VideoCard Dying ? Please help !!

[ShadowHawk141]

Since recently when I play Skyrim my screen goes all haywire.

I've tried new drivers, different driver versions, AA and FXAA on and off.

I also ran memtest to test my memory and kumbustor to test my videocard but no errors came out.

My card is a Nvidia GTS 450 1GB.

 

Skyrim is still running though and I can exit the game normaly and even save the game (I know the button's possition), when I get back to desktop all is normal and I can start Skyrim again until it happens again.

The screenshots are greenish but it also occurs with neon kinda colors in green or yellow or pink etc.

 

Please help coz I can't find any relating topic or similar problem on the net.

 

Here are some screenshots:

 

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Ga_Pilot/Crash001.jpg

 

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Ga_Pilot/Crash002.jpg

 

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Ga_Pilot/Crash003.jpg

[Georgiegril]

Is it only happening in skyrim, no other game or other application?

 

Are you running the most recent patch of the game through Steam? have you tried verifying your game files through steam?

 

What are your computer specs and game settings?

Is skyrim recognizing your graphics card and have you made any changes to your ini files or driver settings?

[ShadowHawk141]

Is it only happening in skyrim, no other game or other application?

 

Are you running the most recent patch of the game through Steam? have you tried verifying your game files through steam?

 

What are your computer specs and game settings?

Is skyrim recognizing your graphics card and have you made any changes to your ini files or driver settings?

 

 

I have checked Skyrim to be up to date before I ran the hardware tests.

I wanted to be sure before thinking about faulty hardware.

 

I don't play any other games at the moment (not so much time with family with 2 kids and a job) so I haven't tried other games. The kumbustor runs pretty heavy stuff though and the card didn't even show a minor glitch or artifact.

 

Could it be that there are old remnants of some mods I had, remain in my savegame that goes havoc now ?

I tried imaginator and some enb's and boosters in the past but removed them.

 

I do use some mods but only one's that many people use.

The mods I use are

 

Apachi Hair

CBBEv3

Some custom followers, downloaded and some I made myself using the tutorial by BravoOscar.

One house mod: CandlePond Ranche

UFO

And some armor and weapons mods.

 

I have checked the mod's threads if anyone else had problems like me but none of the mods I use created similar problems.

 

I haven't placed any mods recently though and things were running just fine untill all of a sudden......

There's nothing I changed before the trouble started and I played a pretty number of hours before thing got bad.

The night before things gone bad I played around 4 hours without exiting the game once and it ran great.

 

It's also occuring completely random, sometimes inside sometimes outside, inside a city or outside, when I'm alone or when I have followers with me.

I even waited (alone) a couple days in a quiet indoor possition used the pcb console command saved and loaded the new save before going on and still it happened.

 

I might try and re-install Skyrim completely and see what happens then although that would mean many hours of gameplay gone.

 

Thanks for the response, I realy appreciate it.

 

Oh forgott my pc specs, it's getting old but untill now did what I wanted.

 

Intell E8400 Core2Duo

P5K-V motherboard (onboard video dissabled)

2GB ram at 1066 mhz

Palit GTS 450 Sonic 1GB

600 watts Thermaltake Toughpower PSU

Win XP Professional SP3 32 bits

 

I run Skyrim at High preset from the launcher (the recommended setting when I installed it) without any ini tweaks but the floating grass fix.

I normaly have FXAA enabled with AF 4x.

In the Nvidia controllpanel everything is set to application controlled, I never looked at it realy untill things went bad.

Edited October 18, 2012 by ShadowHawk141

[hangarspace]

I doubt it's a mod issue. Make a backup of your skyrim folder, saves, mods etc so you wont loose any gameplay and then completely uninstall skyrim, then go and manually delete the skyrim game folders and any skyrim user data (ini files) and anything else you can find related to the game, apart from the backups you made first. Next uninstall all the nvidia drivers and kombuster etc. I think you should google uninstalling the nvidia stuff as I seem to remember seeing references to do this an ensure it really has been uninstalled.

 

Then after a re-boot, start again by installing the nvidia drivers and then the game and see what happens.

 

Chris

[Georgiegril]

The newest drivers may not have the windows driver update problem (306.93 or something like that.)

I use the 306.24 still, both are whql.

