Lots of weird spontaneous or intermittent problems can be traced back to heat. Try turning off the system for a while, then opening up the case and pointing a room fan at its innards while trying to run the game again. Might help to get a can of compressed air and blow out all the ducts, fans, power supply, etc...dust can be a thermal transfer killer. If it works with the mega-ventilation going on, you can be sure it's a heat issue.
Also, are your video/sound/mobo chipset drivers all up to snuff? Is it absolutely free of spyware and crap? DirectX version (I'm assuming KOTOR2 is a DX game)? Is there anything in the system event log that corresponds to these crashes?
DirectX Version 9c. It came with the game. I'm now reasonably certain that the problem was the game (which has now been uninstalled, and the memory it was taking up overwritten.) Unfortunately, I seem to have a lingering problem. Upon trying to boot the system up, I will, in a succesful boot, get the following:
Compaq logo screen with BIOS and system options access. Then the blinking underscore prompt. Then the Windows XP loading screen, then my desktop.
The whole boot sequence takes about twenty or thirty seconds. The thing is that, more often than not, when I turn it, the system will only show screens one and two (the Compaq screen, and the blinking prompt) and then freeze on the prompt screen. All hard drive noise will cease, and I'll be left with just the underscore prompt until I turn the machine off and on again. normally, the same thing will happen again. The system will generally refuse to start at all until it's been theoretically running for five minutes or so, which suggests that the problem is heat-related, although why it would refuse to boot properly when cold is beyond me.
As far as drivers and that are concerned - the PC's less than three months old, and I've been making sure it stays updated. I've checked, and apparently everything's completely up-to-date.
I run McAfee security centre, which I have a good deal of faith in. as I type this, it just finished updating and scanning my hard drive, and came up negative on any hostile software.
As far as I can tell, the temp inside the case is nominal. The air flow in there could be better I guess, and I could probably do with installing a better fan and some round cables, but I see nothing particularly obstructive. The room it's in is quite cool (I have a window permanently open) and there's plenty of space around the back, and not too many cables.
The thing is that the problem began almost immediately after I came back from a holiday trip. The PC had been completely inactive for nine days in an unheated room. The first thing I did upon getting back was a full course of updates, a complete scan of the hard drive, and a complete defrag of same. Later this week I'm going to back everything up to DVD-RW, and then I'm going to format and run my recovery disk. If that fails, I'm going to take it in to the workshop at my local PC world. The warranty will cover everything.
sounds like videocard issues
has any friend tried to overclock your video card? i found out one of my did randomly and i had to set it back, becuase it couldnt keep up witht the clock speed
Actually, I'd be quite capable of overclocking it myself if I wanted. I squeezed an extra few months out of my old computer that way. I haven't done it to this one because A) I don't need to and B) it would invalidate my warranty, and I'd rather not pay to get the damn thing fixed.
I've checked, and my graphics card simply isn't the issue. as far as I can tell, there really shouldn't be anything going wrong at all. everything should be perfect. So I'm going with the "somebody shit in the case" theory. Shame it's too late to return it.... and my spending budget for the month is gone too. Oh well.