Computer Locks Up

[MrBosco]

Hi there. I've been playing Skyrim since its release and have sadly been plagued by this issue since the beginning. Basically my problem is this:

 

At what feel like specific times the game will completely lock up my computer. The screen will instantly become either a distorted jumble of colors or one blank slate of color, this often depends on the environment my character was in at the time of the freeze. Whatever bit of audio that is playing at the time of the lock up will not just loop endlessly. My comp at this point is completely unresponsive to anything except a full reboot.

 

The strange thing is this happen 10x more often when I fight dragons. It happens enough to warrant me thinking that the problem is random but when fighting a dragon (and particularly when that dragon roars or uses a shout) the comp locks up. After a reboot I will come back to the game and attempt to keep playing, say fighting the dragon that causes the freeze, but more often than not I am forced to abandon the fight because the freezes are too frequent. I can leave the fight, enter a new area, and be completely fine and left without crashes thereafter. Sometimes after many reboots and reloads of the fight where the computer freezes up my save seems to become corrupt. I say this because sometimes the game just stays on the loading screen while loading this particular save and the entire PC becomes again unresponsive.

 

This problem affects me only at certain times though. When I first started playing I was able to get 2 characters in their 40s before the issue began happening. I then took a large break from Skyrim, come back to playing very recently (this time with mods) and now the issue is once again back.

 

My PC is homebuilt. The specs are:

Win Vista 64 bit

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 2.40 GHz

8 GB of RAM

NVIDIA GTX 260

 

Anyone have ideas? I updated the driver on the NVIDIA card (using the Vista search for drivers tool) and still nothing is helping. I'd really appreciate some help on this!

If there is anymore info you need on the situation or my build I'd be happy to provide it.

[Georgiegril]

I don't have the answer, but a few things came to my mind:

 

What graphics settings are you playing on? Have you lowered them and does this still happen?

Have you looked at your card temp/gpu temp when playing and are they w/in acceptable range?

Have you tried lowering the screen size?

You obviously have plenty of RAM, but is it available while you are playing?

[MrBosco]

Don't know what temp the card is running at. Any suggestions on good freeware that measures this?

 

As per the other suggestions, Im going to have to give them a try. I wrote this post after getting this issue several times this morning. Frustrated, I shut down the comp and opened up the side panels to cool off the hardware. After a bit, restarted the comp and didnt have the issue. I was in the middle of a fight with a blood dragon and it didnt crash. The only thing that was different was that the panels were off, as was the sound.

 

Next time the issue arises Ill try dropping the graphics settings or screen size & report back if this helps...

 

Currently running the game at High graphics settings. Cant handle Ultra