Skyrim complete PC crashes

[Matterspourington]

Well I've done some tests and here's what I've found. It appears that the game crashes due to intermittent GPU usage spikes, it doesn't immediately crash the game but does eventually - if you don't have sufficient cooling 100% usage will probably crash it because of heat first before anything else, but I am not at all suggesting this particular crash is a heat issue. At first my GPU usage seems normal, but every so often it shoots up to 99% - 100% on both cards and seems to cause major instability, eventually resulting in a full system crash. There are no log files since the computer has no time to log anything before it crashes. Unfortunately I'm unable to find a permanent solution, however I've always disabled vsync on Skyrim (since 60fps on a 120Hz monitor is awful) and re-enabling it seemed to postpone the crash, but it didn't reduce GPU load at all and in the end it didn't completely fix the issue. I recommend to anyone who disables vsync to re-enable it and see if it helps.

 

This game certainly does not require 2 GTX670's at 100% load to run, so this is a serious bug in their code and not a hardware or heat issue. I have reason to believe it has something to do with their latest patch since I remember being frustrated at the lack of GPU usage before this patch was released. I also don't think an SLi set up should cause any issues either, since I used to have 2 GTX580's on my loop and they worked flawlessly, in fact at that time the game appeared to rely more on the CPU than the graphics cards. I can't however vouch for crossfire since I haven't had an ATI since the X700 and have only tested nvidia SLi.

 

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, but if there is a way of reducing GPU load or perhaps capping what Skyrim is allowed to use, it could potentially fix this issue. I'm still looking around for ways of remedying this and will post if I manage to fix it, though I've never heard of anything that can control/cap GPU usage.

 

Of course for all I know I could be the only one whose crash is caused by this issue so I'd like to know if anyone else is getting excessive GPU usages in Skyrim, if you are please post and let us know!

[Threemoons]

Well I've done some tests and here's what I've found. It appears that the game crashes due to intermittent GPU usage spikes, it doesn't immediately crash the game but does eventually - if you don't have sufficient cooling 100% usage will probably crash it because of heat first before anything else, but I am not at all suggesting this particular crash is a heat issue. At first my GPU usage seems normal, but every so often it shoots up to 99% - 100% on both cards and seems to cause major instability, eventually resulting in a full system crash. There are no log files since the computer has no time to log anything before it crashes. Unfortunately I'm unable to find a permanent solution, however I've always disabled vsync on Skyrim (since 60fps on a 120Hz monitor is awful) and re-enabling it seemed to postpone the crash, but it didn't reduce GPU load at all and in the end it didn't completely fix the issue. I recommend to anyone who disables vsync to re-enable it and see if it helps.

 

This game certainly does not require 2 GTX670's at 100% load to run, so this is a serious bug in their code and not a hardware or heat issue. I have reason to believe it has something to do with their latest patch since I remember being frustrated at the lack of GPU usage before this patch was released. I also don't think an SLi set up should cause any issues either, since I used to have 2 GTX580's on my loop and they worked flawlessly, in fact at that time the game appeared to rely more on the CPU than the graphics cards. I can't however vouch for crossfire since I haven't had an ATI since the X700 and have only tested nvidia SLi.

 

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, but if there is a way of reducing GPU load or perhaps capping what Skyrim is allowed to use, it could potentially fix this issue. I'm still looking around for ways of remedying this and will post if I manage to fix it, though I've never heard of anything that can control/cap GPU usage.

 

Of course for all I know I could be the only one whose crash is caused by this issue so I'd like to know if anyone else is getting excessive GPU usages in Skyrim, if you are please post and let us know!

 

Matters,

 

Great homework on this, thank you! Have you submitted your findings yet to Bethesda? If not, please do and see if they get back to you at all...

[GlorfindelCotton]

Another victim here.

played Skyrim for 100+ hours, then one day this summer *crack*. PC reboots. From there onward it happens often. It -may- be just after I installed and started using CreationKit, but not exactly sure about that.

Yesterday it crashed three times in a row, the last just opening the CK on my mod (FortMoonstone, its a tiny mod in no way able to create havoc).

 

My rig:

PhenomII x2 (started with 4 cores, turned off unlocking to be sure it wasnt the thin) 555

ATI Radeon 4950 1GB

8 GB RAM

600W PSU

 

Never happened outside Skyrim (never, period.)

 

Only solution I found sofar, uninstall Skyrim and the CK and play something else.

Goodbye Bethesda.

Edited September 14, 2012 by GlorfindelCotton

[Sukhonali]

Thank you, removing this line did stop my map crash!

[screenSplatter]

bBloodSplatterEnabled=0

[Threemoons]

Okay, exciting new development...not...

 

I upgraded my video card and power supply. So far, no more blackscreen crashes.

