Black screen

**Tzarken** · October 05, 2011, 09:52 PM

About a week ago I reinstalled windows 7 64bit (had some malware problems) and decided to make Medieval II one of the first games that I reinstalled.

The first time I started a new campaign I played a little over an hour before I got a black screen.

Now it lasts about 5 - 15 in battles before the screen goes black and a sound plays in an infinite loop.

I have been looking all over for a way to fix this, I uninstalled and then reinstalled Medieval II twice, installed about 5 different Nvidia GFX drivers and even looked though some of the topics on this forums that looked similar to my problem with no real success.

I am running v1.2

I think I need help. Please.

=DxDiag=

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**irishron** · October 05, 2011, 10:35 PM

When you reinstalled Win 7, did you also reinstall the motherboard chipset drivers?

**Tzarken** · October 05, 2011, 10:46 PM

No, thought they were stored in bios.

I was playing Fallout: New Vegas alot and some Dawn of war: Dark Crusade (dx9 game) in the past week and had no problems. Just have issues with Medieval II it seems.

**irishron** · October 06, 2011, 07:16 AM

What is the make and model of your computer? You will need them.

**Tzarken** · October 06, 2011, 07:08 PM

It is a Digital Storm custom system, purchase date 10/15/2009 the following is off of the packaging receipt.

Config ID: DSO-164613

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (Quad Core) Factory Overclocked to 4.0 GHz
Motherboard: EVGA X58 3x SLI (Chipset: Intel X58)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair/Mushkin (Digital Storm Certified)(Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1250W Enermax Galaxy EVO (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)(Recommended)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (1TB Western Digital (7200 RPM)(32MB Cache)(SATA)(Extreme Speed)
Video Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1.792GB (includes PhysX Technology)
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: High-Performance Liquid Chilled FrostBite System For CPU
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans (4 fans taking up the whole side another fan or two on the top, fan in the back (in addition to the ones build in on the GPUs and power supply))
CPU Boost: Yes, Factory Overclocked I7 920 from 2.66GHz to 4.0GHz with 100% Stability & Reliability
Graphics Boost: Yes, Overclock the video card(s) as much as possible with complete stability
Memory Boost:-No Thanks
Windows Boost: Yes, Disable and tweak all of the non-crusial services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) With Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon
Restore Kit: Digitial Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

Misc:
1TB western digital
Extra 2 Year Warranty

Sound card: Creative X-fi Titanium

**PoleCat** · October 07, 2011, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by Tzarken

It is a Digital Storm custom system, purchase date 10/15/2009 the following is off of the packaging receipt...[snip]....

Misc:
1TB western digital
Extra 2 Year Warranty

Contact Digital Storm now. irishron is right - your 12V line is way too low. But the good news is you bought the extended warranty. The bad news is that it expires in mere days. Get them on the line and get that system RMA'd and fixed on their dime while you have time. Possibly the PSU is failing or the overclock has done some damage over time. Good luck!

**Tzarken** · October 07, 2011, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by Tzarken

Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

Misc:
1TB western digital
Extra 2 Year Warranty

Sound card: Creative X-fi Titanium

Looks like I have a 5 year warranty.

Ill run the test and probably talk to tech support when i get home

**irishron** · October 06, 2011, 08:12 PM

Try this. http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

If it does not work, try this one. http://www.evga.com/support/download/default.aspx

**Tzarken** · October 06, 2011, 09:08 PM

I tried the first link, it did the scan and didn't work.

Then I went to the EVGA link and downloaded and installed the chipset driver for my motherboard, restarted my comp and played a battle. I had just about 50 of the 1400 enemy troops left to finish off as they were routing when it went to the black screen.

**irishron** · October 06, 2011, 09:59 PM

Download Speedfan, run the game in windowed mode, and post a pic of Speedfan at the time of the black screen.

It's either power supply acting up, heat, overclock not as stable under game conditions or any combination there of.

**Tzarken** · October 07, 2011, 12:54 AM

When it goes to a black screen, its not just in game but the system locking up. So I cannot do anything except hit the reset button then power off and back on.

The monitor goes into powersave mode and the computer locks up making kind of like a errrrrrrrrrrrrr sound in my headphones.

This this is a pic of one of the battles that it happened in with speedfan on top.

Right now as im finishing typing this, speedfan is reading GPU 60, 66, 65, 63, Temp1 41, Temp2 64, Temp3 36, HD1 44, HD0 43.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**irishron** · October 07, 2011, 07:52 AM

The temps are in the ballpark.

The one that scares me is the 12v line. Speedfan says it's only getting 10.3 volts, 86% of what it needs, and if this game is pushing your SLI setup hard, it will run out of power and cause your black screen.

If you want a second test, run HWMonitor and see what figures you get.

**irishron** · October 07, 2011, 02:07 PM

Good luck.

**Tzarken** · October 20, 2011, 09:40 PM

So today I finally got a tech support guy from Digital Storm to help me out.

Remotely took a look at my comp's stats and then downloaded and ran Heaven DX11 Benchmark 2.5

He said that it is a graphics card killer and if there is anything wrong with my graphics cards, I would know it and to have it run for an hour.

It ran for 6 hours with no problems with an average FPS of something like 78 (could have been higher, dont remember, but it was atleast that) on the benchmark that was 5 minutes or so long that I ran after 6 hours. (min fps 27, max fps 141)

He also had said that some gamers have a library of Graphics Card Drivers for older games (and also to turn off SLI for Oblivion, another game that I was having a smaller blackscreen problem with, because that can cause problems with that game)

My question is: If anyone here is running Medieval 2 on windows 7 64bit, with a Nvidia card, what graphics driver are you useing? What settings are you using to run the game? Anyone running version 1.2? If I "upgrade" to Kingdoms version 1.5 would that work better with newer graphics drivers or Windows 7? Steam version any different patch wise?

**irishron** · October 20, 2011, 10:02 PM

Kingdoms 1.5 and name a mod.
Nvidia 9800GT 512mb version 280.
Win 7 64bit.

Look on the power supply. What is the make and model on it?

If your service person at Digital Storm wants a true dx11 test, tell him to fire up Shogun2 with everything on high/ultra. It has proven to be the ultimate stress test on dx11 so far.

**Tzarken** · October 23, 2011, 01:26 PM

Power Supply:
Enermax
EGX1250EWT

**irishron** · October 23, 2011, 03:06 PM

One review says it's a good power supply.

Does it do it on say 1280 x 1024 monitor resolution?

Do you have two 12 volt lines plugged into the card?

**Tzarken** · October 23, 2011, 05:23 PM

It still has the problem on 1280 x 1024 resolution and both lines are plugged into each card.

I also disabled SLI (under Nvidia control panel) for this game... still the same issue.

**irishron** · October 23, 2011, 06:37 PM

Do you have another computer you can try the monitor on? Even a friends?

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