 

However, if you want to be sure, it never hurts to do a clean install. This will explain how.

 

I agree with most of what hangarspace says, except I never rule out mods. (especially if the problem is limited to skyrim)

I would take his advice a bit farther, actually. I would try updating your drivers with a clean install, running steam's verify game cache, and if that doesn't work, I'd do a complete clean reinstall of skyrim, starting over with no mods and not returning to old savegames.

 

There are a couple of very useful articles about reinstallation, etc, in Bben's blog

[ShadowHawk141]

Thanks to the both of you I realy appreciate the help !!

 

As I said before I allready tried other drivers for my videocard and I always make sure no remants of the previous driver stay behind before I install the new ones.

I always reboot in save mode after uninstalling the Nvidia drivers and run DriverFusion to take out the left behind files and reg entries. Then I reboot normaly and do a Clean install of the one's I want to use.

I did this also yesterday for the latest driver I am using now (the latest for Win XP 32b) I got them from the Nvidia site.

So re-installing the Nvidia drivers isn't needed I think because Skyrim doesn't do anything with those files.

 

I will do a complete re-install of Skyrim deleting all stuff that's left behind like possible folders or reg entries.

After that I will start a new game and if it runs ok I will install my mods one after the other testing the one first before installing the other to eliminate the possible mod that causes this.

It will take some time though (family, work etc.) but I will come back to share the result.

 

Again thanks for the help, I hoped for a simple explaination but on the other hand when is there a simple solution to computer troubles :)

 

Cheers

[devilrejected]

I'd also suggest you download NMM (nexus mod manager) and BOSS.

 

Using NMM will give you a safe way to install mods so if something breaks you can simply de-activate the mod plus BOSS will change around your mod load order to hopefully eliminate issues.

 

To know what NMM is and how to use it please view this video from Gopher

Edited October 18, 2012 by devilrejected

[ShadowHawk141]

Well, I have uninstalled Skyrim completely, installled my Graphics Driver again after cleaning the previous install, The drivers I use are the lates I could download from the Nvidia site 306.81 for Win XP 32b.

I also did a check if my DirectX was up to date and defragged my HDD before installing Skyrim again.

 

I only have a couple mods active, three texture mods to improve the Male quality so I can see how I look like when creating me in the race menu in the beginning of the game in Helgen.

And I installed the SKSE for eventual mods I'm installing that might need it.

 

I've played an hour and a half now without the wierd crash, something I couldn't do when the trouble started.

 

I'm gonna put my mods back in one at a time and see if they cause troubles.

 

I never used USKP before, is it recommendable or will it conflict with other mods.

The only script mods I use is the fixed vannila mannequins and the Paarthunax dillema so I won't have to kill him and still do the blade's missions

 

I can't imagine those two scripts would cause the graphics crash I had but I think you guys are way more experienced then I am when it comes to using mods in Skyrim.

 

@devilrejected

I allready use NMM and BOSS, they're two "must haves" I think when using mods.

I do however have some trouble downloading with NMM so I download all mods manualy and then put them in the mods folder of NMM. Downloading manualy has some advantage because sometimes the folder structure of a mod isn't right for NMM, I unpack the mod then and put the right folder structure in and ZIP them again before installing the mod with NMM.

I always check manualy if the mod has been put in the right place in Skyrim and it always was, I don't do that with mods that must be placed in the Root folder of Skyrim like enb's, that doesn't work with NMM, but i don't use enb's anymore, I use only gameplay mods not graphic improvers or boosters etc. If my computer can't run a game without the use of third party boosters etc. then imo it's better to look for a game that does or buy a faster PC if you can :)

 

 

Thanks again for all the advice, I hope things will return to normal now but I'll let you know if it does or doesn't.

 

Cheers

[ShadowHawk141]

Just a small note for anyone reading this thread, maybe this may help others to.

 

I am re-installing my mods one by one and one mod that gives me lock-ups is "A Quality Map", it's a mod that improves the ingame map with roads and no cloudcover etc.

A soon as I install this mod and I go outside, Skyrim locks-up in the loading screen.

Might be something on my end but I don't have any other environmental or landscape mods installed that would affect the outside world other then Candlepond Ranch. The mod also crashes my game when I'm not in the same cell as Candlepond Ranch.