For the past two months The Sims 4 has been randomly freezing up. Not just the game, but my whole system so that I have to restart my machine. I've completely uninstalled/reinstalled the game and all packs and am not using any CC or mods. I'm including my DxDiag text. Any help would be appreciated!

@HowEmbarraSim How often do you get BlueScreens? There are a couple in your dxdiag, but it only lists the last ten errors overall. Please look for minidump files and upload any you find. Open a File Explorer window and write C:\Windows\Minidump in the address bar. For the last two or three files, right-click and select Copy, then right-click on your desktop and select Paste. You can zip them together from there, upload them to the free filesharing site of your choice, and link them here. If you don't see any minidumps, just let me know. Your dxdiag is also missing some information, because it crashed while running. And most of the other errors are failed Windows updates. So it's a good idea to run a couple of basic checks on your Windows system files. Here's how: Hit Windows key-X Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator),” whichever option is offered Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes into the window, and enter The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator)” Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes into the window, and enter Post the message you receive here Restart your computer, and run any pending Windows updates: hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the button to check for updates. Then restart again and try to play Sims 4. If it doesn't work, please run another dxdiag.

I'll try these things, thank you!

@HowEmbarraSim Windows will deny permission when you try to access files stored within the Windows directory. It's to prevent people (or viruses) from accidentally deleting an essential system file. That's why you need to copy the minidump and paste it to your desktop before trying to upload it. And please don't open it first, or at least don't save the changes if you do. The apps you have installed likely won't be able to make sense of most of the symbols, so if you save it while in Notepad or something, the data may be corrupted and unusable.

@HowEmbarraSim The dump file won't unzip for me for some reason, but I don't think it matters: it's much too small (59 bytes) to contain enough information to be useful. Let's try another way instead. You can tell Windows to create crash dumps, play until a freeze, then find the dump and upload it. Here's how: Hit the Windows key, type "command prompt" in the box, right-click on Command Prompt in the search results, and select Run as Administrator In the window, paste "reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\devenv.exe" /v DumpType /d 2 /t REG_DWORD" without the outside quotes into the box, and enter Launch Sims 4 and wait for it to freeze or crash After it crashes, wait for any crash dialogs to finish (or restart if you need to) Then hit Windows key-R and paste "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps" without quotes into the box, and enter Upload the last .dmp file to pastebin and drop a link here, as before When you want to undo the auto crash log dumps, open Command Prompt as before, paste "reg delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps" /f" without the outside quotes, and enter To be clear, this might not work with the kind of freeze you're seeing. But it's difficult to tell without more information. Regardless of whether you get a crash dump, please look again in C:\Windows\Minidump for any files created while you were playing. If you find one that's at least a few hundred KB (up to several MB), please upload it. If this doesn't work either, hardware monitoring would be an entirely different approach. It won't catch software errors, but then again this might not be a software error.

@HowEmbarraSim The minidump files all list the same error: an access violation related to Malwarebytes. So it's a good idea to uninstall Malwarebytes entirely, and of course reinstall it if that's the antivirus you use. Malwarebytes offers a tool that allows you do do a clean uninstall, and then reinstall if you choose: https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039023473-Uninstall-and-reinstall-Malwarebytes-using-the-Malwarebytes-Support-Tool The error in the crash dump is related to your computer's page file. So please check the connections of your installed hard drive(s): make sure any M.2 drive is properly seated, and unplug and reattach any SATA cables. I don't actually know what drive(s) you have, since that was missing from your original dxdiag. So please let me know, and if you get another crash, run another dxdiag. The above might not help, but a loose connection is a simple problem to fix, so it's worth starting there.

Computer freezing completely while playing

25 Replies

HowEmbarraSim
Seasoned Rookie
6 years ago
I've got the dmp files, both from 30 August
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JfvnHLenkcdY3ZfWoHIPlyBLA9IB0WTc/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EflX7aR6fDzsAeDv3RExai8ubf_aCzwN/view?usp=sharing
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
6 years ago
@HowEmbarraSim The second opinion got back to me and suggests you run chkdsk, since your RAM is now coming back with no errors. Here's how to do it:

Hit Windows key-X

Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator),” whichever option is offered

Inside the window that appears, copy and paste "chkdsk /f /r c:" without quotes, and enter

You'll be asked to allow a restart; say yes

When the scan is done, hit Windows key-X again, and choose Command prompt (admin) or Powershell (admin) again

Copy and paste this command without the outside quotes: "get-winevent -FilterHashTable @{logname="Application"; id="1001"}| ?{$_.providername –match "wininit"} | fl timecreated, message | out-file Desktop\CHKDSKResults.txt"

A .txt file with the chkdsk results will appear on your desktop. Please attach it to a post.
HowEmbarraSim
Seasoned Rookie
6 years ago
My computer was telling me it couldn't find the CHKDSK Results - but I found them through Event Viewer and copied it into a note pad file and attached it.Let me know if that hasn't worked
ChkDskResults.txt3 KB
HowEmbarraSim
Seasoned Rookie
6 years ago
Adding my most recent dxdiag as well.
DxDiag.txt81 KB
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
6 years ago
@HowEmbarraSim Sorry for the late reply; I'm having a lot of trouble with this one. There are a number of new errors in your dxdiag that are related to the driver for your graphics card. So it's a good idea to do a clean uninstall of the driver and install the newest version. Download Display Driver Uninstaller from here:

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3268

Download the newest stable (WHQL/recommended) driver, from May 26, not the newer optional one:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/radeon-400-series/radeon-rx-400-series/radeon-rx-480

Next, take your computer completely offline—disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord—and double-click the DDU.exe. Take note of where the file will land, and click Extract. If it's easier, you can copy the path and then paste it into the address bar in a File Explorer window. Open the folder and then launch Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you'll get a message that you're not in Safe Mode. Click OK, then go to Options and enable Safe Mode dialog. Here's a screenshot of what your options should look like; make sure the box in red is checked:

Close options, and the DDU, and then open the DDU.exe again. For launch options, choose "Safe Mode (Recommended)," and then click Reboot to Safe Mode (you'll need your password, so find it before rebooting). Once you login, you'll see this:

In the blue box, choose GPU, then AMD if it's not already showing. Then click Clean and Restart (red box).

Once your computer has rebooted, now back in normal mode, run the driver install .exe as an admin: right-click on the download and select "Run as administrator." Reboot again before testing.

I also noticed, after someone suggested I check, that neither pair of memory modules you have is on the supported list for your motherboard. (I should have looked before; sorry about that as well.) The fact that the memory isn't on the list doesn't necessarily mean that it can't work, but given the errors you've been having, it does seem like that might be the issue. You can find a list of all supported hardware for your board here:

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/support/970A-GAMING-PRO-CARBON#support-test

Is there a way you could test with something on that list? Even if you need to take the computer to a shop, it's a good idea, especially if clean uninstalling and reinstalling the GPU driver doesn't make a difference.

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Computer freezing completely while playing

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