Skyrim complete PC crashes

[stabex]

After 180 hours or so of no crash play I have been struggling with these crashes. Similar to everyone else, game crash, monitor goes off/orange light, sound glitches up, system either crashes and reboots itself or I have to do a hard reset. This is very frustrating to say the least as the game is unplayable for me now. I must admit I am playing with a large amount of mods and don't even know if my game save would load if disabling all of them. I don't understand how Skyrim could completely crash my system the way it does. I'm going to backup my game saves and start a new game with no mods whatsoever and see if the problem persists. I'm thinking it has something to do with the game save for some reason.

 

So I have tried the following to no avail:

 

Upgraded system drivers to latest. (Bios, Chipset, Video, Raid, Sound)

Various Stress Test.

Lowering Clock Speeds. (Video & CPU)

Deleting anything having to do with the game except for saved games and reinstalling.

 

So the game even at stock but with old game save is still crashing. For me the crashes have been both indoors and outdoors.

 

Edit:

 

Deleted anything related to Skyrim from PC, reinstalled, started a new game and still got a crash. I guess I've had my share of fun. New Vegas, here I come =(

 

I have the absolute exact same problem: I have the Win 7/64 with an Nvidia GTX295. When I installed Skyrim I had the 280.33 driver and the game gave me the Black Screen - Hard Reset Crash every 5-6 minutes in game. I figured then, it was a driver problem so I rolled a few drivers back, when that didn't fix the problem I uninstalled it completely, then I clean installed the 190 driver and the 270 over it (because the 190 is very old, golden but old, and it didn't support a lot of the Skyrim’s graphics) The game ran almost flawlessly for a month or about 200 hours gameplay. And then, just as I forgot that I ever had crashes, it crashed 5 times in 30 minutes. And since then for three months I have played, an hour at most, before the Black Screen - it is very random it can happen at any time during gameplay.

 

However, one very strange thing I have noticed: Every time the game crashed it was when my character was somewhere or doing something very simple (in an almost static stance) - like looking at the floor, talking to an NPC, opening a door - the game never crashed when the graphics card had a lot of work to do. After nearly a month correspondence with Nvidia and countless in vain attempts to solve the problem we all agreed that it is not in my TV set, and Nvidia pointed to Bethesda – the problem is in the game. I run Battlefield 3 on nearly MAX settings with no issues at all.

 

I really hope a fix comes soon because Skyrim is one of my Top 3 favorite games and this crash just ruins it and my PC because it always requires a Hard Reset and that it like a blow to the head.

[burningworm]

You could backup your savegames, and then start with empty folder, and offline.

If this didn't help, maybe without mods also.

And look for remains of earlier inofficial patches, that could conflict with official ones.

 

From what i've read in the forums and experienced myself i made me a little theory,

that is that with the latest patch the way steam tracks your game advantages has been changed.

When i'm offline with steam i have an almost stable version, takes hours to crash, if at all.

and i've unlocked 66% of the game.

When i'm online with steam it crashes as described here, usually after a few minutes.

This was repeatable.

When i'm offline with steam, but online before or between, it ends somewhere in the middle.

 

So steam tracks your gaming history, with unlocked% and archievements.

Maybe it would be point of interest how much data is trafficked there, with patch 1.31, compared to 1.1.

Maybe not just what you're doing rigth now gets reported, instead all changes are compared... ?

[whogoods]

I posted this over at Bethesda Forums but figured I'd post it here as well.

 

As much of a PC Enthusiast that I am I hate to have to admit in my particular case my crashes might not be entirely or if it all Skyrim's fault. After being exhausted with trying to get Skyrim to work I called it quits and thought I'd start another game while waiting for a solution from the community. I load up Dead Island for the first time to try it out and what do you know, it crashes my entire system just like Skyrim after the character select screen :ohmy: . At this moment that little spark in me to get things working lights back up.

