PC locks up 3 seconds after starting WA

[isurus]

im having this problem more often than not where if i try to run WA, my computer locks up 3 seconds or so after clicking the WA shortcut/starting EXE from program folder/click "play game" on CD start screen

sometimes the game starts, and i see this little spinning CD icon with an arrow. if i dont see that the game will crash.

i have windows xp SP1, latest ATI drivers, soundblaster audigy2.

here's my warnigns log file text:

22:24:35.12 W40K started at 2005-12-05 22:24
22:24:35.12 OS NT 5.1, 1024MB Physical Memory
22:24:35.12 RUN-OPTIONS
22:24:35.12 WORKING-DIR C:\Program Files\THQ\Dawn of War
22:24:35.12 USER Isurus
22:24:35.12
22:24:41.50 MATHBOX -- Version=5, Cpu=AMD Athlon:f=6,m=10, Mode=SSE
22:24:41.50 FILESYSTEM -- filepath failure, path does not exist 'Engine\Locale\english\Data'
22:24:41.50 GAME -- Warning: Failed to map folder 'Engine\Locale\english\Data'.
22:24:41.50 GAME -- Warhammer, 1.41, Build 82463.63883
22:24:41.50 GAME -- Available memory: 1023MB RAM, 2411MB Pagefile
22:24:41.50 State::State - set socket send buffer to 131072
22:24:41.50 State::State - set socket receive buffer to 131072
22:24:41.50 HostState - 68.84.53.2:6112 / 68.84.53.2:6112
22:24:41.50 Session : Now Host
22:24:41.50 Session : We are now a Host
22:24:41.50 PeerState - 68.84.53.2:6112 / 68.84.53.2:6112
22:24:41.50 PeerState::ConnectCallbackHost - connecting to host at 255.255.255.255:6112
22:24:41.50 GSTransport::Connect - GT2AddressError
22:24:41.50 GSTransport::State::SendSystemEvent - error sending to (255.255.255.255:6112 -1 6112) using socket (error 10004)
22:24:41.50 SPOOGE - Driver[Dx9 : Hardware TnL] on adapter[0], version[4,32]
22:24:41.50 SPDx9 -- Driver Name = ati2dvag.dll Device = \\.\DISPLAY1 Desc = RADEON X800 Series
22:24:41.50 SPDx9 -- Driver Vendor = 0x1002 Device = 0x4A49 SubSys = 0x0D42174B Rev = 0x0000
22:24:41.50 SPDx9 -- Driver Version Product = 0x0006 Version = 0x000E SubVersion = 0x000A Build = 0x19A1 (6561)
22:24:41.50 SPDx9 -- Driver GUID = {D7B71EE2-0909-11CF-5A6D-482DA1C2CB35}
22:24:41.50 SPOOGE -- 313.00MB available texture memory
22:24:41.50 SPOOGE -- 313.00MB available texture memory
22:24:41.50 GAME -- Beginning FE
22:24:41.79 MOVIE -- Opening movie 'movies:relic_intro.lua'
22:24:43.43 MOVIE -- Closing movie 'movies:relic_intro.lua'
22:24:43.43 MOVIE -- Opening movie 'movies:dow_intro.lua'
22:24:43.46 MOVIE -- Closing movie 'movies:dow_intro.lua'
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Initializing Mod w40k, 1.0
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Warning: Failed to load archive 'W40k\W40kDataGOTY.sga'
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Warning: Failed to open folder 'W40k\Locale\english\Data'.
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Warning: Failed to open folder 'W40k\Data_Shared_Textures\Full'.
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Warning: Failed to open folder 'W40k\Data_Sound\Med'.
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Warning: Failed to open folder 'W40k\Data_Whm\High'.
22:24:46.00 GAME -- Warning: Campaign 'DATA:SCENARIOS\SP\DAWNOFWAR.CAMP': the section CampaingIntro is missing!
22:24:49.64 RENDER ANIM -- Art/UI/3D_Models/Campaign_Menu: Unable to open file!
22:24:49.64 Unable to load CampaignFrontendModels.lua!
22:24:49.64 GAME -- Using player profile Darth Isurus
22:25:16.37 GAME -- Ending FE
22:25:16.37 MOD -- Shutting down Mod 'w40k'...
22:25:18.14 SPOOGE -- 312.00MB available texture memory
22:25:18.14 SPOOGE -- 313.00MB available texture memory
22:25:18.15
Application closed without errors

[Moe]

Dxdiag.txt please. Have you tried launching the game by double-clicking on the w40kwa.exe file in your DoW directory?
Does DoW still run normally?

[TBS]

is the exe being blocked by a software firewall?

[isurus]

no, its not blocked by a firewall.

i have tried loading from CD, loading from program folder, loading from desktop, loading from start menu, loading from quickstart. it doesnt matter where it starts from, no where is the 'safe place'.

it seems to work better if i run other things first or the computer is on a while. maybe its my dvd drive or something.

btw i think that warnings.log text is incorrect. it doesnt seem to generate if i run WA and it crashes. pretty sure that warnings.log is from regular dawn of war and me testing to see if running that first helps. it doesnt. tried several times.

