Flickering screen after CC
Hello there, I experienced something VERY wierd and confusing yesterday: I was looking forward to playing the Sims 3 for a long time, and did a test run of it. Everything went fine. There was no pr...
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I'm very glad I have you because or else I wouldn't know what this even means, so thank you, haha.
I will say again that I haven't even reinstalled Sims 3 after our first discussion as my life was hectic. It's not installed now either as I simply haven't dared to. Even though the game isn't installed sometimes the screen flickers and blinks. Long time happens in between, but it still happens, and it all started after I tried to install that custom town Storybrook County, which I don't understand. It happened the moment I double clicked the file to get it installed in the launcher. I have talked to others and they don't know how that's possible either.
You might be right. I have to find a way to check frame rates while playing once I install it again. It could very well be the graphics card itself as Sims 3 isn't installed right now and it still happened, I really have no idea. I have contacted support for this laptop and they told me there are some updates for my graphics drivers, so will look into that. But I'm beginning to think it's actually the graphics card there is something wrong with. Still don't get how double cliking a custom town file to install in the launcher could trigger it though. I'm so lost. Glad to have your help though!
Sure, please recommend me some and I will look into it 🙂
@drkatrine If your laptop's support recommended graphics card driver updates, then that's the first thing you should do. Once you update, if the blinking doesn't go away, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post here.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
The apps I use to monitor my hardware are hwinfo and GPU-Z. The first shows info about all hardware, from the motherboard to the case fans, and the second is just for graphics cards. But both will show the overall load on your card as well as a number of more in-depth stats. You can also log a session with either app, so you can see how the stats change over time as you're playing. Both are free.
https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-gpu-z/
But there's not much point in running them unless you're actually playing a game. Otherwise, your card won't be working particularly hard, and the data probably wouldn't be useful unless there was some glaring error. More helpful would be the dxdiag, which might list certain hardware and software errors directly. Then once you've addressed those, you could install the game and see what happened.
And I agree, it's very strange that the flickering started after installing a custom world. I tend to think it's more likely a coincidence, or at most that running the Sims 3 launcher revealed a new issue that you hadn't seen up to that point. But it's just a guess without more information.
Thank you so much for your help!
The thing is that I will now get a new laptop - the situation is complicated but I'm in a situation where I can get a new laptop of the exact same kind - since the wierd screen stuff are still there after graphics updates.
I might do a dxdiag on the new laptop and throw in here just in case to make sure nothing is wrong, but I just made one of this laptop, so here you go, I hope the file works.
As you know my first language isn't English but Danish, which means stuff are probably written in Danish. I hope it's still understandable.
Let me know what you think and again, thank you so much for your help. 🙂
@drkatrine I think a new laptop might be a good call here. Screen flickering can have plenty of different causes, including problems with drivers or running apps that are more demanding than the graphics card can handle. But it can also be caused by hardware problems: everything from the card itself to the connection to the screen. And while the problems, hardware- or software-related, can be fixable, hardware issues are sometimes difficult to repair in a laptop. And there's nothing obvious in your dxdiag that would explain the flickering, making a hardware issue more likely. So if you can just get a replacement, it's probably the easier way to go.
As far as the new one is concerned, you'll still want to manually cap in-game framerates and make sure the laptop is using the dedicated card to run Sims 3. (The fps limiters should take care of this too.) Some flickering while you play wouldn't be surprising on a 940 MX. It's not the strongest card, and running the game on ultra graphics settings might be too much. But you should definitely be able to play with a mix of medium and high settings, depending on which packs you have installed. (It also helps to reduce the in-game resolution.) Sometimes it takes a bit of experimenting to get the right settings, but it's certainly doable.
Anyway, when you do get that new laptop, if you run into any issues with Sims 3, feel free to post back asking for more help. And I'd be happy to look over a dxdiag on the new system for you whether or not there any problems. The dxdiag itself is easy to read by the way—all the important info is either in English or computerspeak.
Hello again!!
I just wanna say thank you for all of your help again :D You've been extremely helpful and let me know of things I didn't know at all.
