Technology Forum

Dear Sirs,The most amazing thing happened to me. I had the new "Mass Effect" [Sci-Fi geek even at 46 years old here!] game which ran smoothly on my old system; upgraded it almost entirely and now it crashes Blue Screen a moment than restarts my computer whenever I try to launch it. MORE! Reinstalled on the old structure it still runs.*Old Structure:* OS = XP-SP2Proc = Core2 Duo E6600 2.4G FSB 800MB = ASUS P5B-DeLuxe FSB 1066, 800Mem = 2GB [4 x 512M] Kingston ValueRam 800MhzVideo = Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH 320MSound = OnBoard [probably Realtek AC97]HDD = Seagate ST3320620NSPower = Enermax 500W Silent [32A for 12V]*New Structure:*OS = XP-SP3Proc = Core2 Quad Q9450 2.66G FSB 1333MB = ASUS P5E3-DeLuxe FSB 1333Mem = 2GB [2 x 1G] Kingston ValueRam 1333MhzVideo = Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH 320MSound = OnBoard [probably Realtek AC97]HDD = Seagate ST3320620NSPower = Enermax 620W Silent [40A for 12]Let's see how it goes thru your 10 steps:1] Game Specs - RECOMMENDED ONES:Operating System: windows xp or VistaProcessor: 2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMDMemory: 2 Gigabyte RamVideo Card:NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher.Hard Drive Space: 12 GigabytesSound Card: DirectX 9.0c compat. – 5.1 sound card recommendedIt is clear that both old [running] system and new [resetting] system pass even the RECOMMENDED game specs.2] The computer restarts itself by the discussed problem. But to be sure, i have donne myself a complete shutdown, 10 minutes pause and startup again - the same thing happened.3] The game is too new to have any mods, you know... But, no, I don't have any mods, so "3" does not apply.4] No download or instant messenger active and I've disabled Kaspersky; no other notable background activity - new system man; after XP deployment, drivers and antivirus install I proceeded dirrectly to MassEffect install. So the system was ABSOLUTELY CLEAN.5] The game installed it's own DirectX9.0c [October 2007 - if I remember correctly] as it did on the old [working] configuration.6] The drivers were last issue, just installed, as I previously stated. The video was 97.something - still the latest driver on Leadtek's site. And with the same driver it worked at reinstall on the old structure.7] No patches were issued by BioWare - I checked even BEFORE reading your 10 points program.8] Checked - all OK [although I could tell in advance, no one touched it but ME - not even my wife!]9] Reinstalled twice on the new configuration, still the same; reinstalled on the old one as a test, IT WORKS! But I need it working on the new one, as the old one is soon to be for sale.10] System specs are at the start of the post and this is the only game with troubles. I reinstalled also "Halo 2" and "Grand Prix Legends" [with all patches and updates] and they work OK. Only "Mass Effect" is doing the nasty thing.*To recap:* When I start it, it shows the splash screen with an hourglass cursor still movable - known behaviour from old config - but instead of starting after a long time, it first freezes even the cursor, than it shows the Blue Screen Of Death for around half a second, than it reboots without any effects on the hardware or the operating system.*OBSERVATIONS:* - thought it's due to SP3 [old one had only SP2], that's why I test-reinstalled on the old configuration which has now applied SP3 and IT STILL WORKED. - both old config and new config have now fresh reinstall of XP-SP3 WITH ALL NEW DRIVERS, so turning to old drivers seems to be out of the question.I wonder if the game doesn't get lost between the 4 cores of the processor... This seems the only significant difference, beside the new X38 chipset and the increased FSB of the MoBo.