Skyrim complete PC crashes

[kingsofglover]

Most of you may not like what I have to say since wanting to play Skyrim has been so frustrating, but I did find a solution and I didn't like it. I don't have a tweak, only a change of video cards.

 

I removed my HIS 6870 IceQ X 1GB GDDR5 video card and inserted my XFX Radeon HD 4870 ATI-Design 1GB GDDR5. I did not change the video drivers or change the Realtek drivers...I just booted up the system after changing to the ATI card, logged into Steam and began playing where it always crashed using the HIS card. The exact place where my system failed to continue using the HIS card did not crash my system using the ATI HD card. I have been able to play without any issues. I will be interesting to go back to my HIS card and play to see if it does crash again, but I don't think that will solve anything, but wasting more time on this.

 

 

I'll reply to my own post. I was right, the HIS 6870 IceQ X 1GB GDDR5 video card causes the game to crash and my my XFX Radeon HD 4870 ATI-Design 1GB GDDR5 plays Skyrim just fine. I was able to play with the HIS card for about 10-15 minutes and then it did the infamous black screen crash with Skyrim only. There must be something about the faster cards causing the issue since the older cards work fine. Could it be DX11 since the HIS card is DX11 compatible and the XFX card is only 10.1? That is where I would look if I were a developer for Bethesda, but there could be something else.

 

Most likely a driver issue. The game is DX9 so it really wouldn't matter if the 6870 supports DX11 while the 4870 doesn't. Have you tried increasing the voltage a notch or two on the 6870 with MSI Afterburner? Try that and see if it alleviates the crashes. If not I'd use drive sweeper to completely uninstall the video drivers and would install the latest beta drivers. I'd also delete the ini files located in ../my games/skyrim/ folder before starting up the game.

 

Here is what worked for me using so that I can play Skyrim. That only took about 15-20 hours of headaches.

 

First of all, here is what I found perplexing from your statement - Increase the voltage of my 6870 a few notches...means nothing because that is subjective. That was counter productive to me since the 4870 worked fine and the 6870 did not. Anyhow, I did download the MSI Afterburner v2.1.0 and installed it. I did do what you stated by increasing the voltage, and it failed, like I thought it would. However, I took what was working for the 4870 and applied it to the 9870 and it worked just fine.

 

The 4870 has a 750Mhz Core Clock and a 900Mhz Memory Clock. I applied those settings ONLY to the 6870 using the MSI Afterburner. I just finished playing over 2 hours without any issues. I tried using AMD Vision Control, but the setting could not go as low as I needed for both the Core Clock and Memory Clock. I tried the lowest settings using the AMD tool and it crashed after 25 minutes or so...I knew I was headed in the right direction. Therefore, I used the MSI Afterburner to set the lower settings into a Profile that can be saved with the tool. Definitely the lower Mhz on the Core Clock and the Memory Clock worked. I bet it will work for anyone else as well. Don't remove and INI files, or try some other file hack. That just ends up screwing up the integrity of the directory structure.

 

See attachment.

 

Cheers! Have some ale.

 

Brad

 

This worked for me on my Gigabyte 6850, except I used ATI tray tools to underclock the core and memory clocks. The highest I've been able to run the clocks are 790 core and 900 memory (default of 900/1050). AND I have to make sure anti-aliasing is turned OFF (but FXAA-Fast Approximate Ati-Aliasing-can be enabled) and the max I can have anisotropic filtering is 4x. Everything is on high.

 

My other specs are:

Asus M4A89TD Pro mobo

amd Phenom II x6 1090T (oc'ed to 3.6GHz)

8GB Micron DDR3 ram

Acbel R8 750W PSU

 

The above has 30+ hours played.

[Arethiel]

I think this problem lies with ATI cards and their goofy drivers and what not, or maybe it lies in AMD CPUs with ATI/AMD GPUs. I'm not entirely sure and don't have an additional system to test with HOWEVER, I was originally using an ATI 5850 and I didn't have these problems either. My system is below, only thing that has changed is the GPU:

 

Core i7 950

12GB DDR3 Corsair RAM

Asus Sabertooth X58 Motherboard

2x EVGA 580 GTX in SLI

Corsair 1000HX 1000w PSU

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black HDD

Windows 7 64bit

[voldoman]

I think this problem lies with ATI cards and their goofy drivers and what not, or maybe it lies in AMD CPUs with ATI/AMD GPUs. I'm not entirely sure and don't have an additional system to test with HOWEVER, I was originally using an ATI 5850 and I didn't have these problems either. My system is below, only thing that has changed is the GPU:

 

Core i7 950

12GB DDR3 Corsair RAM

Asus Sabertooth X58 Motherboard

2x EVGA 580 GTX in SLI

Corsair 1000HX 1000w PSU

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black HDD

Windows 7 64bit

 

It happens with Nvidia cards as well, it just seems more common with ATI.

[ibrad]

 

I did this and was able to play again without random crashes 10 seconds-5 minutes after starting, but it still crashes when I open the world map >_<

 

Oh well, at least it's semi playable again, but this is the last Bethesda game I ever buy.

