Skyrim causing crashes in Skyrim and other games

[StonkThis]

I've been playing Skyrim recently and it will occasionally crash on me, just freezing. After being done with that, I've noticed in Starcraft, some weird texture glitches, like terrain being stretch for a whole game or just twitching on and off. Now Starcraft crashes sometimes. Sometimes it will freeze, go to a black screen and come back in a few seconds, but recently it's just been going to a black screen and just staying there and I have to restart. In Skyrim, this happens almost once every hour or two, Starcraft, the glitches happen often, but crashes are uncommon, but noticeable and annoying.

I have 2 crossfired ATI Radeon 5770s. I've updated the drivers and it's been doing this in both 11.11 and 11.11b for both games. In Skyrim, I can play on ultra, 2x AA, with one of my graphics card maxing out around 93 degrees, is that a safe temperature? People tell me it's fine until it goes over 100. Neither of my cards are overclocked.

This problem never occurred before I played Skyrim on this computer, now I have crashes in both. If anyone knows how to fix either of these, please help me out.

 

[Racecarlock]

Oh my god. Skyrim is a computer virus. Lol.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The most likely scenario, OP, is you've encountered some kind of hardware/OS/Driver error and it just happened to flare up around the time you started playing Skyrim.

 

[StonkThis]

The most likely scenario, OP, is you've encountered some kind of hardware/OS/Driver error and it just happened to flare up around the time you started playing Skyrim.

Any recommendations for what to do if it is any of those?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Any recommendations for what to do if it is any of those?

Fix it?

They're all going to have different solutions depending on the severity of the problem.

The likelihood a video game is causing cascading system problems is exceedingly small.

 

[StonkThis]

Any recommendations for what to do if it is any of those?

Fix it?

They're all going to have different solutions depending on the severity of the problem.

The likelihood a video game is causing cascading system problems is exceedingly small.

Well do you have any recommendations for finding out what it is or narrowing it down?

 

[Mekado]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

 

[StonkThis]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

What about the regular old freezing? Would that be the same thing or game problem in Skyrim? Also, when it crashes in Starcraft, it's only around 80 degrees, but are you saying that I may have permanently damaged them?

I don't smoke, but I'll check out the fans, thanks.

 

[BoTTeNBReKeR]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

What about the regular old freezing? Would that be the same thing or game problem in Skyrim? Also, when it crashes in Starcraft, it's only around 80 degrees, but are you saying that I may have permanently damaged them?

I don't smoke, but I'll check out the fans, thanks.

Dude... 80 degrees is freaking hot. I'm surprised your card can actually get to that point without it burning through the circuits. My card runs around 40 - 60 degrees while running Skyrim.

 

[StonkThis]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

So I cleaned my front fans. The filters on them were completely covered in dust. I haven't played too much, but on Skyrim, it only goes around mid-high 60s now, but it will still freeze, no black screen. As for Starcraft, it hasn't done a black screen since, but there's still some small graphical errors in the terrain sometimes. Seems more rare and smaller. '
So do you think I did permanent damage to my GPUs or anything?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So do you think I did permanent damage to my GPUs or anything?

Certainly a possibility. If you have any other graphics cards lying around you could do a test with that's one way to find out. Sometimes people still have older cards lying around from previous upgrades. I have an old 7800 that has come in handy on a number of occasions.

 

[Mekado]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

So I cleaned my front fans. The filters on them were completely covered in dust. I haven't played too much, but on Skyrim, it only goes around mid-high 60s now, but it will still freeze, no black screen. As for Starcraft, it hasn't done a black screen since, but there's still some small graphical errors in the terrain sometimes. Seems more rare and smaller. '
So do you think I did permanent damage to my GPUs or anything?

It's very possible the GPU was damaged yes, the blackout reset are a "safety valve" but running them continously in a overheated state might fry some chips.at 60-70 you should normally be just fine.

Since you have crossfired cards, might i suggest trying them in single card ? odds are it's only one of the 2 cards that's fried, you could run off the other (losing Crossfire but it'd work)

Also, you cleaned the case fans but does your video cards have fans or just a heatsink ? you definitely want to clean them up too.

 

[StonkThis]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

So I cleaned my front fans. The filters on them were completely covered in dust. I haven't played too much, but on Skyrim, it only goes around mid-high 60s now, but it will still freeze, no black screen. As for Starcraft, it hasn't done a black screen since, but there's still some small graphical errors in the terrain sometimes. Seems more rare and smaller. '
So do you think I did permanent damage to my GPUs or anything?

