BSODs, random restarts, and crashing (Skyrim related)

[theoscillat0r]

Hey tom's hardware, this is my first post here. Anyways, I've been having some pretty serious issues with Skyrim, but I'm not sure why. I'll go into detail.

My Build:
Windows 7 64 bit Service Pack 1
i7 3770k
8GB RAM
GTX 470
256 GB Samsung 830 SSD
ASUS Maximus V Gene

I just installed the SSD two days ago, and I did a fresh install of Windows 7 (not activated yet). I installed Service Pack 1 and the newest NVIDIA drivers available to me, which were 306.97. Now, I wanted to go into Skyrim fresh, since it had been quite a while since I played it. So I haven't installed any mods, not even SKSE. At first I kept crashing early on in the game, inside Helgen at the part where Alduin collapses part of the dungeon. It happened about four times in a row, and I've seen it happen to my friend as well, so I am assuming that's just Bethesda. However once I got to the first town, Riverwood, I crashed upon entry of the shop. Then I reloaded and crashed upon entry of Whiterun. Then the shop inside Whiterun. Later on my computer restarted upon entering a new cell. Then there was a BSOD (A clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor within the allocated time interval). It was not going well.

I then looked at MSI afterburner / GPUz, and noticed something odd. My overclock was not matching up. I had my core clock set to 745, but on GPUz it showed it as 883. Way too high. Same problem with the memory clock. This happened at any point, so I had to set my core to 676 just to get it to be 745 on GPUz. I have never had this issue before the new install. I tried playing without an overclock and it still restarted my computer as soon as I entered a new cell after about an hour of playing. I tried rolling back to different drivers, and I still had issues. I've played Borderlands 2 and the Walking Dead fine, but Skyrim hates me. I've had minor problems with my RAM in the past, but this definitely seems suspiciously related to the GPU.

I've never had Skyrim BSOD or restart my computer. I've seen it reset my overclock when the VRAM usage was too high, and I've seen it just crash, albeit much less frequently. The problem is, I'm not really sure what this is all related to. My GPU, my RAM, my new SSD? I've been maxing out the voltage on my card for about two and a half years, so my overclock used to actually be higher (at 809 for the core). But as of this year I can't run it as high anymore. I've been running the game without any mods and within two hours of gametime, it's already crashed several times, BSOD'd once, and restarted my computer twice (those are probably BSOD's too right)?

edit: I should mention that my crashes were somewhat less frequent with an older driver, and that they all happened shortly after entering a new cell (usually towns or cities). My VRAM usage never goes above 1GB. And for some reason my Windows Index Experience Tool always stops working 1/3 of the way through. When it checks Direct 3D 10 Load assessment.

I also just played for an hour and a half without any issues using only the Intel HD4000. Even though the game looked like crap, it never crashed once. I guess it is GPU related. Maybe?

 

[ricardois]

Skyrim is a very GPU/CPU demanding game, borderlands 2 and Walking dead aren't, that can explain why you are having BSODS and crashes when playing it only, try running some benchmarks, checking temps and clocks (MSI KOMBUSTOR).

This really looks like a bad overclock, have you overclocked your CPU/GPU ? try removing the overclocks and test the game again, maybe the overclock is unstable.

Last but not least, what is your PSU? if your Power supply is weak, maybe it is not handling your system overclocked and at full stress.

 

[theoscillat0r]

Skyrim is a very GPU/CPU demanding game, borderlands 2 and Walking dead aren't, that can explain why you are having BSODS and crashes when playing it only, try running some benchmarks, checking temps and clocks (MSI KOMBUSTOR).

This really looks like a bad overclock, have you overclocked your CPU/GPU ? try removing the overclocks and test the game again, maybe the overclock is unstable.

Last but not least, what is your PSU? if your Power supply is weak, maybe it is not handling your system overclocked and at full stress.

My PSU is 1000W so I doubt it's a power issue. This all started happening after the reinstall of windows, but some issues may have surfaced before. I made sure to disable all overclocks, and I haven't even overclocked my 3770k yet (I used to have a 930 @ 4GHz).

 

[ricardois]

My PSU is 1000W so I doubt it's a power issue. This all started happening after the reinstall of windows, but some issues may have surfaced before. I made sure to disable all overclocks, and I haven't even overclocked my 3770k yet (I used to have a 930 @ 4GHz).

yes that is really strange, if you have a good PSU, and no overclocks, drivers are already upgraded (and you have tried old drivers too).

Well, if it is ONLY happening on skyrim i would say avoid playing it, it can be a skyrim problem related to your drivers, but if you can't stop playing, try to do another fresh install without using ANY mods and if the game is in the SSD try removing it, don't add anything, not even updates, and test again.

