Problems with Half-Life 2

[Phalanx-Imawano 0]

This is really buggin me. Half-Life 2 has become practically unplayable for me in the recent days. While playing, one of these two things happens, especially when the game tries to load the next map:

 

1. This error message appears, then the game exits to Windows.

 

Any idea what that means?

 

2. The game goes back to the main menu, but when I choose an option other than Quit, the dialog box where the options normally appear now looks like this (example below is when I select New Game):

 

 

In a nutshell, all dialog boxes don't work, other than the control box that lets you either move or close it, and the "x" close button. Now this is really puzzling.

 

Any help here? So far only Half-Life 2 is having these problems, while just about all my other games (including Doom3) are problem-free thus far.

 

Current specs:

Pentium4 3.0GHz Prescott w/ Cool Master Aero-4 Lite fan/heatsink

ASUS P4P800-X Motherboard (using onboard sound)

1GB PC3200 SDRAM (AM1 512MB DDR-400 x 2)

ASUS N6600 / GeForce 6600 video card w/ 128MB RAM

Promise SATA150-II IDE/SATA Controller

4 Seagate 7200RPM Hard Disks (1 120GB ATA-100, 1 120GB SATA, 1 160GB ATA-100, 1 200GB SATA)

Sony DRU-710 DVD Burner

 

[peterh 1]

It means that you have problems with your memory. I get the message when shutting down but not running programs.

Try replacing the memory DIMM and see if the problem reoccurs.

[Phalanx-Imawano 0]

Already tried that. The problem persists.

 

Anyway I went to the bottom of things and checked Steam's website. Well based on this thread:

 

Memory location cannot be read issue

 

it's a major problem of HL2 that seems to have started with the November'04 Steam Update.

 

Anyway I've experienced that error message only on one other instance - trying to run a certain very old pinball game (Slam Tilt Pinball), on several PC's (ranging from Pentium3 to Pentium4) other than a certain Compaq Deskpro. So I seriously doubt it's a RAM problem. If indeed my RAM is bad, shouldn't lots of other apps have problems? There was one instance where I did end up installing a bad DIMM, and the result - Windows got corrupted and I had to reinstall.

 

[Wilhelmus 1]

Have you tried to recreate the swap file for Windows?

 

What about this:

How can I verify that my GCF Cache files are good?

http://steampowered.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=282