 

Good to know...I have not brought up the map for some reason, I'll have to check that later...err maybe I shouldn't! I don't know why I'm so intrigued with a game that has given me so much grief. I guess I have invested so much time screwing with this damn thing that I hope it helps others with a possible solution. You know, speaking of Bethesda, IDs parent company when it comes to RAGE...they were in the news today : http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/bethesda-confirms-layoffs-at-id-software-work-on-future-id-tit/ Still, I just don't get why Skyrim is still $59.99! Rage just tanked that was published by Bethesda and geared towards the console because of PC problems. Skyrim is still selling really high.

 

(Different topic, I know...sorry) I did not buy RAGE on PC when it came out, and glad I didn't since there were so many issues with quality and ATI cards compared to NVIDIAs. I have played it since Christmas off and on in Campaign and It works fine now...I haven't had any issues with it. Played it a few times with my son and it brings back a lot of memories playing Quake II with a character mod Homer Simpson with the Rail Gun. It's just brainless carnage game that really reminds me of Quake.

 

For me, the top games I recommend are BF3 and Witcher 2 (adult audience only though).

[Thefireball]

Why is it I was having all the same problems as everyone, but then, when I finally upgraded from Windows XP to Vista, I no longer have any problems?

Odd..

[dreigner]

Why is it I was having all the same problems as everyone, but then, when I finally upgraded from Windows XP to Vista, I no longer have any problems?

Odd..

 

unsure why you chose vista instead of 7 but to each their own. i did a half-yearly reinstall of windows at the beginning of december and encountered the same issues i had before, but after repairing all of the MS c++ redists i barely had any problems with the game.

 

also for those of you who have the game crash when you open the map, are you using the ini tweak to turn off the bloodspatter effect? that particular tweak is guaranteed to cause CTD, but occasionally it can cause a full system crash.

[jlcoving]

Wow, maybe it's a problem with the video card, because I'm having the same problem and my system specs are almost identical. I have a Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home. I have latest drivers for the Radeon, hopefully if it's a problem with the HD 6870 they will come out with a fix soon. It sucks not knowing when it's just going to black screen and make me have to manually reboot the computer.

[ibrad]

Wow, maybe it's a problem with the video card, because I'm having the same problem and my system specs are almost identical. I have a Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home. I have latest drivers for the Radeon, hopefully if it's a problem with the HD 6870 they will come out with a fix soon. It sucks not knowing when it's just going to black screen and make me have to manually reboot the computer.

 

I'm working with the HIS manufacturer now regarding the 9870 card. They are interested in this issue. Played last night for about an hour with the Core and Memory Clocks at 750Mhz and 900Mhz by using the MSI Afterburner tool and no problems even on high settings across the board. There was a comment about the game crashing even on the lower settings when the map overview was displayed, but that did not happen to me.

 

Personally, I do not think it is a hardware issue, but a game software issue.

[kleyton]

Wow, maybe it's a problem with the video card, because I'm having the same problem and my system specs are almost identical. I have a Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home. I have latest drivers for the Radeon, hopefully if it's a problem with the HD 6870 they will come out with a fix soon. It sucks not knowing when it's just going to black screen and make me have to manually reboot the computer.

 

I'm working with the HIS manufacturer now regarding the 9870 card. They are interested in this issue. Played last night for about an hour with the Core and Memory Clocks at 750Mhz and 900Mhz by using the MSI Afterburner tool and no problems even on high settings across the board. There was a comment about the game crashing even on the lower settings when the map overview was displayed, but that did not happen to me.

 

Personally, I do not think it is a hardware issue, but a game software issue.

 

I was the one that first tried to underclock the memory clock with msi afterburner and i play now for over a month fine without bsod problem...I encourage people to try this it is really working i had bsod from day one with the game and now i am lvl 61 and put over 100 hours in the game i just underclocked the memory a little... I found this solution by luck i downloaded msi afterburner in order to change fan speed but when i tried the underclock the game immediatelly became stable...Please inform us if HIS answers you

Edited January 12, 2012 by kleyton

[jlcoving]

Wow, maybe it's a problem with the video card, because I'm having the same problem and my system specs are almost identical. I have a Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home. I have latest drivers for the Radeon, hopefully if it's a problem with the HD 6870 they will come out with a fix soon. It sucks not knowing when it's just going to black screen and make me have to manually reboot the computer.

 

I'm working with the HIS manufacturer now regarding the 9870 card. They are interested in this issue. Played last night for about an hour with the Core and Memory Clocks at 750Mhz and 900Mhz by using the MSI Afterburner tool and no problems even on high settings across the board. There was a comment about the game crashing even on the lower settings when the map overview was displayed, but that did not happen to me.

 

Personally, I do not think it is a hardware issue, but a game software issue.

 

I was the one that first tried to underclock the memory clock with msi afterburner and i play now for over a month fine without bsod problem...I encourage people to try this it is really working i had bsod from day one with the game and now i am lvl 61 and put over 100 hours in the game i just underclocked the memory a little... I found this solution by luck i downloaded msi afterburner in order to change fan speed but when i tried the underclock the game immediatelly became stable...Please inform us if HIS answers you

 

Couple of questions: is this easy to do? I'm not a computer pro but I'm not a newbie completely either. I've never done over/underclocking at all. Also, is there any risk of damage to computer from doing this and will it affect my other games (i.e. will I have to keep changing settings back and forth to play Skyrim?) Thanks for any help!

 

Also, what settings should I try to set it to for my computer? I have Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home.

Edited January 12, 2012 by jlcoving