This is really a strange issue.

 

[theoscillat0r]

yes that is really strange, if you have a good PSU, and no overclocks, drivers are already upgraded (and you have tried old drivers too).

Well, if it is ONLY happening on skyrim i would say avoid playing it, it can be a skyrim problem related to your drivers, but if you can't stop playing, try to do another fresh install without using ANY mods and if the game is in the SSD try removing it, don't add anything, not even updates, and test again.

This is really a strange issue.

I brought up the reinstall because I just bought an SSD and I thought that the two could be related, but as I've said before I played with only the internal HD4000 and it never crashed once. And I've been playing without any mods the whole time.

 

[theoscillat0r]

It definitely seems GPU related. I just played some more without the GPU and was fine. : ( Oh well. Time to save up for a 4GB 670.

 

[ricardois]

It definitely seems GPU related. I just played some more without the GPU and was fine. : ( Oh well. Time to save up for a 4GB 670.

Yes that is the last resort, but lets hope this is really only gpu related and switching it will fix the problem. When you do that, please return here to say if your problem was fixed.

EDIT: By the way, unless you want to go 3D with multiple monitors or play at resolutions of 1080p, i don't think that you will need the 4gb version.

 

[theoscillat0r]

Yeah I've been playing with my friend's GTX 460 and there haven't been any issues.

 

[gamerk316]

Download BluescreenView and post a screenshot.

Based on your description, it *sounds* like the GPU is on the way out; in that case, I'd expect either 0x116 or 0x117 BSODs (VIDEO_TDR_ERROR and VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT).

I also note that some SSD's need a firmware update, and can generate BSOD's without it. I've seen it happen enough, and the fact you just got a new SSD raises some warning lights as a result...

 

[theoscillat0r]

It turned out to be the GPU. I'm saving up for a new one.

 

[theoscillat0r]

Wow. I'm pretty livid right now. I just wrote an incredibly detailed follow up post (things got worse) only to have the page reload because of my crappy Acer mouse pad. Ugh.

Well long story short (not really), I went on a gaming hiatus after October until the new Tomb Raider came out. I played that flawlessly. Then I stopped again for a while. A while later I got addicted to Mass Effect 3. Then I started to play more games again. Battlefield 3 and Black Ops 2 would crash before I could even get through one match. They would also BSOD at times. Blacklight Retribution couldn't even start without crashing. All three of them crashed on loading screens almost every time.

I thought that maybe my 2TB was at fault, so I tried reinstalling Battlefield 3 on my SSD instead (where my OS and Skyrim was installed). The performance was the same. Just terrible.

I did a Windows reinstall. After that Blacklight worked, but it stuttered and still crashed occasionally. I tried running Black Ops 2 with just the CPU integrated graphics, but the results were confusing. The game ran without crashing during matches, but it would hang on loading screens. With the 470, the game would crash. BF3 still crashed.

I took another hiatus until I got addicted to Mass Effect 3 for a while. Game ran great, but it would crash on loading screens very rarely. The Walking Dead wasn't even playable anymore. It would crash. So basically I only played Mass Effect 3 for two weeks. Then I ordered a 2GB 7850 as a temporary fix. In anticipation I reinstalled Skyrim. Surprisingly, it didn't crash, much. No BSODs either. It just was stuttery. What the heck, 470? Mixed messages.

Anyways my 7850 came and for two days it was heaven. Skyrim ran smoothly with 60 FPS and a bunch of visual mods. But today all of a sudden, the game started to run like crap. Very crashy. FPS of 45 or less. Massive stuttering. Interestingly it did progress to this point a little bit, but it was just terrible today. I tried reinstalling Skyrim clean again. I benchmarked, and for the first time it was 60 FPS average. Next eight times were terrible again though. Same deal. Very laggy, with crashes soon following. This is with the vanilla game. At all graphical settings.

So I don't know what to do. I haven't tried any other games on the 7850 yet, but maybe I didn't have just a GPU issue? This sucks. I ran Samsung's Magician software and checked my storage. Both seem fine. I just started memtest and the first RAM stick seems fine, and I'm running Prime95 tomorrow. I don't even know how to troubleshoot the motherboard, but my hardware is so new. This is ridiculous. On an unrelated note, my tower speakers are having "hissing" issues and it's likely that the receiver and speakers are damaged. But it's the same issue where I don't really know what to troubleshoot, they're only a year old, etc. At least my suffering will shift to midterms tomorrow.

I'm returning the 7850 already as well, since Nvidia's refreshes are coming out soon. I'll update my woes tomorrow after running Prime95 etc.