[Weaver]

I know there are several topics on this already but none that i have looked at seem to be close enough to the same. Here it goes. I have a Toshiba Satellite A105-S2236 Laptop bought brand new from walmart in july of 07.

I have the game Stronghold Crusader ok i started plaing this game on this computer shortly after i bought it with no problems. This past Dec. of 07 i used the restore disk and put the computer back to straight out of the box settings. Done as usaul and uninstalled all the useless programs that you get when you buy a new computer. Readjusted my power and performance settings to max performance. Removed the battery sense its used as a desktop now. Added second monitor for extended screen display. Unfortunately it came with vista home basic preinstalled. I use sidebar on second monitor to monitor cpu and ram usage.

Ok now that i have done all this i try playing the game Stronghold and it get to play for about 10 min, 13 counting load time. I have tried it with second monitor disconnected same result. My cpu stays maxed out and my ram runs about 70%. I have changed my compatibilty settings for the game to win xp, win ME, win 98 se, and yet still the same result.

I dont understand why it worked before and wont now.

The problem only happens with the game this computer rarely ever gets turned off it runs all night and all day every now and then a restart and nothing else causes this problem.

Videos max out my cpu from time to time granted not as long but still it stays on. It will play music with winamp 24 hours straight no problem.

Please help i love my game. :)

[VladTheImpaler1990]

Welkom to PC world :8}
Ok lets see, well when running a game it uses alot more energy so this means more heat this means your processor will get hotter so if your fan is not working right it can cause your computer to freeze, shut down or completly be destroyed. If its not the over heating then you can try download the lastest drivers for your graphics card, as when you did a restore you could of lost your lastest drivers.
Message was edited by: VladTheImpaler1990

[mphenterprises]

Hi Weaver and welcome to PCWorld. :-)




VladTheImpaler has given you some good suggestions. If I may add to that:

- If your CPU usage is maxed during game play, at some point, as you have experienced, your computer will freeze. According to Walmart's Website, this laptop only came with 512MB of memory. Now, this is the absolute bare minimum that a computer, using the Vista Operating System, should have. According to this site, this game is not a resource hog; however, the fact that your CPU Usage is maxed, leads me to believe that the minimum memory is restricting your computer usage.

According to Crucial.com, this laptop memory maximum is 2GBs. According to Newegg.com, here is a collection of memory chips that are compatible with your computer. Once you upgrade the memory, I believe you will not have anymore problems.

- This is a stretch but it is still a possibility. As shown by the previous point, this game is designed for Windows 98/ME/XP/2000. Now, this could be an issue that this game is not truly compatible with Vista. However, since the game installed and game, at least temporarily, I would say this situation is less likely.