I fail at computers. Help please!!
Um, this is my first time posting here, but everyone seems very nice, so...I need help!!
I just got a lovely shiny new PC -
160GB hard drive, (think this has been partitioned but not sure)
Windows Media Centre 2005,
16x DVD-ROM
AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+,
1.00 GHz, 960 MB of RAM,
NVIDIA Ge Force 6159 LE and
RealTek HD Sound
(That's as many of the specs as I can dig out)
I have the base game, Uni, Nitelife, OFB, FF, GL, Pets, Seasons, H&M Fashion and BV. As far as add-ons go, I have See Them, and InTeenimator.
All of these worked absolutely fine on my VERY old PC which only had a 40GB hard-drive. Not so much when I put them on the new PC and tried to play.
I can normally play for about 10 minutes before the entire thing freezes and the PC reboots. When it finishes and sends an error message to Microsoft, this is what I get:
Error Message: STOP 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER (Q293078)
Follow these steps to solve the problem with a video device driver
You received this message because a device driver installed on your computer caused Windows to stop unexpectedly. This type of error is referred to as a "stop error." A stop error requires you to restart your computer.
Solution
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are two options you can use to try to fix the problem. If the first option doesn't work, then try the second.
Option 1: Install the most current device driver for your video card
Go online to check for an updated version of a video device driver on the Microsoft Update website.
If there are no updated drivers listed on Microsoft Update, we recommend you contact the manufacturer of the video card for additional support. Let them know that you received an error for a video device driver and ask if product updates are available.
If there are no updated drivers on Microsoft Update and you don't know the name of the video card manufacturer, we recommend you contact your computer manufacturer for additional information and support.
Option 2: Manually decrease Hardware Acceleration for your video adapter
This procedure prevents the display device driver from programming the hardware incorrectly, but you might lose some display functionality and performance.
Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Display.
Click the Settings tab, and then click Advanced.
Click the Troubleshoot tab, move the Hardware Acceleration slider to None, and then clear the Enable Write Combing check box.
Click OK, and then click OK.
I've tried all of these with no joy. I've turned the graphics and effects down on the game when it runs, I've removed about a third of all my old downloads, and I've got all my drivers, Direct X 9.0c and Windows updates, - the Sims 2 is the only thing on the PC which won't run.
Am I being a complete retard and missed something very basic?
Any ideas/advice/smacks over the head would be much appreciated!