Laptop shuts down when playing Sims 4

@erinh1999  You're not an idiot, and you shouldn't need to buy a new graphics card.  The card you have is overkill for Sims 4 in its current state, and anyway, you couldn't upgrade it if you wanted to: most laptops aren't built to accommodate a GPU upgrade.

The issue could be excess heat, and there are ways to find out directly rather than guessing.  But there are plenty of other potential causes of shutdowns, so it's best to cover some of those too.  To that effect, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

Hi! Thank you so much for replying. Would you need the whole diagnostic results? Everything has come back as no problems found and it's so much information I wouldn't know which part to post to share with you guys to help get an answer. Actually managed to play Sims last night without it shutting down, but the laptop got so hot that I turned it off anyway just in case. Thank you again for replying, would've never thought of running a test 🙂

@erinh1999  Yes, please attach the entire saved dxdiag in text format to a post.  If you want to see how hot your laptop is internally, there are plenty of tools you can use.  Just let me know whether you'd like something lightweight, or a more comprehensive tool that picks up everything, and whether you'd like to upload a hardware log from a game session for me to look over.

Hey sorry it took so long to reply to you. I hope the file I attached works. I guess it would make sense for me to do a more comprehensive tool to check the temperature when I play. Thank you for all your help, I was spending ages trying to find an answer and I'm really happy it's getting close to being solved 

@erinh1999  Don't worry about the late reply; it's not a problem at all.  There's nothing in your dxdiag that's obviously connected to Sims 4 crashing, which wouldn't be surprising if this were a heat issue.  However, a component of the Windows audio system is crashing, and there's a new audio driver (Realtek High Definition Audio Driver) available for your laptop here:

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/g-series-15-3590-laptop/drivers

The same goes for the Dell Alienware Command Center: please install the newer available application, and the OC Controls as well, since they likely work together and should be in sync.

Most importantly, please update the BIOS, in fact, you should do this first.  The update is marked urgent, and while it's not always obvious why, that could be related to the shutdowns.

Please update BIOS, then the audio driver and Alienware software, restart your computer, and if you get another shutdown, run another dxdiag.  If you want to get a head start on hardware monitoring, you can log the info and upload it as well.

Hi!

i updated everything as you said, it went without any problems. went to play the game, i just installed eco life and twice in an hour it crashed. the first time i actually got the blue screen and it said “page fault in nonpaged area” so it restarted. 

waited a while to see if it said the same thing without playing the sims and nothing happened, so i started the game again. i got a bit further the second time in the game but then it froze. it wouldn’t let me exit the game, even with ctrl alt delete, the windows button, anything. i had to do a forced shut down again. the laptop wasn’t getting hot, the fans were on but not like it used to do. i can run another dxdiag and post the results here if you’d like? i feel like i’m just being bothersome at this point because i don’t think it’s the game anymore. somethings wrong with my laptop 

thank you again for all your help, i wouldn’t of gotten this far without you and i probably would’ve ditched the laptop by now 

@erinh1999  Please do run another dxdiag.  Please also go into C:\Windows\Minidump (you can paste that into the address bar in a File Explorer window) and grab any files dated after you ran the updates.  You'll probably need to right-click and Copy, then right-click on your desktop and Paste.  Please zip these files together, upload them to the third-party filehosting site of your choice, and link them here.

Also, you're not being bothersome at all.  Most of us reply here because we like to solve the problems that people bring.

Hi! 

I've run another test, so I'll link it below. As for the minidump one, I search it and the folder is empty. I'm definitely searching the right thing as I've copied what you told me to into the search bar on the file explorer. Is that something to worry about? I don't understand now why half the folders are empty or have no data etc. 

I've also run SupportAssist and everything came back fine this time, which is great. I've emailed Dell support as well. Considering this is a new laptop, and it's got the recommended system for running Sims, I'm bummed that I have to even ask people to help me fix the problems it shouldn't even have. I haven't changed any settings on the laptop when I set it up and did everything it recommended me to choose as settings. Again, sorry for the late reply. Works been super busy with the virus that's ongoing at the moment. Thank you for all your help! I hope you're staying safe. 

Hi! 

Oh my gosh you’re a star!! I can’t thank you enough! I couldn’t actually uninstall the Nahimic but I’ve disabled it and so far (I’ve played quite a lot) no crashes or even lag! It’s perfect, thank you so much! The laptop still gets hot, but apparently this sort of laptop just does so I’ve bought it a cooling pad and that helps a lot too. I really can’t thank you enough for all your help, especially after Dell weren’t helpful at all and said it was probably Origin that was causing the issue. 

Thank you again!