 

My initial thought was that it may be DX9 games being that both Skyrim and Dead Island are dx9c. I download a demo version of 3dmark06, a directx9 benchmark/stresstest. I run the tests which my system ran through stable though mind you the demo version only lets you run the test at 720p which I figured may not be enough stress on the system. I then load up 3DMark11, a DX11 benchmark/stress test utility, which I have the full version to. I select 1080p and run the test, I can't even get pass the first test. (I ran these tests months ago to test my systems capabilities with no problems)

 

I'm beginning to think either one of my 580s has a problem, or something may be wrong with my PSU. Maybe something got loose within my case. At the moment I am working on zeroing in on the problem and will update everyone on what I find.

 

I suggest that everyone here if not done so already run 3DMark11 (unfortunately demo version only stress tests at 720p) and see if your systems are capable of going through the tests without problems. If you own Metro 2033 it comes with a pretty good stress test that can be used as well. I could have sworn my system was 100% stable from running memtest86+ for 12 hours, Linx and Prime95 for a couple hours, and some other lighter games (Haven't played BF3 ever since Skyrim was released).

 

I have definitely been humbled.

 

Update 1:

 

After running 3DMark11 with SLI off for each card successfully I was pretty much left with my instability being due to SLI mode. I uninstalled my drivers, downgraded MSI AB 2.2.0 Beta 9 to MSI AB 2.1.0 Stable. Unplugged/Replugged PSU connectors going to video cards and mobo and now I was able to pass 3DMark11 with no problems. Now I'm off to test Skyrim. :ohdear:

 

Update 2:

 

So I have been playing since I last updated this post and have been crash free. Hopefully this continues tomorrow. I highly recommend everyone really stress test their systems if not done so already with either 3DMark11, Metro 2033 Bechmark Utility, Heaven DX11 Benchmark.

Edited January 5, 2012 by whogoods

[scot]

This new patch did something to the game, I tried everything and I mean everything and nothing worked, my skyrim crashes after this new patch, I tried with and without mods, cleaned the save folder leaving only one savegame so I can resume the game and still crashes, used my backup exe for 1.3.00 patch still crashes even though it was working fine before.Uninstalled and after a painfull time trying to make steam re-installing the game from the DVD tried again and still crashed.My other games run fine, I built my computer to be a gaming device so no hardware problems, I just need to upgrade my RAM and my windows 7 to 64 bit but as I said before skyrim was working without crashes at all before the patch 1.3.10. The way I see it bethesda screwed my skyrim with the 4 gb patch thing that does nothing to me but crashing the game.

[whogoods]

This new patch did something to the game, I tried everything and I mean everything and nothing worked, my skyrim crashes after this new patch, I tried with and without mods, cleaned the save folder leaving only one savegame so I can resume the game and still crashes, used my backup exe for 1.3.00 patch still crashes even though it was working fine before.Uninstalled and after a painfull time trying to make steam re-installing the game from the DVD tried again and still crashed.My other games run fine, I built my computer to be a gaming device so no hardware problems, I just need to upgrade my RAM and my windows 7 to 64 bit but as I said before skyrim was working without crashes at all before the patch 1.3.10. The way I see it bethesda screwed my skyrim with the 4 gb patch thing that does nothing to me but crashing the game.

 

I hate to ask but have you tried running 3DMark11 or Heaven DX11 Benchmark ? If you can pass these on max settings repeatedly with no problem then you can pretty much rule out your GPU. For CPU I'd recommend you run blend tests with Prime95 if you haven't done so already to rule out Ram and CPU.

Edited January 5, 2012 by whogoods

[scot]

This new patch did something to the game, I tried everything and I mean everything and nothing worked, my skyrim crashes after this new patch, I tried with and without mods, cleaned the save folder leaving only one savegame so I can resume the game and still crashes, used my backup exe for 1.3.00 patch still crashes even though it was working fine before.Uninstalled and after a painfull time trying to make steam re-installing the game from the DVD tried again and still crashed.My other games run fine, I built my computer to be a gaming device so no hardware problems, I just need to upgrade my RAM and my windows 7 to 64 bit but as I said before skyrim was working without crashes at all before the patch 1.3.10. The way I see it bethesda screwed my skyrim with the 4 gb patch thing that does nothing to me but crashing the game.

