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Ever since the first Civilization game came out, I have been a devoted Sid Meier fan. I never knew there was a Pirates until a week ago! I downloaded the game and am ADDICTED!
It runs on my laptop fine for the most part. Of course there's the whole touchpad issue, which I am chosing to ignore right now.
This issue I am having is that right when I'm in the heat of the game, my whole laptop just shuts off. I am not positive, but I am 90% sure it only happens when I am in a sword fight. There is not "blue-screen-of-death" no sticky-ness of the screen, just a *blink* and its off. I want to keep playing Pirates because well, its awesome, but I want to figure out why its turning off. I know its not good for the laptop to just switch off. I do have other windows (just mozilla) open when I play Pirates...but other than that nothing. It didn't shut off at all when I played it all day yesterday. It just seemed to do it today.
The laptop is about 3yrs old....and it runs Civilization 4 and Spore (games with I'm guessing far better graphics) with no issues.
Any guesses?
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Shuts Off Laptop
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CaptainPatch 
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Posted 01 February 2010 - 06:50 PM
A PC turning itself off usually revolves around two different issues:
A) Power Management -- If you have the PC set to auto power-down or auto power-off, it _may_ be that the PC is not "seeing" SMP in progress. Basically, once the game starts the PC thinks you've gone inactive. (Odd, yes, but it happens.) Turn off Power Management and see what happens.
B ) Self-preservation -- Many models of laptops have serious heat sink issues. The laptop, after all, was originally designed to be a portable number-cruncher; sort of a mega-calculator. When required to also process the myriad of processes involved in displaying fluid graphics, the CPU runs significantly hotter. The laptop can only handle so much of that heat in the (very inadequate) heat sink. When the internal temperature hits a critical point, the PC turns off rather than risk melting internal components. If this your case, you'll have the great fun of opening up your laptop and give the guts a VERY thorough cleaning. (Dust bunnies in a laptop are like hair balls in a cat.) You might also look into getting the latest/greatest heat sink for your laptop model. Maybe also a new case fan with more oomph.
Issue B can get VERY expensive to rectify. You might consider acquiring a closer to the state-of-the-art laptop; those have specifically addressed the graphics-induced heating issues. Might even pick up a USB NumPad to make SMP dueling and dancing that much easier. ;)
A) Power Management -- If you have the PC set to auto power-down or auto power-off, it _may_ be that the PC is not "seeing" SMP in progress. Basically, once the game starts the PC thinks you've gone inactive. (Odd, yes, but it happens.) Turn off Power Management and see what happens.
B ) Self-preservation -- Many models of laptops have serious heat sink issues. The laptop, after all, was originally designed to be a portable number-cruncher; sort of a mega-calculator. When required to also process the myriad of processes involved in displaying fluid graphics, the CPU runs significantly hotter. The laptop can only handle so much of that heat in the (very inadequate) heat sink. When the internal temperature hits a critical point, the PC turns off rather than risk melting internal components. If this your case, you'll have the great fun of opening up your laptop and give the guts a VERY thorough cleaning. (Dust bunnies in a laptop are like hair balls in a cat.) You might also look into getting the latest/greatest heat sink for your laptop model. Maybe also a new case fan with more oomph.
Issue B can get VERY expensive to rectify. You might consider acquiring a closer to the state-of-the-art laptop; those have specifically addressed the graphics-induced heating issues. Might even pick up a USB NumPad to make SMP dueling and dancing that much easier. ;)
This post has been edited by CaptainPatch: 01 February 2010 - 06:50 PM
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