The Official ETW Hardware Problem Solving Thread

[Subotan]

That's cause mine presents a challenge =p

[quadalpha]

S: Disabling the wrong thing? What did you do to disable things? (What were you trying to disable?) Are you sure you're seating the cards properly? That used to be a problem with AGP cards. Can you boot into safe mode? Can you see the POST checks? Get into BIOS?

G: Do you have UAC on? Tried running it as administrator? Steam offline?

[Subotan]

S: Disabling the wrong thing? What did you do to disable things? (What were you trying to disable?)

We were trying to disable the old graphics drivers, in both the old card and the motherboard. We unistalled something from the "nvidia Desktop Manager", which I suspect was not the nvidia driver. And disabled what we think was the motherbaord graphics driver. We went into Add/Remove programs and Device Manager.

Are you sure you're seating the cards properly? That used to be a problem with AGP cards.

Yes.

Can you boot into safe mode?

Nope.

Can you see the POST checks?

We don't even know what they are.

Get into BIOS?

Yes, we are messing with that now. Any advice on how to get graphics drivers up and running from there?

I really appreciate your time and help on this.You don't know what a big favour you are doing!

[quadalpha]

(Bored at work and happy to help :) )

Just to confirm, you can see Windows (XP or Vista?) starting normally (wavy flag and all) until you get to the login screen? Can you describe the trippy mess?

You see a black screen at login with the motherboard graphics: can you get into the BIOS using your motherboard integrated graphics? You won't be able to touch the drivers from BIOS, I'm just trying to narrow down the possibilities.

On the solutions front, do you have any kind of windows disc or a boot disc? Unrelatedly, do you have access to a graphics card that doesn't use the PCIe port (may or may not help, depending on previous answers)?

[Greyblades]

That's cause mine presents a challenge =p

True.

S: Disabling the wrong thing? What did you do to disable things? (What were you trying to disable?) Are you sure you're seating the cards properly? That used to be a problem with AGP cards. Can you boot into safe mode? Can you see the POST checks? Get into BIOS?

G: Do you have UAC on? Tried running it as administrator? Steam offline?

Actually I got in touch with my regular Technician. Apparantly the problem was that the newest video card drivers by Nvidia were actualy worse than the older ones (oh the irony).

To all you who have been having my problem with a Nvidia card, on vista 64, dont get the 182 version, download this one instead. It should fix it.

[Subotan]

(Bored at work and happy to help :)

Cool (Not that you're bored I mean)

Just to confirm, you can see Windows (XP or Vista?) starting normally (wavy flag and all) until you get to the login screen?

Yes. Also, we attempted to login once we got to the "black screen" after the flag, and we found that we could login to my account. We also tried to install the driver for my new card, but it's nigh-impossible when you have no idea where your cursor is. I'm thinking that this means that Windows doesn't think there is a problem, and is chugging away, whilst not realising that a driver is missing, and that it isn't being displayed on the screen.

Can you describe the trippy mess?

It's quite weird. It seems to seperate into "columns", and of various garish colours (Pink/Green/White/Octarine) However, it doesn't stop me from physically logging in. It also appears to be "on top" of what was otherwise normally happening, if that makes sense.

You see a black screen at login with the motherboard graphics: can you get into the BIOS using your motherboard integrated graphics?

Yes.

You won't be able to touch the drivers from BIOS, I'm just trying to narrow down the possibilities.

Crap.

On the solutions front, do you have any kind of windows disc or a boot disc?

Yes, we're thinking about transferring most of the files onto a new hardrive, and reinstalling windows onto that new backup hardrive.

(Unrelatedly, do you have access to a graphics card that doesn't use the PCIe port (may or may not help, depending on previous answers)?

I'm not sure, but I doubt it.

Again, thanks for the help. I'm going into Manchester today (Mum's birthday), followed by Shakespeare (w00t!) so I won't be able to work on it for most of today.

Again, thanks for being so helpful.

[Tsavong]

Hi ive got a couple of graphical problems with empire and im not sure if its my hardware not being up to scratch or a bug that's the problem so I thought I would ask for some advice.

1st like in the demo I cant set anything higher than medium other than unit size and some of the check boxes are disabled too. Now I know my computer cant run things maxed out but I had the Volumetric Effects (fog) working fine in the demo and I cant use them now. Also the water on land maps dose not show its just a black mass which is another thing that worked in the demo but not now.

So is this a hardware problem that I had or is it something I can fix with out an upgrade?

My system is:
Intel Core 2 6600@ 2.40GHz
2GB Memory
GeForce 8600 GTS, Version 182.06
Win Vista 32 bit

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Thanks in advance

[A Very Super Market]

Well, your processor and RAM are at minimum spec.

Not sure yet...

[pevergreen]

Hi ive got a couple of graphical problems with empire and im not sure if its my hardware not being up to scratch or a bug that's the problem so I thought I would ask for some advice.

1st like in the demo I cant set anything higher than medium other than unit size and some of the check boxes are disabled too. Now I know my computer cant run things maxed out but I had the Volumetric Effects (fog) working fine in the demo and I cant use them now. Also the water on land maps dose not show its just a black mass which is another thing that worked in the demo but not now.

So is this a hardware problem that I had or is it something I can fix with out an upgrade?

My system is:
Intel Core 2 6600@ 2.40GHz
2GB Memory
GeForce 8600 GTS, Version 182.06
Win Vista 32 bit

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Thanks in advance

I have almost the exact same computer as you, I just have double your RAM.

The game will cross out anything it doesnt think you can run at a playable FPS.