 

BUT

 

I am getting crashes back to the Steam desktop.

 

Steam says it's a Bethesda issue. Bethesda says it's a Steam issue.

 

*tearing hair out*

 

Anyone else have this?

[Abyssinion]

Was having problem basically identical to OP, and although I'm not done testing, it seems to have been fixed.

 

Download and install "Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB2732059)" from windows update. (Recommended Update, not Important Update I believe..)

 

If that doesn't work:

 

Disable/close any desktop gadgets you might be using.

 

The last crash Skyrim caused me actually made a dmp file, although it was listen as "Unknown Module" ect ect and provided 0 information, though some digging I found it was possibly linked to the gadgets (Using cpu and gpu temp/load gadgets, personally) So I disabled them, as well as installing the windows update I found, to see if the crashes would stop, since then I seem to be crash free after about 20 hours of gameplay over the last couple days. (When before I'd crash every couple hours..)

 

It is most likely the update that will fix it, so find your system OS update (Whether x86 or x64) install, and good luck. I'll continue confirming it was the update and not the gadgets that was a fix.

[axonis]

Download and install "Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB2732059)" from windows update.

The description of KB2732059 is "You cannot open an .oxps file in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2". I don't think that it would fix anything related to this thread.

 

I doubt it's a system software issue as I have Windows XP and have the same problem. I don't think it's really a Bethesda/Skyrim issue either.

 

I was having the problem too; in a specific area I found a good test subject where I had 3 crashes in a row. So I started fiddling around voltages in my system and providing a small additional voltage to the CPU allowed me to go through the area without a crash. (Standard tests such as Prime95 would pass for hours without problems).

 

But what really bothers me is that my experience echoes another member who had reported that he was playing without problems for months and that after one crash in the summer, the problem never went away. This is exactly what I experienced (until changing the voltages as I said).

[azash28]

Pfff... Game removed

I'll see if it's working on my next computer

[spleek]

I've noticed the crash is triggered particularly in rendering particle and volumetric effects - things like fires or atmosphere. These are happening all over the place all the time in Skyrim, and it is probably not handled efficiently in Bethesda code. Even if fire/atmosphere are out of your field of view they're still rendering and influencing the environment, and it must produce a bad load on the video card that crashes it.

 

There's a caching of frames that happens for these animations, which you might be able to see if you first load a scene and you're in front of a fire or sconces - they'll play slightly more slowly at first, then after a second or 2 of loading, the fires will burn normal and fast. I've found if I move my character or do anything while this caching is happening, even if I've been playing a while, the game will get unstable and crash.

 

It's probably tied in with DirectX somehow since both AMD and nVidia cards are crashing.

 

Anyway, it's pathetic engineering for a huge title/company like this. At the Bethesda support forum they aren't even responding to people's posts on this issue anymore, even though it's clearly not solved.

 

 

---

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R

Intel i7 950 @ 3.07GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.1GHz, Swiftech watercooled

Memory: 24576MB RAM

DirectX 11

[Hunchback187]

Well I have been battling this issue with the game crashing for a few months now after I built a new gaming rig.

 

Here is what I have done.

 

RMAed the Video Card x 2

RMAed the Motherboard

Purchased a new Motherboard (Different Manufacturer)

 

Attempted to use all beta drivers for my HD 6850 Radeon.

Rolled back drivers.

 

Uninstalled and Re-installed OS (Win 7 64-Bit)

Uninstalled and Re-installed Skyrim / Steam.

 

Added 3 120mm Fans thinking it was a heat issue (Turned out it wasn't but now this thing runs really cold)

 

Underclocked the Video Cards.

Overclocked the Video Cards.

 

Underclocked the Motherboards North Bridge.

Overclocked the Motherboards North Bridge.

 

Tried a different HDD for god sakes.....

 

Only one item I haven't changed out which is an Antec BP 550 Plus 80 Silver (Which is rated for CrossFire / SLI mode) which only runs 1 x 6850 Radeon.

I run a SSD / DVD-Rom / 5 120mm Fans / MoBo / Video Card on the PSU. Nothing super extravagant or power hungry.

 

Crashes ONLY occur in SKYRIM. My wife can play WoW until her fingers bleed on this system.

 

So this leads me to believe that for some strange reason it's the PSU or it's coding on the game...

 

Any information would be helpful. Love this game too much but it's now at the point where i'm about to give up.....

 

EDIT :

 

Okay 100% confirmed that it is an issue with the game. I went out today and purchased a nVidia 560 TI and it crashed after about 15 mintues of game play. Stop updating drivers and re-installing and things like that if you are having a Display Driver has stopped working but has recovered error on Skyrim. It's a problem with the game.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Hunchback187