I have made a dxdiag of the new system on the new laptop and was hoping you would look it over for me as I don't truly understand it myself? You definitietly know it a lot better than me and I was hoping you would, of course when you have time and if you want to, don't stress about it and don't do it if you don't want to!
Thank you so much again and I hope you are having an AMAZING day!! :D
@drkatrine The hardware on this laptop is a bit different than on the previous one, although the graphics cards are in the same class. The same principles apply—limit your framerates, turn down graphics settings a bit if you need to, make sure the laptop can properly cool itself when you're playing, etc. There's nothing that jumps out as a problem about this system. The GPU drivers are a bit old, but not so old I'd expect them to cause problems. Sims 3 doesn't need the newest drivers, so there's no reason to update unless you notice a problem.
The dxdiag does list a pile of errors related to Mobile Partner, which is software for computers connected to Huawei modems. If you don't have a Huawei model, you can uninstall the app, and if you're having connection problems in general, you may want to uninstall and reinstall it. But any more than that is out of my area of expertise. If you live in a building with shared internet, you could ask whoever manages it; otherwise, ask wherever you bough the modem. Or, if you don't notice anything wrong, just ignore it—some errors aren't really errors at all.
Mobile Partner is my Huawei modem internet, yes. I have experienced some wierd things: Websites loading very slow, the connection going out, and just now I went on both chrome and firefox, and the same pages continued to give errors when I tried to get into them. What do you suggest I do, reinstall it, or should I just contact the company right away? Thank you for this because it answered my questions about what I have experienced.
@drkatrine I'm not surprised you've been having internet trouble, given the errors. This is not my area of expertise by any means, but the person I asked said that it should hopefully be enough to uninstall and reinstall the driver. Here's how:
- Download the latest version from here: https://huawei-mobile-partner.en.lo4d.com/windows
- Take your computer offline, as in, turn off wifi and/or disconnect the ethernet cable
- Click on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen, and select Settings > Apps
- Scroll to where Huawei Mobile Partner (or just Mobile Partner) is listed, and uninstall
- Reboot your laptop, still with no internet connection
- Install the new version you downloaded
If you still see evidence of internet-related issues, like a lost connection or slow loading, let me know. And of course the same goes for any issues with Sims 3.
Thank you so much for this!!
I remembered I have a backup modem from Huawei, so I uninstalled the old Mobile Partner and moved it all to the new Huawei modem. I couldn't install it though. It opens up in a HiLink thing in internet explorer, it's basically the same thing where you can connect your internet and check your messages, just over a browser I guess? So I have had the internet on for a couple of hours now, and I haven't experienced the problems I had before. So far so good. In the bottom right of the screen where we can view our WiFi it says "network: connected" and there's a picture of a computer screen with a cable on the side. I guess it works? It's different from what it did before with the old modem, but so far so good. I will let you know if anything happens, and thank you again SO much for doing this.
I wrote on another site about problems I experienced with a wierd mechanical stuttering sound coming from the laptop. It came whenever I went into an internet browser, though was a lot worse when going on Google Chrome. People told me it was because Google Chrome is a CPU drainer. However, after putting in the new modem and using that his way instead, the sound is no longer there. I'm thinking the old one was the cause of it considering the errors in dxdiag as well. Now I just hope all the good-ness lasts, lol. Thank you again.
My internet is incredibly slow sometimes though which is annoying. Will try more stuff tomorrow to see if I can fix it.
So I fixed it, however I have run into another problem(* all these problems, exuse my language), and I'm so sorry for bothering you all the time.
The problem is that it dosen't matter what internet I'm on, if it's my own or WiFi from another place, the internet is EXTREMELY slow most of the time. I don't get it. Do you have an idea why this could be happening?
@drkatrine You're not bothering me at all. But I really don't know how to troubleshoot slow internet, other than to take the laptop to various places to see whether it's ever fast (which you've already done). Try a different browser, just to make sure it's not really that simple. If that didn't make a difference, I'd run a virus scan just to cover my bases; Malwarebytes is good and has a free version.
Thank you so much for this. I will see what I can do and hope for the best. 🙂
