Machinarium CRASH - Happened twice

[leo]

Hi! I've received Machinarium as a Christmas gift from a friend of mine through Steam. I've completed the game yesterday at 5:30 AM with my girlfriend (we couldn't sleep before finishing it!)

We both liked it a lot, but unfortunately I experienced some problems while running it on my PC. At some random points (normally after 1 hour and a half/ 2 hours of gameplay) the game crashed. But not the normal "go back to windows, app is not responding" crash. I mean: the PC really stopped responding, showing a black screen and a strange looping sound (those that sound like crashes!). Ctrl+Alt+Del wouldn't work and Alt+Tab wouldn't either... Had to shut down the PC with the button, cause nothing seemed to be working.
This crash happened twice on my PC, but never happened on my girlfriend's, which is older! In fact, my PC is brand new and this is the very first time I have to shut it down by force (like having my first scratch on a brand new car!)
If you have any idea why this happened or if you have similar problems, say something please. I've registered on this forum, just to ask this question.

My PC is the new HP Pavilion dv8 (laptop):
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
RAM: 6Gb
GPU:NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Thanks for the help.

[ABoretz]

At some random points (normally after 1 hour and a half/ 2 hours of gameplay) the game crashed... showing a black screen.

This crash happened twice on my PC, but never happened on my girlfriend's, which is older!

Three questions:

1) What version of Flash Player are you running?  (it should be 10).

II) What OS is your G.F.'s PC running and what version of Flash Player? (the difference between hers and yours should could tell you something)

C) Are you aware that B.S.O.D. issues have surfaced w/Windows 7?  This may not be Machinarium's fault.

[leo]

We both have Flash Player 10.
My OS is Windows 7 Home premium (64 bits) and hers is Windows Vista Home Premium (32 bits)

I am aware that this might not be Machinarium's fault and I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying that the crashes happened while playing Machinarium.
Maybe it's one of those (neverending) windows bugs... or worse: an issue with the model of my PC. 

[ABoretz]

the crashes happened while playing Machinarium.

You mentioned that you played for several hours straight... Any chance this might be an overheating issue?
Have you successfully spent several hours crash-free using your laptop with any other game/application up to this marathon session you had with Machinarium?

[leo]

Well, it was only after 1:30 / 2:00 hours of gameplay... It was not that much. I think the real marathon was with her computer.

Anyways, I've already spent several hours working with this laptop with CAD software (without no big problems). Not yet games though. I have to give it a try and find some time to play some other game for 3 hours straight, and see what happens.
Maybe the PC has some overheating issue.. I heard the core i7 CPUs were a bit hot..

[gravitysrhino]

This has happened to me too, also running Windows 7. But I have not yet played 1-2 hours; the first crash was after ten minutes. The second crash was after about 30 seconds... I am about to attempt playing a third time...

[ABoretz]

This has happened to me too, also running Windows 7

Have you tried right-clicking and disabling hardware acceleration?

[gravitysrhino]

Disabled hardware acceleration and it crashed after playing for 20 minutes. I'm sure it is a problem with Windows 7, though it hasn't happened with any other programs or games.

[ABoretz]

Disabled hardware acceleration and it crashed after playing for 20 minutes. I'm sure it is a problem with Windows 7, though it hasn't happened with any other programs or games.

Could this be an "Adobe Flash + Windows 7" issue?  Have you (or anyone else with this problem) tried playing Samorost 1 or 2 on your system?

[hystocrates]

Hi

This problem also happened to me. Im on win 7 RC1, newest flash version. 3 times i had a total crash while playing and had to reboot.
The soulution for me seemed to be switching from fullscreen to window mode. Just maximised the window so its kinda like fullscreen. After that i did not have any problems and completed the game witout any signs of trouble. If you have not, give it a try and maybe it will work for you 

Ps Also played Samorost 1 & 2 fullscreen without any problems. All amazing games by the way. Im a big fan now 

Regards from Rune

[gravitysrhino]

Have had NO problems ever since I started playing in windowed mode.