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Total PC Lockup (black screen) caused by ESO
Berylin
✭
Today,. June 14, my ESO installation suddenly decided to crash regularly and crash very hard.
REPRO PATH: After logging in and going to character select, either when I select a character, or once I'm in the game world (in this case, on Artaeum), the game will crash. If I'm in the game world and voice is playing, the voice causes an audio freeze - the sound becomes a single continuous tone (whatever the last sound bit was playing, probably). In all cases, the video card inside my machine actually turns off, causing both my game monitor (1920x1200) and my second monitor (also 1920x1200) to display a "no video signal" messages. Obviously, all system video off, I can't see any other error messages that might be appearing. The error happens within the first few minutes of logging on, making it impossible to play the game.
The only way to a functioning machine is to manually turn off the machine, then restart it. In other words, a "hard" reboot.
MACHINE: The machine is a 3GHz i7 Dell Alienware "Aurora" with 12GB RAM and a nVidia GTX 770 video card with 4GB of VRAM.
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 7, 64-bit. Microsoft's monthly "mandatory" update happened on the machine in the early morning hours of 6/14/2018, and this was the first time I tried to play ESO since the update. Of course, the game was running just fine the previous day (6/13/2018).
VIDEO DRIVERS: The problem first appeared when running the GTX v385.41 video driver for my GTX770 card. I updated the driver to v398.11 (the very latest for 64-bit Windows 7) and the problem is still happening.
MODS: I run very few mods, but removed them all, and the problem still happens.
BACKGROUND PROGRAMS: I normally run no background programs beyond those which Windows requires. My antivirus software is Bitdefender, which has worked fine with ESO for over a year.
NOTE #1: This problem does NOT happen with any other game, including graphically intensive ones.
NOTE #2: I cannot select the "Repair" option for the game client. That option is no longer available on my loader in the current version (4.0.9). I have no yet tried totally erasing and reinstalling the game. However, since the fault appears to be somewhere in the graphics system (what else would cause the video card to totally shut down?), I'm dubious that a total reinstall will help.
NOTE #3: While there may be a temptation to blame Microsoft's June 2018 "mandatory" updates with my OS/hardware configuration (since that was the only change on the machine), this would be completely abandoning your customers because your engineers can't figure out how to make the game work correctly with Windows !!! There may also be the temptation to blame nVidia, which has a hardware VRAM addressing fault in the many recent GTXes where the last bit of the 4GB VRAM space on 4GB cards doesn't access correctly. But again, that just means your engineers are unable to deal with the peculiarities nVidia products. I don't think you want to say either "our game won't run under Windows" or "our game won't run with an nVidia graphics card."
So, how soon can I expect a fix???
REPRO PATH: After logging in and going to character select, either when I select a character, or once I'm in the game world (in this case, on Artaeum), the game will crash. If I'm in the game world and voice is playing, the voice causes an audio freeze - the sound becomes a single continuous tone (whatever the last sound bit was playing, probably). In all cases, the video card inside my machine actually turns off, causing both my game monitor (1920x1200) and my second monitor (also 1920x1200) to display a "no video signal" messages. Obviously, all system video off, I can't see any other error messages that might be appearing. The error happens within the first few minutes of logging on, making it impossible to play the game.
The only way to a functioning machine is to manually turn off the machine, then restart it. In other words, a "hard" reboot.
MACHINE: The machine is a 3GHz i7 Dell Alienware "Aurora" with 12GB RAM and a nVidia GTX 770 video card with 4GB of VRAM.
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 7, 64-bit. Microsoft's monthly "mandatory" update happened on the machine in the early morning hours of 6/14/2018, and this was the first time I tried to play ESO since the update. Of course, the game was running just fine the previous day (6/13/2018).
VIDEO DRIVERS: The problem first appeared when running the GTX v385.41 video driver for my GTX770 card. I updated the driver to v398.11 (the very latest for 64-bit Windows 7) and the problem is still happening.
MODS: I run very few mods, but removed them all, and the problem still happens.
BACKGROUND PROGRAMS: I normally run no background programs beyond those which Windows requires. My antivirus software is Bitdefender, which has worked fine with ESO for over a year.
