"<insert game> has stopped working"

mattStoor

mattStoor

mattStoor

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I've been trying to find a solution to this issue for a while now and am running low on ideas. I have searched the forums and google and found nothing that has resolved the problem. I hope someone on here might have some input.

Relevant PC Specs:
i5 3570K overclocked to 4.2GHz (low temperatures, I really don't think this is a worry)
8Gb RAM - definitely healthy
MSI R9 290 GPU - idles around 40C, max load temp I've seen is 94C
Samsung 250Gb SSD - definitely healthy
Windows 8.1

The Problem:
After playing a game for a period of time it will produce the error "<insert game> has stopped working". Time spent playing happily can vary, sometimes half an hour, sometimes a couple of hours and this seems to happen with most steam games. Examples include Civ 5, Tropico 5, Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Witcher 2. The list goes on. The only non steam game I have found the issue with also is Wildstar (open beta) and this has occurred only a couple of times in the hours and hours I've played it. May be related, may not.

Possible Causes:
1. I believe that the problem is something between Windows 8.1 and steam. I never had issues with Civ 5 before I upgraded.
2. My other thought is that it could be the hot graphics card. I know that the r9 290 is meant to run quite hot and that 90C is safe for the card. I have applied a custom fan profile to try and bring its temperature down and will be seeing if this prevents the ctd but I'm inclined to think this isn't the issue.

What I've tried:
1. Everything is running in administrator mode, that's steam, the game apps, everything.
2. I have tried running game apps in compatibility mode for win7.
3. I have done a clean reinstall of the latest amd drivers for my card.
4. I have updated my directx to the latest version.
5. I have tried some other things which I can not remember at the time of writing this.

Does anyone else have this issue? Did you fix it? Any suggestions will be gratefully received.
 
Dave**** said:
A few things that come to mind:

Are you able to test with a different card to rule that out.

Does this happen if you set the gfx of the game/s to very low.

Have you tried exiting Steam after launching the game (might not always work) to see if the problem is still there when Steam isn't running.


In my opinion it sounds like the gfx card is the culprit.
Click to expand...

Thanks, 3 things I haven't thought to do! I have got my old 6870 which I can give a go in there but I'll try the other two fixes first so I can hopefully avoid opening up the case and then reinstalling amd drivers etc. Lowering the game settings should drop the card temps a bit which might implicate the card.
 
AndyCroft1982 said:
Have you tried removing your over clocks and putting everything back to standard? What are your temps getting upto before the game crashes ? Have you tried uninstalling your video drivers and then reinstalling them. Could try uninstalling steam and reinstalling
Click to expand...

The only overclock I have is on the cpu and the temps on that are reaching 68C-70C at max gaming load.

GPU temps have reached 94C. I have tried reinstalling video drivers cleanly. I have not tried reinstalling steam but I guess it is something that I could give a go?
 
Dave**** said:
A few things that come to mind:

Are you able to test with a different card to rule that out.

Does this happen if you set the gfx of the game/s to very low.

Have you tried exiting Steam after launching the game (might not always work) to see if the problem is still there when Steam isn't running.


In my opinion it sounds like the gfx card is the culprit.
Click to expand...

When i try to close steam with the game open; the game stops working and crashes. I assume you need steam to run the game?
 
Ok I used Tropico 5 as a test subject. I ran the game at absolute rock bottom settings. The gpu ran at 85C-88C the whole duration. It still crashed after about 20 minutes gameplay.

It's hard to imagine that the gpu would crash at 88 and 94 degrees after running smoothly for long periods of time? I would have thought it would crash once it reached its "threshold" temperature if it couldn't handle it.

Highest temperature recorded on the cpu after playing the game on maxed out settings was 84C. I looked in to this and it is a safe temperature for the cpu.
 
Ok I will reset my overclock next. I did stress test the cpu with a couple of benchmarking programs after oc'ing and it was fine though.

Before I reset the oc, I went and had a look at the windows event viewer and opened up the error log:

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Tropico 5\Tropico5Steam.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d3d11.dll

I checked d3d11.dll on google and it seems to be a directx file. Could the applications be having some trouble accessing this dll?

EDIT:

Checked the logs of the other occasions Tropico crashed and the faulty module paths varied. They weren't all that file so I guess that isn't the issue.
 
Last edited:
Bonus Info. I found the tropico 5 dump file and the exception information said:

The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access.
 
The minidump gives the exception information that i said before. It also gives the error code 0xC0000005 and a long list of modules which I can only assume are the list of modules involved/used by the application?
 
matt_fsr said:
Based on that, it could be a Windows permissions issue, which seems unlikely, or perhaps it could be an iffy stick of RAM you've got. Or the RAM on the graphics card.

Try running memtest86 a couple of times, or some other RAM checking utilities. Try running with 4Gb RAM in your system instead of 8, and see if you can replicate the crash.

Try using Furmark to max out stressing your GPU, and see how quickly, if at all, you can replicate the error. I suspect you will be able to, as it sounds like an underlying hardware issue causing a crash.

Are you running with full Admin rights on your Windows account? If not, give yourself admin rights. Or to be on the safe side, give yourself a new profile, and try that.
Click to expand...

Thanks, a couple of things to have a go at. I'll start with Furmark.
 
Ok I have returned from FurMark. With regards to what you guys were saying about temperature. My card is the MSI Gaming edition: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-239-MS

I have done a fair bit of googling about the temperatures and it seems like the low 90's is acceptable on this card.

FurMark ran for a full 30 minutes without any errors or crashes. I manually stopped it since the error I have been getting often appears within 30 minutes. I ran FurMark with 1920/1080 resolution and 8xMSAA. The temperature during FurMark reached 94C after the first 3-4 minutes and then did not change for the rest of the test. Having stopped the test it's now back down to idle temperature of 45C.
 
Eames said:
I would use Driver Sweeper to completely remove any trace of graphics drivers from your pc then install the latest graphics driver.

Also run MalwareBytes and check for any spyware on your pc.
Click to expand...

When I reinstalled my driver last time i used windows uninstall then deleted the ccc folders from their install locations. Will driver sweeper feasibly make a difference? Also could spyware really be doing this?
 
Eames said:
Are you sure you're not using a manual fan speed setting? Seems odd to be that high.
Click to expand...

Fan speed is set up in msi afterburner. Fans go at 100% once the card reaches 80C. I can edit the graph to make the fans ramp up sooner. The only reason I haven't done this is because I have not experienced any performance issues with the card. Games are not dropping frames when the temperature gets high and they are running at that temperature for extended periods of time. I am also not getting the "display driver has stopped working" error or a black screen which is what I would expect if the card was too hot.
 
Thanks all. Had to step away from PC for a few hours, really pleased to see that you all still want to help :).

I will leave memtest86 running overnight tonight and see if any errors come up.

Regarding Tropico 5, I guess I chose a bad game to be testing on. I can confirm the issue I'm having has occurred with both Civ 5 and the new Wolfenstein as well but perhaps I should be testing this on one of those to avoid getting my issue confused with a possible game issue.

After the memtest results tomorrow I will try setting cpu back to stock as suggested and if I have time I will get driver sweeper and do an even cleaner driver reinstall.

Thanks again for all your help and I would obviously appreciate any further ideas people might have.
 
Ok memtest86 ran overnight. Completed 8 passes with no errors. I could leave it for longer but I'm pretty confident that this issue isn't RAM related so I'm going to move on. Things that I will test next:
1. Reset cpu to stock.
2. Install problem games to HDD rather than SSD.
3. Switch hot GPU out for old GPU.
 
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