Forum Discussion

Gemmawho's avatar
5 years ago

Sims 4 freezing after a few minutes of gameplay

I recently downloaded and installed the sims 4 on my new ASUS TUF 15 gaming laptop and I can only play the game for a minute or two before it freezes completely and I have to hard reset my laptop. It seemed fine during CAS which I used for a good half an hour or so, but as soon as I placed my family and tried to play, the game froze. I updated my graphics drivers and checked for any windows updates, but the same thing is still happening within a few minutes of trying to play the game and I have to hard reset my laptop every time. I also just bought and downloaded the new expansion pack, Cottage Living, and I've been trying to play in the new town Henford-on-Bagley so I'm not sure if that's the source of the problem or whether it's just the whole game in general. 

I've attached a copy of the DxDiag for my laptop in the hope that it might provide someone with some more insight as to what might be causing the problem. The laptop seems to be fine playing other games and should be more than capable of running the sims 4. 

16 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @Gemmawho  Several of the readings in your hwinfo log looked concerning to me, both in that they could explain the game crashes and that the hardware shouldn't be behaving that way.  (The short version is that the processor isn't running at its expected speed and is thermal throttling before it's necessary, and that some other values are wildly off where tehy should be.)  So I asked for a second opinion, and that opinion is that you should run a couple of benchmark tests and see how the laptop does.

    Steam offers a 3DMark demo that includes Time Spy and Firestrike.  Please download the free version (no need to pay) and run each benchmark.  Let me know whether the laptop crashes, and if not, please link me the results from each test.  You don't need to run hwinfo at the same time, and in fact it's best to not run any other apps when benchmarking.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @Gemmawho  That's certainly interesting.  Please run Time Spy and Firestrike again, this time with hwinfo logging in the background.  After Time Spy is done, wait a couple minutes before starting Firestrike.

    Please also use a timer and write down the timestamps for when you launch each benchmark and when each section of the benchmark starts.  You don't have to be perfectly accurate; anything within a few seconds is fine.

  • Gemmawho's avatar
    Gemmawho
    5 years ago

    @puzzlezaddict so the Time Spy test crashed about 20s into it this time. First time I forgot to start logging on hwinfo, but the speakers started making a loud noise (not sure I tested with the sound on last night) and then I got a BSOD with the stop code Machine_check_exception. I then had to hard reset it as it got stuck on the BSOD. Restarted the laptop and ran Time Spy again with hwinfo logging this time. Launched the test at 2:13s and it crashed at 2:33s. No BSOD this time but the speakers made the same loud noise and I had to hard reset the laptop again. Fire Strike seemed to run exactly the same as last night. Launched at 2:41s, graphics test 1 started at 5:46s, graphics test 2 started at 6:31s, physics test started at 7:19s and the combined test started at 7:57. It crashed during the combined test at 8:18s and I got another BSOD with the stop code clock_watchdog_timeout. Had to hard reset the laptop again with the BSOD up as it got stuck at 21%. 

    Here are the links to the hwinfo logs for both tests:

    https://mega.nz/file/554QxTab#aQo4TmeZc32fZhesvfbb39Z_SrX5dJcgpMXpvTJgHxU

    https://mega.nz/file/0hYBzA4T#hfvx3I7h0ee8wrwyhRktOdN3Mb7wm1P8jMgd6cFT4BI

    Feels like I've somehow ended up with a dud laptop! 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @Gemmawho  Honestly, you might in fact have received a defective laptop.  If you'd like, you can try reinstalling Windows, as in, a clean wipe and a fresh install.  That might well fix the issues.  But it might not, and you may need to RMA the laptop entirely.

  • Gemmawho's avatar
    Gemmawho
    5 years ago

    @puzzlezaddict Thank you. I'll try that and then if I'm still having problems I'll contact ASUS to get it sorted. Thank you for all your help and advice! 

About The Sims 4 Technical Issues - PC

PC players get help with their technical issues in The Sims 4 here.52,688 PostsLatest Activity: 7 minutes ago