 

I hate to ask but have you tried running 3DMark11 or Heaven DX11 Benchmark ? If you can pass these on max settings repeatedly with no problem then you can pretty much rule out your GPU. For CPU I'd recommend you run blend tests with Prime95 if you haven't done so already to rule out Ram and CPU.

 

No need, I can play other modern games on ultra, even arcania gothic 4 wich demands a little more than what I have and I can run it on ultra smoothly without crashes. I have a gtx 560 ti and 4 gb RAM. I´m planning to upgrade my RAM regardless of skyrim but I also need windows 64 bits and a new motherboard to add more RAM.My processor is an Intel core 2 quad cpu q6700 2.66GHZ (4cpu´s) 2.7ghz although I must admit the processors are the hardware that I don´t know what´s suppose to be good for gaming.

Edited January 5, 2012 by scot

[whogoods]

I played a bunch of games as well and thought my system was 100% stable. Including New Vegas with a large amount of hi res texture mods and never got a crash. I was surprised to see my system crash in similar fashion to Skyrim when trying to play Dead Island. If I were you just to rule out the possibilities I'd try some of the benchmark/stress test utilities I've mentioned. Before this no one could have told me that my system was unstable, :(

[scot]

I played a bunch of games as well and thought my system was 100% stable. Including New Vegas with a large amount of hi res texture mods and never got a crash. I was surprised to see my system crash in similar fashion to Skyrim when trying to play Dead Island. If I were you just to rule out the possibilities I'd try some of the benchmark/stress test utilities I've mentioned. Before this no one could have told me that my system was unstable, :(

 

I just finnished the tests out of curiosity and all is well, only the last two, the physics and he combined tests weren´t as smooth as the first ones but the score are all above avarage the graphic card is more than good XD to me it´s just the skyrim´s patch 1.3.10 that causes the crash, I could play skyrim for a day with no single crash and after this patch bam crashes every 10 minutes with or without mods.

Edited January 5, 2012 by scot

[whogoods]

I played a bunch of games as well and thought my system was 100% stable. Including New Vegas with a large amount of hi res texture mods and never got a crash. I was surprised to see my system crash in similar fashion to Skyrim when trying to play Dead Island. If I were you just to rule out the possibilities I'd try some of the benchmark/stress test utilities I've mentioned. Before this no one could have told me that my system was unstable, :(

 

I just finnished the tests out of curiosity and all is well, only the last two, the physics and he combined tests weren´t as smooth as the first ones but the score are all above avarage the graphic card is more than good XD to me it´s just the skyrim´s patch 1.3.10 that causes the crash, I could play skyrim for a day with no single crash and after this patch bam crashes every 10 minutes with or without mods.

 

You seem pretty set on it being 1.3.10 causing the issues and I'll respect that. I myself though re-installed the game and downgraded it to 1.2 and started a new game and was still experiencing crashes. If you're still up for it try Heaven DX11 Benchmark on max settings as well. 3DMark11 on 720P couldn't crash my system. It wasn't till I set it to 1080 which you can only do in paid version that I experienced crashing. It's normal for the last 2 tests to be a bit choppy, at that point the benchmark is stressing just your cpu and a combined test for cpu/gpu. Also, just cause you pass one run doesn't mean you are out of the woods. Try several. I could play Skyrim at times for hours before a crash and then at times 10 minutes at a time before one. Same applies with stress tests. If you'd like I'd be willing to test your game save on my system. PM me if you'd like.

Edited January 5, 2012 by whogoods

[Tom21]

This new patch did something to the game, I tried everything and I mean everything and nothing worked, my skyrim crashes after this new patch, I tried with and without mods, cleaned the save folder leaving only one savegame so I can resume the game and still crashes, used my backup exe for 1.3.00 patch still crashes even though it was working fine before.Uninstalled and after a painfull time trying to make steam re-installing the game from the DVD tried again and still crashed.My other games run fine, I built my computer to be a gaming device so no hardware problems, I just need to upgrade my RAM and my windows 7 to 64 bit but as I said before skyrim was working without crashes at all before the patch 1.3.10. The way I see it bethesda screwed my skyrim with the 4 gb patch thing that does nothing to me but crashing the game.

 

 

Same Here!!!!!!