It's very possible the GPU was damaged yes, the blackout reset are a "safety valve" but running them continously in a overheated state might fry some chips.at 60-70 you should normally be just fine.

Since you have crossfired cards, might i suggest trying them in single card ? odds are it's only one of the 2 cards that's fried, you could run off the other (losing Crossfire but it'd work)

Also, you cleaned the case fans but does your video cards have fans or just a heatsink ? you definitely want to clean them up too.

I just tested on Skyrim again for about an hour. The main one goes around 80, high 70s. The second around 60. The problem still showed up in Starcraft when I first played after Skyrim on single card, as crossfire was not supported. The crashing occurred in Skyrim and Starcraft then as well.

The cards are the kind of cheapy ones, no fancy case, but they each have a small fan. I didn't put this computer together, and I'm still not sure about all of it, but the cards are pretty close in the computer, maybe a centimeter between the fan and the other GPU, could that be a problem?

Also, possibly stupid question, is there a way to choose which graphics card to use when in single card, or tell crossfire which one to use primarily, or balance out the work more equally? In Skyrim, one card will be 100% activity, the other will be 80 or something and like 20 degrees less and in Starcraft, one will be 100% and the other will do nothing.

 

[Mekado]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

So I cleaned my front fans. The filters on them were completely covered in dust. I haven't played too much, but on Skyrim, it only goes around mid-high 60s now, but it will still freeze, no black screen. As for Starcraft, it hasn't done a black screen since, but there's still some small graphical errors in the terrain sometimes. Seems more rare and smaller. '
So do you think I did permanent damage to my GPUs or anything?

It's very possible the GPU was damaged yes, the blackout reset are a "safety valve" but running them continously in a overheated state might fry some chips.at 60-70 you should normally be just fine.

Since you have crossfired cards, might i suggest trying them in single card ? odds are it's only one of the 2 cards that's fried, you could run off the other (losing Crossfire but it'd work)

Also, you cleaned the case fans but does your video cards have fans or just a heatsink ? you definitely want to clean them up too.

I just tested on Skyrim again for about an hour. The main one goes around 80, high 70s. The second around 60. The problem still showed up in Starcraft when I first played after Skyrim on single card, as crossfire was not supported. The crashing occurred in Skyrim and Starcraft then as well.

The cards are the kind of cheapy ones, no fancy case, but they each have a small fan. I didn't put this computer together, and I'm still not sure about all of it, but the cards are pretty close in the computer, maybe a centimeter between the fan and the other GPU, could that be a problem?

No it shouldn't be, Crossfire and SLI are meant to be close together, it would be a problem though if the GPU fans are dirty, since there's really not a big margin (dirty fan+1/2cm airspace=bad)

Also, possibly stupid question, is there a way to choose which graphics card to use when in single card, or tell crossfire which one to use primarily, or balance out the work more equally? In Skyrim, one card will be 100% activity, the other will be 80 or something and like 20 degrees less and in Starcraft, one will be 100% and the other will do nothing.

As far as i know, no.Crossfire/SLI does the calculations about which card does what by itself, it's never an even burden, there's always gonna be a primary and a secondary card.If say there's 10 figures to draw and 3 backgrounds crossfire will give the main workload (10 figures)to the primary card and give workload that would have to wait (backgrounds)to the secondary card.It cuts down on graphical lag but it dosen't really unburden the primary card, it just helps clear the queue faster.

There would be an easy way to test if your cards are fried or just hot, open up your computer case and aim a desk fan straight into it, it's obviously gonna make a ruckus so it's not for long term but it'll lower the general temperature by a good 10-15 degrees.If you still have the graphical artefacts (color glitches etc) it means a component is fried, if it works fine with a desk fan blowing in your computer, you need to improve airflow.

Edit: note that in single card mode, it's only the primary that works, and the primary has the greatest chance of being the one overheated since it always runs hotter than the secondary.If you still have glitches with a desk fan, i'd suggest removing the crossfire setup altogether and just put your secondary card in by itself.

 

[willis888]

GPU's are made to run kind of hot. Ideally, you want to keep your CPU below 76 and your GPU below 85. Some i7's are built to safely run hotter than 76, but in general 76 is the max temp to aim for when overclocking your CPU.

For your GPU, over 90 and you risk crashes and glitches. Over 100 and you're risking damage to the card.