NOTE #1: This problem does NOT happen with any other game, including graphically intensive ones.
NOTE #2: I cannot select the "Repair" option for the game client. That option is no longer available on my loader in the current version (4.0.9). I have no yet tried totally erasing and reinstalling the game. However, since the fault appears to be somewhere in the graphics system (what else would cause the video card to totally shut down?), I'm dubious that a total reinstall will help.
NOTE #3: While there may be a temptation to blame Microsoft's June 2018 "mandatory" updates with my OS/hardware configuration (since that was the only change on the machine), this would be completely abandoning your customers because your engineers can't figure out how to make the game work correctly with Windows !!! There may also be the temptation to blame nVidia, which has a hardware VRAM addressing fault in the many recent GTXes where the last bit of the 4GB VRAM space on 4GB cards doesn't access correctly. But again, that just means your engineers are unable to deal with the peculiarities nVidia products. I don't think you want to say either "our game won't run under Windows" or "our game won't run with an nVidia graphics card."
So, how soon can I expect a fix???
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JasonSilverSpring✭✭✭✭✭Have you checked the event viewer for any error messages? Might be a driver crash. A game cannot shut off your gpu but it might stress it to a point that it shuts off.
You might try some stress testing or using DDU to uninstall and reinstall graphic drivers.Edited by JasonSilverSpring on June 15, 2018 12:30AM0 -
Yes, check the Event viewer.
You can access it from Start menu --> Event viewer
Also, I should tell you to do right now, the first thing that you should have done: Repair the client.
Open Launcher right clicking on it and selecting "Run as administrator".
On the middle, it says "GAME OPTIONS". Click on it, and select Repair.
(it can take a while)
________________
After this is done and the "Play" button is available again, I recommend these things:
- Going to the location of your addons, and UserSettings.txt (on non Steam version, it is Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live)
and deleting the file named "ShaderCache.cooked".
The game will auto create it after you log in (it will take more time than usual that screen, the one before the characters).
- Go to the client folder (The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client).
There you have 2 files that launch the client (that are the client itself), "eso.exe" and "eso64.exe".
You need to right click on "eso64.exe", and select Properties.
Compatibility tab --> click on Change settings for all users.
Check (I mean, tick) "Run this program as an administrator"
Accept all.
- Create a shortcut for "eso64.exe", to bypass the Launcher (you need to open Launcher to update client, remember).
That way, you only double click the "eso64.exe" shortcut on your desktop, to open the game (that it will, of course, run as administrator).
As my opinion, launching this game from the launcher (pardon the redundancy) should be completely avoided.
I wish you can solve it man!
Edited by Manchas87 on June 15, 2018 1:58AM0 -
Berylin✭Problem Solved - It was a hardware failure, not ESO.
I got to poking around later in the evening, after my evening meetings were done. It turns out some high-end Dx11 component in my nVidia GTX 770 card died. Although Windows graphics still ran just fine, allowing me to run business and web SaaS software just fine, as soon as I ran ESO or any other game that really exercised the card's 3D capabilities, the card turned off.
I tested this by replacing the 770 with an older 580 I had lying around. ESO (and other games) ran just fine with the 580. Except, of course, the 580's 3D abilities are inferior in multiple areas.
Frankly, I'm not surprised. The card has passed its 3-year warranty point. My experience with higher end graphics cards is that they rarely go much beyond their warranty period. About 3 1/2 years I had to replaced a 480 with that 770 in this machine because the 480 curled up and died.
So, my bad. The fault was not in ESO, but in my hardware.0 -
dbgager✭✭✭High chance its an overheating issue. Check your temps. Could be a failure of the onboard fan. Make sure they are turning.0
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Berylin✭Nope, it was the GTX 770 card. Ultimately replaced it with a GTX 1080, and everything works fine. With the new card, neither card nor PC was close to a dangerous temperature.
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Dedicated graphic cards dying in 3 years?
Lol you need to really google about that, because that is totally not ok.
It is not normal that a graphic card reach the end of its life, in 3 years.
In fact, if you don't force one to broke it, it can last forever.
I'm glad you "solved" your problem bro. Enjoy TESOEdited by Manchas87 on June 17, 2018 8:28PM0
