c for the game and all of the video and sound card updates I can find. I have uninstalled and reinstalled multipule times using the compatibilty tricks to no avail. I tried reducing video and sound accelration with no effect. note: When the new driver for my video card came out in october I installed it right then but Windows update keeps telling me I need to install it. (It is I checked)
System specs.
Chip: AMD Athlon 1700+
Motherboard: ASUS A7V266-E
Video: Nvidia MX440
Sound: C-Media CMI8738/C3DX PCI
40 gig hard drive with plenty of free space

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

PS I am running 256m of ram.

Gee this is a tough one. I did a Microsoft Knowledge base search and a
Google search for known issues and couldn't find any references to this
specific problem. It sounds like you are doing the right trouble shooting
steps (reinstalling the application as an administrator, updating drivers,
updating DirectX).

Here's a link to some shortcuts which will make launching AOE easier than
disabling sound & video options via DXDIAG. Definitely try launching the
game without movies and see if it works properly.

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...347&Product=gms

256 MB of memory is a bit skimpy for Windows XP, especially if you're
running a lot of active applications like virus scanners, software file
walls, Creative Labs helper applications. I'd suggest turning off any
unnecessary applications just to see if the game will run. Maybe there is a
software conflict of some kind.

Other than that I don't know what else to contribute.

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"swampwater" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:06B1B323-6744-49B9-A0DE-99A6DDDB6F0B@microsoft.com...
> PS I am running 256m of ram.

Thanks for your effort. Using the "safe" mode icon (none of the others seems to have any effect.) and a clean boot did get the game running for about 10 min. but then it hung up and required a soft boot to get the system running again. Using the safe mode icon and a "normal" boot the game ran for about 2min. which is longer than before. Seems like I am on to something but not sure what yet. I am going to redownload my driver updates after I clean boot and see if this has any effect. One other thing, my daughters SIM games seem to be doing the same thing

----- Neil Dela Osa [MS] wrote: ----

Gee this is a tough one. I did a Microsoft Knowledge base search and
Google search for known issues and couldn't find any references to thi
specific problem. It sounds like you are doing the right trouble shootin
steps (reinstalling the application as an administrator, updating drivers
updating DirectX)

Here's a link to some shortcuts which will make launching AOE easier tha
disabling sound & video options via DXDIAG. Definitely try launching th
game without movies and see if it works properly

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...5347&Product=gm

256 MB of memory is a bit skimpy for Windows XP, especially if you'r
running a lot of active applications like virus scanners, software fil
walls, Creative Labs helper applications. I'd suggest turning off an
unnecessary applications just to see if the game will run. Maybe there is
software conflict of some kind

Other than that I don't know what else to contribute

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights
Please do not send email directly to my alias. This alias is for newsgrou
posting only
"swampwater" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in messag
news:06B1B323-6744-49B9-A0DE-99A6DDDB6F0B@microsoft.com..
> PS I am running 256m of ram

My observations:

I would check to see if your system is overheating. It looks like you have a
slightly older Athlon which run even hotter than the current crop (which run
hot as well). Your symptoms are very much what happens when the CPU
overheats. The system will run fine until a game or application that uses a
significant amount of processing power is run.

I would check that the CPU fan is working properly and that your case has
enough ventilation. One way to test if the CPU is overheating is to open the
case the next time it "freezes" and touch the CPU heatsink. If it is hot
enough to burn your hand after a couple seconds, then it is too hot.

It's also possible that it is simply the video card that is overheating,
however the Geforce4 MX series don't run very hot.

"swampwater" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:56321AC2-6F3A-46DF-8DBD-A04600C9EADA@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for your effort. Using the "safe" mode icon (none of the others
seems to have any effect.) and a clean boot did get the game running for
about 10 min. but then it hung up and required a soft boot to get the system
running again. Using the safe mode icon and a "normal" boot the game ran
for about 2min. which is longer than before. Seems like I am on to
something but not sure what yet. I am going to redownload my driver updates
after I clean boot and see if this has any effect. One other thing, my
daughters SIM games seem to be doing the same thing.

Thanks Dan, I hadn't even considered that. Kind of curious though, I don't have this problem with Medal of Honor even at high or extereme settings or any other programs for that matter. My wife does, but that is a whole nother story I have to admit my power supply to my house is a generator and it has been acting up latley.( They can run a phone to my house but not power!!) I think I have some sort of widget on my computer that monitors heat I will fiddle around and see what happens as well as phyisicaly check things out. I am determined to find out the problem here. I will post back
Thanks again!!