[TBS]

------------------------
Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives
------------------------
Drive: C:
Free Space: 37.7 GB
Total Space: 131.1 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: ST3160023A

Drive: E:
Free Space: 5.7 GB
Total Space: 21.5 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: ST3160023A

Your DVD drive doesnt actually show up in the dxdiag O_o

Also, is there any good reason why you havent updated to SP2?

[isurus]

the D: drive is a DVD-RW/CD-RW combo drive from Lite-on.

E: drive is for artwork, not for games so it doesn't really matter.

i don't want to upgrade to SP2 because of the changes it's going to make and the problems i hear about running games. i don't want to upgrade then have to uninstall, reinstall a buncha things. i have a lot of stuff on my computer that i'm happy with the way that it is. i have several old games that ive heard about stopped running since SP2 came out.

[TBS]

SP2 has no problems running games.

And my point was that your D drive doesnt show up in the dxdiag at all - I only see C and E.

[isurus]

hmm i swore i posted a reply and it's not showing up.

well i said i do have a DVD drive (an Aopen cd/dvd-rw combo drive). are you saying that since it doesn't show up in dxdiag that it could be part of the problem?

should i try making an image of my cd and loading that into alcohol120 or daemon tools? would that even work or would i need some disable copy protection?

[TBS]

It could be, its certainly very strange - the dxdiag should list all your drives, but its only listing harddrives.

Dont bother making an image of the CD - the copy protection will stop you.

[isurus]

hey, thanks for your help so far. ill try reinstalling. if that doesn't work... well i dont know.

it seems lots of people having a problem with this 1.41 patch.

[isurus]

well i didn't uninstall. i made a copy of the game, and run the image thru a program. not giving too many details because i dont want to endorse this method. but since i cant get my legal copy of the game to work, i have to resort to passing the cd method.

i believe there is something wrong with the cd startup routine or somethign related to how it interacts with my dvd/cd drive. the program i use to mount the image works fine.

[isurus]

ok well...

IT STILL DOESN'T WORK RIGHT.

so it's not the dvd drive because even the mounted image version will lock up. i guess a reinstall is my next step.

[isurus]

another update. i got it to work, not sure what magical thing i did. i havent restarted yet so im not sure if it will consistantly start.

anyway i noticed something.
22:24:46.00 MOD -- Warning: Failed to load archive 'W40k\W40kDataGOTY.sga'

i dont have that file, i dont have game of the year edition. also, i dont have several other things that couldnt be found in the warnings.log.

[Moe]

That's normal, you can safely ignore those warnings.

[theBlind]

Do you use a no-cd crack with your mounted version? I'm just guessing here, but since your DVD drive does not show up in dxdiag, my idea would be that your WinXP install is corrupted.
Now using a no-cd crack won't solve that but maybe it's just the copy protection failing to read from your cd drive (you said if you see the CD-icon when starting the game it won't crash, and since that icon is imo directly linked to the copy protection...)
Anyway, the idea would be to disable the copy protection.
If that doesn't help, you might need to find a way to fix the drive for Windows.

[isurus]

no, i dont use a no cd crack. i mount the image (made from the 1st cd) in a program and emulate copy protection.

not sure how my winXP copy can be corrupted.

before this i could get the game to work, 10% of the time. it usually involved putting the CD in, pc crashes, restart, start the game again and sometimes it would work. im convinced the crashing has something to do with the way that the game wants to load and check for the CD and spinning the disc. maybe my DVD drive is a little wierd and it spins late or something, i dont know. all i know is now that i have the image mounted and copy protection emulated, it doesnt need to spin the disc, and it loads fine. the only thing that crashes it now is if i forget to shut down prevx beta 1 (security program), but ive actually prevented it from starting up.

now everything is ok. this game is the only game that crashed my pc on startup when the cd is in the drive. the other thing that crashed my computer was the FEAR demos i downloaded from fileplanet but the full game works fine.

[Chaos]

would you be talking about the Daemon tool? lol

[isurus]

not gonna say but there's several things to mount with.

anyway. it seems resetting graphics usings the "Graphics Option Tool" in the start menu under THQ>Dawn of War helps this issue. not sure it matters which you choose but i've tried safe mode and regular mode and the game will run after i do this.

[Turbopepsi]

I have the exact same problem. Some days the game will start without a problem, the other days I have to restart again and again.
As Isarus said, it seems the problem goes away if you start doing some other things first, like having lunch while surfing on the web for example. On a side note Moe en TBS, I do have SP2 installed. And I have 2 drives. Tried the CD in both (DVDcombo and regular CDburner drive) but that doesnt matter if WA doesnt feel like starting.
What Isarus said that if you get that icon that it's reading the CD, then you know it will load. If only the windows hour glass shows up I'm in trouble.

I'm going to try running the GFXoptions program now, see if that works

update: well it didn't work :( I'll just have to leave my PC on for a half an hour or so.. see if it will start then! Crazy...

Moderators, any idea yet ?