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white screen of doom...

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:07 pm
by kernzy
hey chaps,
i have been putting this off, but now i've finally cracked!
on some games, using wolf 149, when i start a game, the screen goes white, and i cannot end it. i literally have to restart my computer. it has happened 3 times tonight, and now i'm unbemused.
i suppose it started after using clrmamepro.
whenever it happens, i remove the rom and replace it with my old original "pre clrmamepro" rom, but this does not help, which is weird, as i have played all these games before.
does anyone else get this? it seems so far to only be on older clones, released for wolf148.
so, i cd'd to wolf148, and still it happens, but on less games.
has anybody else witnessed this phenomena?
it really puts a hold on fluent MAMEing.
any advice would be superb.
cheers guys.
paul.

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 10:27 pm
by pat33999
I've noticed that you mention problems like this occasionally. Could be a hardware problem, possibly a slowly dying hard drive.

http://release.crystaldew.info/redirect ... nfoSetupEn

You can use this program to at least confirm that your hard drive is OK.

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 3:23 am
by kernzy
hey Pat,
thanks for responding.
i have changed computers since then. everything is fine apart from a handful of games, the ones i want to use!!
i ran that software anyhow. there are 3 yellow icons,
relocated sector count is 100, .
uncorrectable sector count is 100,
and relocated sector counts is 74.
nothing else has any errors, just a few games on 149. video's play perfect, etc.
cheers mate!!
8)

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 3:58 am
by pat33999
Yeah, your hard drive is probably dying. The icon under Health Status should be blue and say "Good". Any SMART attributes that have "sector" in the name should be a flat 0. Nothing should be yellow.

Just to be sure, post a pic of your Crystal Disk Info here so I can see it for myself.

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 4:20 am
by mahlemiut
I'd also suggest checking just what it output by MAME to the console using the -verbose switch (ie: run 'mame <game> -verbose') I'd figure that if the HD is dying, then MAME would error out when there is an issue loading ROMs.

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 2:12 pm
by kernzy
i can't display the results.
"The extension bmp is not allowed"

Barry, i used -verbose on kungfum to check how it works.
if i used it on one of the games which turns the screen white, i will not be able to view the results. i would have to restart pc... :?

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 2:21 pm
by kernzy
this is the best i can do with displaying crystal results...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskInfo 5.6.2 (C) 2008-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

OS : Windows XP Home Edition SP2 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)
Date : 2013/09/11 17:48:37

-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------
+ SiS PCI IDE Controller [ATA]
+ Primary IDE Channel (0)
- ST3160021A
+ Secondary IDE Channel (1)
- _NEC DVD_RW ND-3530A
- LITE-ON DVD SOHD-167T

-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST3160021A : 160.0 GB [0/0/0, pd1] - st

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST3160021A
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model : ST3160021A
Firmware : 8.01
Serial Number :
Disk Size : 160.0 GB (8.4/137.4/160.0/160.0)
Buffer Size : 2048 KB
Queue Depth : 1
# of Sectors : 312581808
Rotation Rate : Unknown
Interface : Parallel ATA
Major Version : ATA/ATAPI-6
Minor Version : ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D version 2
Transfer Mode : Ultra DMA/100
Power On Hours : 18233 hours
Power On Count : 6344 count
Temparature : 43 C (109 F)
Health Status : Caution
Features : S.M.A.R.T., 48bit LBA
APM Level : ----
AAM Level : ----

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 _59 _51 __6 00000D4CF03E Read Error Rate
03 _97 _96 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 100 100 _20 00000000003D Start/Stop Count
05 _74 _74 _36 000000000428 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _90 _60 _30 00003B92EA59 Seek Error Rate
09 _80 _80 __0 000000004739 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C _94 _94 _20 0000000018C8 Power Cycle Count
C2 _43 _54 __0 00000000002B Temperature
C3 _58 _51 __0 00000D4CF03E Hardware ECC recovered
C5 100 100 __0 000000000005 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 100 __0 000000000005 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 100 253 __0 000000000000 Write Error Rate
CA 100 253 __0 000000000000 Data Address Mark Error

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 3:17 pm
by kernzy
ok, guys,
i think i may have solved the problem, by messing around and restarting pc a few times!! :lol:
the game i wanted to play was darthvdr, invaders clone
the screen turned white every time.
so, i downloaded a fresh copy. white screen again.
i copied the roms from darthvdr and put them in the invaders zip. the game started!! wahey!! it was in colour, and the screen was cropped with a bezel.
it was too small, so i went to config and changed the crop value to 0.
restarted the game, it was full size, colour, with an overlay background image. the problem then was, the whole screen had a white haze over it, and i could not play or exit, so it was exactly as the white screen before, except i could see attract mode. restart pc again.
lastly, i changed all artwork options to 0, and now the game runs full size but in basic black and white, which is fine with me!!
this stuff is very confusing. it's taking me a long time to learn what does what. some games allow stuff, some don't, etc. so now, to stop frustration, all my wolf149 games will have to be without artwork, which is a shame as it took ages to gather it all. maybe i need to try the frontend path again?
without the help of MARP i would just be using wolf 106 (which i still do).
cheers fella's, hopefully i will say no more on the subject. however, i have not tried the other "white screen" games yet!!
8) :D 8)

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 12:18 am
by pat33999
kernzy wrote: 01 _59 _51 __6 00000D4CF03E Read Error Rate
05 _74 _74 _36 000000000428 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _90 _60 _30 00003B92EA59 Seek Error Rate
You're having so much trouble because your files are becoming unreadable on a dying hard drive. If you don't want to lose everything, get a new one and transfer your data over ASAP.

Here's an example of what a normal drive should look like.

Re: white screen of doom...

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 12:55 am
by kernzy
thanks for the bad news, Pat!!!
seriously, cheers, bud.
8)