Re: Brand New PC Sims 4 keeps crashing
@Kyllexx Please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
Forum Discussion
11 Replies
Here it is!
@Kyllexx Are you seeing any BlueScreens or overall computer crashes when playing Sims 4, or does the game simply crash to desktop while your computer continues to run normally? The reason I ask is because your dxdiag lists a number of Sims 4 crashes but also a couple of BSODs, and I can't tell from the information provided whether they're related.
Regardless, at least some of the Sims 4 crashes could be caused by a faulty graphics driver, so please do a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver, as described here:
You can get the newest driver from Nvidia here:
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/199990/en-us/
If that doesn't help, let me know about the BlueScreens, and we'll go from there.
No, there are no blue screens and when it crashed out of Sims to the desktop, the computer runs fine. I updated the driver and still the same issue.
@Kyllexx Is there any pattern to the crashing, for example during a travel transition or when you're playing on a certain lot? Let me know if you can think of anything at all.
In the interim, please try playing in a clean boot.
Leave the EABackgroundService enabled, which the EA App needs to run, but disable everything else as described. When you reboot, go through the Task Manager's background procesess list shutting down everything that doesn't absolutely need to be enabled: anything from MSI Afterburner to RGB software might still be active. If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer again. Please also put the EA App in offline mode before launching the game.
There is no pattern to the crashing and unfortunately it seems to be happening quicker and quicker the more I play. When I first got this PC I could play for a couple hours before it crashed. I figured it was CC related so I took out all the CC and it was still crashing, and it started happening sooner after booting up the game, 20-30 minutes. I then completely removed the Sims 4 folder to start the game fresh and now I can't play for 10 minutes without it crashing.
I have not tried the clean reboot yet but will be trying that as soon as I get the chance.
So unfortunately I did the clean reboot and the crash still happened. I have updated my game with the most recent update. Still no pattern to the crashes and like I said earlier it just quits out to the desktop - no blue screens/freezes/etc. I attached the updated dxdiag.
@Kyllexx I'd like to see the results of some hardware monitoring. Please download hwinfo (it's free) from here:
https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
You don't need to install anything; just choose the Portable version, unzip it, and launch it from Downloads or wherever you like. If you do want the full installer, be sure to click the button for hwinfo itself, not for lansweeper.
Restart your computer, open hwinfo, choose Sensors Only, and click the button that's a sheet of paper with a + to start logging. Save the log file to your desktop for easy access. Wait five minutes, then open Sims 4 and play until it crashes. Don't alt-tab out of the game or run any other programs, aside from the EA App of course, while you're testing. When you're done, click the same button to stop the logging; if your entire computer crashes, the log should be intact up until that point.
Please upload the log to the third-party filesharing site of your choice (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) and link it for me. Either leave it in .csv format or, if you're going to use OneDrive, create a .zip file, and don't open the log before uploading it, or else my log reader might not be able to interpret it.
Apologies for the delay. I appreciate all of your help so far. Here is the link to the requested file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pa8NWfUT5tlTdwKvQXhU1YgkzRnPVYx6/view?usp=sharing
Hi, just hoping you are still able to help! I would love to be able to play my game. Thank you!!
@Kyllexx I'm so sorry for the late reply. I had to do some reading about some of the values in your hwinfo log—my computer doesn't display these, and I had no idea what they were or what the correct values would be. But I had to put that aside, and while I meant to come back to it, I never did.
Anyway, I figured out what I was looking at last night, or at least most of it. Your hwinfo log does have one major anomaly that I can't explain, which is that the power supply is reporting values that are impossible, as in, the computer wouldn't be running at all. That's obviously a mistake on the PSU's end, but it makes diagnosing the problem a little more complicated.
What is clear from your hwinfo log is that your other components, or at least the graphics card and the motherboard, are receiving less than the full 12 volts they need. The voltage starts out at or just above 12 and then drops gradually to somewhere between 11.6 and 11.9, depending on the sensor. This alone would be enough to cause game crashes, or computer crashes.
The other interesting detail is that while the PSU values are off for all three rails (3.3, 5, and 12 volts), the readings are all quite steady. So it's possible the PSU is generating the correct voltage and the problem is downstream. It's also possible that this particular unit is bad or that it was installed improperly.
The first thing to do here is to open the case and look at the power supply. Make sure that its fan is facing an opening where it can draw in fresh air, not just a solid panel, and that the fan can spin without obstruction and isn't visibly dusty. (You can blow on it, or turn on the computer with the panel off, to check.) Unplug and reconnect every cable on the PSU end, then on the other ends. You don't need to pull the cables out and back in; it'll be obvious which ones belong to the power supply, and you can just find the correct terminals on the motherboard and graphics card.
While you're working inside the case, make sure the CPU cooler fans can spin properly and aren't dusty as well. The hwinfo log shows that your processor is getting quite hot under a very mild load, and while it didn't overheat in this session, its temperature was far too high for its current load and hadn't yet leveled off. This could be a problem with the cooler itself or due to insufficient mounting pressure or thermal paste, and you wouldn't be able to diagnose the latter without removing and remounting the cooler.
Other case and component temperatures were normal to high, so check the other case fans, and make sure all the fans are spinning properly when the computer is on.
If all of this is more than you're comfortable handling, and you don't have a friend that's handy with computers, you might want to take the PC to a repair shop for an in-person diagnosis. A shop would be able to test the PSU separately, so you'd know whether it was defective, and also check the CPU cooler and the fans.
The other option, of course, is to return the computer, but I don't know whether you'd want to do that. The fact that you bought it from Amazon makes things more complicated, since there's no physical store to visit that would cover warranty repairs. In your position, I'd fix the computer myself—it's a great build for Sims 4, and I wouldn't expect to have to put in too much effort—but not everyone wants to do that.
If you are contacting Amazon about a repair or return, you can use the phrases "processor reaches 90ºC under 20% load" and "voltage drops as low as 11.6V on the 12-volt rail" to explain the problem. And don't let anyone tell you either of these is normal or acceptable, because they're not.
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