Total System Crash at loading screen in "Apprehension"

[Yoshimitsu]

First off, I love Black Mesa. It might even be my favorite entry in the entire Half Life universe.

Unfortunately I continually get a crash that prevents me from continuing.

It occurs at the loading screen in the pipe beneath the trash compactor in the level “Apprehension.” I enter the tube as normal moving downward with the slope and the loading notice pops up. After about 5 seconds of silence, the game produces shrieking sounds almost like static or a dialup modem at high volume. after about 20 second of noise my computer reboots.

Hopefully there is a solution to this. I can’t wait to finish the rest of the game.

Edit:

To be specific the map that won’t load is bm_c2a4a.bsp. I looked at some other threads which suggested loading the map directly with the developer console. The area still crashes my whole computer and as a result, it saves no .mdmp file so the one I uploaded before didn’t correspond to the crash in question.

I tried loading bm_c2a4b.bsp the next area with no problems whatsoever.I then tried backtracking into bm_c2a4a.bsp from the other direction, triggering another crash.

I am starting to think I might have a bad install so I will download Black Mesa again and try reinstalling.

Wish me luck.

My System:

Windows XP home edition (Service Pack 3 plus all updates)
Asrock Dual Series Motherboard
Onboard Sound (ALC888 Audio Codec) Using Realtek HD Audio Drivers
Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 (2.13Ghz)
2GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4850

[lexa2]

I’m afraid to post it but getting reboots like you get is not a BM problem, it is a hardware or a driver problem with your PC instead. Game has no means to render your computer into total hang/crash or a reboot like you’re getting. You should try updating drivers for your GPU and sound card first and then try monitoring the temperature of the CPU and GPU while playing. It could be a result of the overheat. It could be a problem with a power supply failing to provide enough energy to the GPU. It could simply be a faulty motherboard - ASRock is de facto a “low cost version of the ASUStek brand” which they had separated to avoid reputation damage to the ASUS main brand.

TL;DR: A general rule of thumb: if some app causes total system crash - most of the times it is a hardware problem or a faulty driver. There are no possible ways for a userland app to crash the entire system, at the worst case on properly functioning PC you should get an app crash and nothing more.

[Yoshimitsu]

Hello all,

I apologize for resurrecting such an old thread, but someone has figured out a solution to my problem. As lexa2 suggested the issue was my motherboard. fortunately there is a tweak in Bios which eliminates the crash

@killbot3000

hello, don’t know if you solved your problem. i also have a asrock mb and was crashing at the same exact spot with the horrible screeching noise. i solve my problem by setting the bios setting in “chipset” section and changed the “flexibility option” to “enabled” for the memory timing. don’t know if it’ll work for you but it solved my problem. good luck!

I don’t know if this will help anybody else but I thought the solution should be shared.

Thanks to everyone involved with Black Mesa and all those who care enough to help people like myself.