I'd think about underclocking and undervolting both 5770's before starting Skyrim. There are enough bugs that make you crash without adding unstable GPU's to the mix.

Try rebooting before you run Starcraft. It should not be having problems at 80 degrees, which is a normal temperature for a GPU.

There would be an easy way to test if your cards are fried or just hot, open up your computer case and aim a desk fan straight into it, it's obviously gonna make a ruckus so it's not for long term but it'll lower the general temperature by a good 10-15 degrees.

If you have a good case, with good airflow, your temps either won't change or will actually increase when you take the panel off and aim a large fan at your components.

If you're getting 10-15 degrees lower temps when you do that, you may want to consider more case fans and better cable management.

 

[StonkThis]

95 degrees is *very* hot, too hot to function properly for an extended period of time, the blackouts you had was the video card reseting itself, if it dosen't come back now it means it can't reset itself back to normal state anymore, only reboots would fix it (for a short while anyways) Also the weird graphic glitches you had are definite hallmark of an overheated card.

Clean your fans (especially if you smoke), make sure airflow is ok in your computer, add more if you can.

So I cleaned my front fans. The filters on them were completely covered in dust. I haven't played too much, but on Skyrim, it only goes around mid-high 60s now, but it will still freeze, no black screen. As for Starcraft, it hasn't done a black screen since, but there's still some small graphical errors in the terrain sometimes. Seems more rare and smaller. '
So do you think I did permanent damage to my GPUs or anything?

It's very possible the GPU was damaged yes, the blackout reset are a "safety valve" but running them continously in a overheated state might fry some chips.at 60-70 you should normally be just fine.

Since you have crossfired cards, might i suggest trying them in single card ? odds are it's only one of the 2 cards that's fried, you could run off the other (losing Crossfire but it'd work)

Also, you cleaned the case fans but does your video cards have fans or just a heatsink ? you definitely want to clean them up too.

I just tested on Skyrim again for about an hour. The main one goes around 80, high 70s. The second around 60. The problem still showed up in Starcraft when I first played after Skyrim on single card, as crossfire was not supported. The crashing occurred in Skyrim and Starcraft then as well.

The cards are the kind of cheapy ones, no fancy case, but they each have a small fan. I didn't put this computer together, and I'm still not sure about all of it, but the cards are pretty close in the computer, maybe a centimeter between the fan and the other GPU, could that be a problem?

No it shouldn't be, Crossfire and SLI are meant to be close together, it would be a problem though if the GPU fans are dirty, since there's really not a big margin (dirty fan+1/2cm airspace=bad)

Also, possibly stupid question, is there a way to choose which graphics card to use when in single card, or tell crossfire which one to use primarily, or balance out the work more equally? In Skyrim, one card will be 100% activity, the other will be 80 or something and like 20 degrees less and in Starcraft, one will be 100% and the other will do nothing.

As far as i know, no.Crossfire/SLI does the calculations about which card does what by itself, it's never an even burden, there's always gonna be a primary and a secondary card.If say there's 10 figures to draw and 3 backgrounds crossfire will give the main workload (10 figures)to the primary card and give workload that would have to wait (backgrounds)to the secondary card.It cuts down on graphical lag but it dosen't really unburden the primary card, it just helps clear the queue faster.

There would be an easy way to test if your cards are fried or just hot, open up your computer case and aim a desk fan straight into it, it's obviously gonna make a ruckus so it's not for long term but it'll lower the general temperature by a good 10-15 degrees.If you still have the graphical artefacts (color glitches etc) it means a component is fried, if it works fine with a desk fan blowing in your computer, you need to improve airflow.

Edit: note that in single card mode, it's only the primary that works, and the primary has the greatest chance of being the one overheated since it always runs hotter than the secondary.If you still have glitches with a desk fan, i'd suggest removing the crossfire setup altogether and just put your secondary card in by itself.

I didn't phrase it the best, but the last part, I still meant in crossfire. Starcraft will have one at 100% activity, the other doing nothing. Anyway, I will try that fan thing.

EDIT: I have an antec 1200. Do you think that would be one that would benefit from the fan? I mean it already has a big fan on the top, and 3 fans on the back, 3 more on the front.

 

[willis888]

EDIT: I have an antec 1200. Do you think that would be one that would benefit from the fan? I mean it already has a big fan on the top, and 3 fans on the back, 3 more on the front.

That's a great case. If you have good cable management, I'd be surprised if you saw much of a difference. It would still probably be interesting to check it out though