Video Card failure?

Posted on Friday, August 27, 2004
I have a sony laptop with an ATI Radeon IGP 345M graphics card (64 mb) and an Intel Celeron processor (2.4 ghz). I also have direct X and all my drivers fully updated.

I can get through the installation and intro movie just fine, but once it gets to what I guess is the main menu, the game just freezes up. All it shows is a black screen, but it continues to play music. Then after a minute, I get a Windows error message along the lines of "Windows has recovered from a device failure." And then my laptop can only function in 4-bit mode until a restart. Below is the error log:

Debug Message: ******* Starting Game Shell *******
Debug Message: Could not open reg key.
Debug Message: Could not find a Drengin.net Serial No.
Debug Message: Could not open reg key.
Debug Message: Could not find political machine serial in registry subdirectory PM1.
Debug Message: Could not open reg key.
Debug Message: Can't find political machine serial in registry subdirectory PM.
Debug Message: Can't find any serial numbers.
Debug Message: Going Fullscreen
Debug Message: Preparing to change display settings.
Debug Message: Not available
Debug Message: Could not create device with format 1. Attempting another format.
Debug Message: Not available
Debug Message: Not available
Debug Message: *********Checking D3DDevice Caps***********************
Debug Message: Device type: D3DDEVTYPE_HAL. Hardware rasterization. Shading is done with software, hardware, or mixed transform and lighting.
Debug Message: A full-color cursor is supported in hardware at high resolution modes.
Debug Message: Now Fullscreen
Debug Message: Shell initialization complete
Debug Message: ***** Initializing Game *****
Debug Message: Timer Frequency is 0 369e99
Debug Message: Added fonts: font2 font1 Arial13B Arial16B2 Arial10
Debug Message: Added fonts: Arial12 Arial12B Arial14 Arial14B Arial16
Debug Message: Added fonts: Arial16B Arial18 Arial18B
Debug Message: Initializing sound card.
Debug Message: Issues Loaded
Debug Message: Issues Tweaked
Debug Message: Loading 15 questions from Data\60SecQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Loading 14 questions from Data\HardHitterQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Loading 15 questions from Data\JoeUserQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Loading 9 questions from Data\KingQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Loading 22 questions from Data\NightTimeQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Loading 19 questions from Data\OMaleyQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Loading 15 questions from Data\SawyerQuestions.questions.
Debug Message: Question Files Loaded
Debug Message: Special Interest Loaded
Debug Message: Create setup screens.
Debug Message: Set mouse.
Debug Message: Unhide opening menu.
Debug Message: Set update timer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Second chance back buffer failure attempt!
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Deleting a mesh

I noticed a lot of other people have had the same problem, but I never found how they resolved the issue (if they managed to). Any help would be greatly appreciated!