PC Crashing

Arnak · Mar 4, 2015

Hi Cmdrs,

Has anyone had any problems with the pc display crashing?

It only happens on ED, the drivers are up to date and the pc is quite new and powerful.

It is quite random but has crashed 3 times today within a few minutes of each other.

As far as I can tell the display goes black but the pc is still working but I have to manually shutdown as I cannot see if anything is working or not.

Running W7 64 bit.

No error messages in the event logs other than the unexpected shutdown.

Cmdr Arnak

Adam Lusardi · Mar 4, 2015

Have you checked your temperatures?

CMDR Beltane · Mar 4, 2015

Nvidia Card, driver was recovered event? That black screen you mention is often seen when this happens. And yes, i have this myself from time to time. ED is the first game in a while where i get this. Already tried everything the net would give me to solve this problem, from basic stuff like check temps or deactivate Aero Design up to editing registy entries and flashing the grafics card bios. Only thing i haven't tried yet is using MSI Afterburner to give the core some more voltage. But as i plan to move to a better card within the next few month, i take it as it is and put my hopes that this problem will be solved with ne new card (most probably 970 or 960). What i achieved though is that i get less BSODs as a result of this.

Trader38 · Mar 4, 2015

I had a similar thing a few weeks ago, screen went black but sound continued looping. I installed MSI Afterburner and found that the second my gpu temp reached 70 degrees off it went.
I set user defined fan speeds to keep the temp under 61 or so and have never had the problem since.

Arnak · Mar 4, 2015

Hi Cmdrs,

Thanks for the helpful replies.

My card is a 3g AMD Radeon R9 280.

I have loaded the MSI Afterburner software but it does not seem to be altering the fan speed.8-((

Perhaps it does nor work with this card? :S

Just found out that the card comes with fan control so I have upped the speed to 85% to see what happens.

The temp outside the game is 35C, testing in the game is going to be difficult as my 2nd monitor died today.....

Otherwise I could have put the afterburner on the 2nd screen to keep an eye on the temp.

I'll have to alt-tab to keep an eye on it, the crash always seems to happen in a station foe some reason.

I will also try lowering the resolution to see if that helps.

Cmdr Arnak

uberdude · Mar 4, 2015

Try turning off V-sync if you have that on. I have a gtx 980 and kept getting driver crashes during Hyperspace. Turned V-sync off and hasn't happened again.

Arnak · Mar 4, 2015

Hi Uberdude,

Thanks for the advice but I have found the cause.

When in space the card does not go over 59c but when in a station it goes up to 66c and then crashes the pc.

I have the resolution down and in windowed mode but even with the fan at 100% it still heats up far too much.

Looks like I need more cooling on the card.:S

Cmdr Arnak

uberdude · Mar 4, 2015

Arnak said:
Hi Uberdude,

Thanks for the advice but I have found the cause.

When in space the card does not go over 59c but when in a station it goes up to 66c and then crashes the pc.

I have the resolution down and in windowed mode but even with the fan at 100% it still heats up far too much.

Looks like I need more cooling on the card.:S

Cmdr Arnak

A temporary solution might be to go into the graphics setting and change the FPS setting to 30. Your card won't get as hot.

Also since you've identified the problem as too much heat. Turning V-sync off wouldn't help anyway since V-sync forces the card to sync with the display Resolution which in most standard screens is 60Hz. In fact having V-sync on would help in your case because it would throttle the card to only 60 FPS.

Anyway, Try the frame rate limit of 30 FPS that should help. And believe it or not, making the resolution smaller can cause the card to run hotter because it can produce more FPS.

adoredtv · Mar 4, 2015

Arnak said:
Hi Uberdude,

Thanks for the advice but I have found the cause.

When in space the card does not go over 59c but when in a station it goes up to 66c and then crashes the pc.

I have the resolution down and in windowed mode but even with the fan at 100% it still heats up far too much.

Looks like I need more cooling on the card.:S

Cmdr Arnak

66C is fine - good even - for a graphics card under load. If it's repeatable though there may well be an issue somewhere else but it's not overheating. As above, V-Sync will help to keep the card cooler in stations but I suspect you'll still crash. Worth trying anyway.

KillingTime · Mar 4, 2015

yeah, 66 degrees is nothing for those cards... 96 degrees and I'd be worried!

You used to be able to interface afterburner with your phone so have a look in the App / Play store if it's still there, then you can look at the stats in real time

Might be worth trying an older/newer/beta/different driver too

ALso, you could try downclocking the card, especially if it's a factory overclocked version. I know some have been reported to be a bit iffy. Can't remember which brand so don't want to randomly badmouth one!

CMDR Beltane · Mar 4, 2015

adoredtv said:
66C is fine - good even - for a graphics card under load. If it's repeatable though there may well be an issue somewhere else but it's not overheating. As above, V-Sync will help to keep the card cooler in stations but I suspect you'll still crash. Worth trying anyway.

Right, even after my recent cleanup and with a tower that is build for optimized airflow, my GC has 78° max while i play ED. Can even remember one card that got its fan broken and it was still running at 110°. At least for the time until i bought a new one. So, temperature seems not be your problem @OP. For me, chrashes *always* seem to be connected to the stars aka suns. So either while i am at a nav point and look at it, or when i leave hyperspace and turn away. Not always, but when it happens, it happens exactly under those two circumstances.

@OP: To monitor your GPU temp you can also use GPU-Z. It has a logging function that writes all data into a .txt file. So you can check even in case your rig crashes.

KillingTime · Mar 4, 2015

Arnak said:
My card is a [...] AMD [...]

there's your problem!

lol, sorry, couldn't resist!

Darth Ender · Mar 5, 2015

I have an R9 280 and W7 64bit as well. I'd check if the AMD drivers enabled gpu overclocking by default (mine did). It's in the gpu performance options. If it's on, turn it off and play, especially if you crash after limiting framerate or enabling vsync (or both). the temperature doesn't seem to be the problem, but it could be unstable frequencies or unstable power rails at overclocked frequencies causing your crashes.
I believe factory overclocked cards will enable this feature automatically. They technically should be able to handle it but maybe you got the short straw (or your psu isn't man enough to handle it).

Blood Lust · Mar 5, 2015

Arnak said:
Hi Cmdrs,

Has anyone had any problems with the pc display crashing?

It only happens on ED, the drivers are up to date and the pc is quite new and powerful.

It is quite random but has crashed 3 times today within a few minutes of each other.

As far as I can tell the display goes black but the pc is still working but I have to manually shutdown as I cannot see if anything is working or not.

Running W7 64 bit.

No error messages in the event logs other than the unexpected shutdown.

Cmdr Arnak

If you built the machine yourself then this sounds like an overheating issue.

Either that or you've not paired up your ram in the right dual slots.