PC sometimes explodes when starting up ESO

Ssshady · April 2020

Sometimes, very rarely and seemingly at completely random, when I start up ESO, my whole computer slows down to a crawl. So slow that even my mouse pointer lags like hell and it becomes basically impossible to do anything. Fastest way to get rid of it is to just force shut down the whole PC and restart, but it can also go away by force quitting ESO through task manager (though doing that will take ages due to the slowness). This all happens before ESO even gets to the login screen. This only ever happens with ESO, all other games and programs work fine. This has been happening for many months now but so far I've ignored it as the game still starts up without problems 99% of the time.

ZOS_Bill · April 2020

@Ssshady

Your entire system slowing to a crawl with ESO opened indicates there may be a system issue beyond something with the game. The first thing you can do is make sure both Windows and all your system drivers are fully up to date.

Reverb · April 2020

If this were consistent I would point to the 4 probable causes, in order of likelihood. But since it happens rarely it’s much harder to pin down.

I would suggesting looking at your network traffic when it happens. Are there things running that are given priority by your router or firewall and saturating your bandwidth? Does your ISP throttle your traffic? Are you on DSL and playing during peak times for your neighborhood?

Alternately, check your task manager and see if you have other intensive processes (like updates) coincidently running at the same time you launch ESO. This is especially true if you open ESO from the Steam launcher.

justaquickword · April 2020

Click bait title for attention.