Game freezing system. I've ran out of tests to run.

[monarchbeef]

First post, signed up to dl the performance monitor. Figured I'd at least ask a question here since I went through the whole sign-up.

 

So Skyrim has started crashing my system this past week. I've been playing for months and it, for no obvious reason, has started freezing my whole system -OR- it slows down to the point of frame-by-frame play.

 

System specs first:

 

Windows 7 x64

Intel Core i5-3450 @ 3.10 GHz 3.50 GHz

8.00 GB RAM

Nvidia GeForce GTX 660

 

That is all that is relevant and as you can see I shouldn't be having hardware related issues. I've just updated my drivers for the 660.

 

Tests I've ran:

 

Furmark 1.10.6 (half-hour) COMPLETED

prime95 Let it run for a half-hour, nothing happened.

memtest86 no errors reported.

Speedfan shows cores never got above 45 C.

 

So my gpu, cpu, and memory are good. So you (like me) must be thinking it's the game itself right?

 

I've uninstalled and reinstalled it. The only mods I'm running are the official resolution packs, the official DLC's (DG, DB, Hearth), and the unofficial patches for the aforementioned four official DLC's. I've disabled everything at one point.

 

The gist of it is: I really don't know what else to test or try. Everything (that I've mentioned) is up to date, and all my hardware is still working. Nothing else crashes my PC.

 

Anyone else running into this maddening problem? What haven't I tried?

Edited July 11, 2013 by monarchbeef

[prod80]

You have no other texture mods installed?
Have you modified you game's ini files by any chance?

Updated the drivers and after that started the problems, or you already had the problems before updating?

Have you tried to run Skyrim Performance Monitor (can download from Nexus) to check for problems resource related?

Have you tried to start a complete new and fresh game to rule out a corrupted save game? Either with and without mods?

[monarchbeef]

You have no other texture mods installed?

Have you modified you game's ini files by any chance?

Updated the drivers and after that started the problems, or you already had the problems before updating?

Have you tried to run Skyrim Performance Monitor (can download from Nexus) to check for problems resource related?

Have you tried to start a complete new and fresh game to rule out a corrupted save game? Either with and without mods?

 

No other texture mods installed.

No modification to the ini files.

The problems started before I updated my drivers.

I just ran the performance monitor in fact, more on that below.

I erased all my saved games and started a new one. W/ and w/o mods. Both crash.

 

So I just ran the performance monitor. I had one crash and one system freeze. The crash returned me to desktop, and the Skyrim error check ran. I was able to restart the game. The freeze first froze the screen, the I had a repeating "brrr" from the speakers (indicating that the whole system went AFTER Skyrim did), but then I had a repeating dragon roar (I was fighting a dragon at the time it froze). The fact that a new sound occured tells me the system didn't fail immediantly, but it's still within 10 seconds of Skyrim crashing.

 

The results from the performance monitor shows that I was using

 

1,248 RAM

1,450 VRAM

(The CPU is mixed into the background to well to accurately say what it is)

GPU 99%

GPU 90 degrees C.

 

I'm thinking that the heat SHOULD be my problem. But I ran Furmark for a half hour w/ the GPU sitting at 90 degrees.

Edited July 11, 2013 by monarchbeef

[prod80]

CPU @ 90C ??! holy crap.

 

Is it OC'd? Can you return to normal clock speeds?

 

Skyrim isn't nice for OC'd systems... even if stable in benchmarks... benchmarks are kind of static tests.

 

 

edit: CPU or GPU, or what is it.

 

CPU 90 degrees C.

 

GPU sitting at 90 degrees.

[monarchbeef]

 

CPU @ 90C ??! holy crap.

 

Is it OC'd? Can you return to normal clock speeds?

 

Skyrim isn't nice for OC'd systems... even if stable in benchmarks... benchmarks are kind of static tests.

 

 

edit: CPU or GPU, or what is it.

 

CPU 90 degrees C.

 

GPU sitting at 90 degrees.

 

 

Ack, sorry. Yeah it's GPU. I'll fix that.

 

The thing is, I was running that hot with Furmark and my system didn't crash.

Edited July 11, 2013 by monarchbeef

[prod80]

While 90C is quit on the edge of what you can do for short periods, it's really hot... on longer periods of time it may damage the PCB and then it's down the trashbin for your card...

 

Also, a GTX660 will severely throttle back its performance at that temp to stop itself from overheating. If it's OC'd I'd suggest to turn it down a bit for general gaming. You're not gonna notice a difference of ~2 FPS :P or it might actually boost your FPS because it's gonna stop reducing it's core speed due to heat.

 

If not OC'd you might wanna spend some time cleaning it on a in short term... If OC'd you might wanna return to stock settings on CPU/RAM/GPU for the sake of ruling that out.

 

 

But anyway... your game is crashing on vanilla... :\ you already ran p95 and mem86 and your gfx appears to be stable (while boiling hot).... how about your soundcard? Did that update recently? Any other software updates that were done? Does the event viewer tell you anything about the crash (probably doesn't - grats mr. gates)? Did you cold reboot (yea, some people don't, like me :P)?

[monarchbeef]

I don't overclock my hardware. EVER. In high-school a friend did that for Oblivion and his CPU melted (literally, it fuzzed to the board).

 

I haven't even looked at my soundcard. I've never ran an update for it. Lemme check.

 

EDIT: My sound card is up-to-date according to windows.

 

I've ran other games (and like I said, Furmark) and it's only Skyrim. THIS IS MADDENING. I've never come across such an elusive problem.

 

EDIT2: I'm cold-rebooting it. It's the only thing I HAVEN'T tried.

 

Someone explain this to me:

 

I started running it in windowed mode (because it's the only thing under option's I hadn't clicked yet). Skyrim is running fine. No stuttering, no crashes, nothing. Is this luck or is there something to windowed mode?

 

EDIT: So it's probably my hardware. I don't know what, but my machine failed while playing an old TW game.

Edited July 12, 2013 by monarchbeef