Computer shuts down randomly when playing Sims 3 after installing Patch 1.66
femsuii:
I recently patched the game after getting a warning from AM that it would expire and everything went fine until yesterday. I had been playing for a couple of hours and couldn't recall the last time I'd saved that day, so I told the game to save while I went to make dinner. However, when I got back to my computer a little later it was shut down, with only the screen still on and a sad noise coming from the speakers. I had to flip the computer's switch before I could reboot it and didn't really know what to think since I hadn't seen any warnings or been experiencing computer trouble. I started my game again (it had apparently saved my game before shutting down) and was maybe an hour in when suddenly my screen went black and went into 'power saving mode' because the computer had shut down! Frustrated, I went to do something else and eventually tried again: I could play for a little less than an hour before it shut down again. After that I gave up and went to bed.
Today, I did some googling and tried to alter some options on my NVIDIA card as someone had suggested: I played for almost two hours without any problems until it, again, shut down without any warnings at all. I ran the Dashboard for any conflicting stuff and removed a few decrapified packages that had also been installed as sims3packs but the game shut down again after almost half an hour. I couldn't recall which additional CC I had installed after updating the game because that was last week (I had since installed CCMagic, after playing with only AM, a few skins and some XML tuning) and double-checked all mods were updated, before I tried again. It was less than twenty minutes when I was staring at a black screen again. I removed most of the new CC to no avail. Eventually, I gave in and removed everything but AM and NRaas (the updated ones) but every time it was between 5 and 20 minutes before the computer shut down again - it doesn't seem to matter whether I play the saved game or not, since it also occurred when I booted the game up and went to do something else and came back to find the computer shut down without having chosen a game to play.
I left it for the rest of the day until just now, after which I removed all CC. It took about 3 minutes to load to where to choose the game but it warned me I wasn't using the game disk (AM was gone), so I tried again after but it hadn't even reached the screen where to choose a game when the computer shut down again two minutes in.
So, the only thing I can think of that has changed since the previous times everything went well, is that stupid 1.66 patch. There is nothing wrong with my pc, it's not overheating as far as I'm aware (it also happened when it was barely on for an hour) and there are absolutely no warnings coming from the game, be they sounds or otherwise, nor special events in the game itself when it happens. It seems to be completely random!
To make a very long story short: my computer shuts down randomly when playing the Sims 3 and I was wondering if anyone here knows how to prevent this, other than maybe a clean install (and perhaps not patching to 1.66). I don't have any stuff packs, just Generations, Island Paradise, Pets, Seasons, Showtime and University Life and it's patched up to 1.66 (I only saw today that 1.67 is out but I'm not very confident in EA's updates at the moment) - CC seems to make no difference at all.
jezzer:
Your computer shutting down is more likely a hardware failure than anything to do with an installed patch.
femsuii:
I suspected it was the patch since it occurred after I had installed it and only when playing the game. However, if it's a hardware failure like you're suggesting I'm obviously looking in the wrong direction. Do you have any specific idea of what it could be? I'm not really looking forward to bringing the computer to a computer store to have it dissected without knowing the probable cause and whether they'd actually fix it.
There were no issues at all yesterday when the game was on for a few hours in the afternoon and most of the evening, but today the computer shut down (again without warning) only an hour in and it had been on for maybe 1-1.5 hours prior to starting the game. It's so unpredictable and my knowledge of computer hardware is limited, making it difficult to figure out what's going on.
BaronElectricPhase:
When was the last time that the computer has been cleaned out of dust and hair? You might just be getting fooled by the coincidence of the crashes from overheating. And that a cleaning is overdue.
jezzer:
Quote from: femsuii on 2014 January 27, 13:52:27
I suspected it was the patch since it occurred after I had installed it and only when playing the game. However, if it's a hardware failure like you're suggesting I'm obviously looking in the wrong direction. Do you have any specific idea of what it could be? I'm not really looking forward to bringing the computer to a computer store to have it dissected without knowing the probable cause and whether they'd actually fix it.
There were no issues at all yesterday when the game was on for a few hours in the afternoon and most of the evening, but today the computer shut down (again without warning) only an hour in and it had been on for maybe 1-1.5 hours prior to starting the game. It's so unpredictable and my knowledge of computer hardware is limited, making it difficult to figure out what's going on.
The problem is, there are a lot of things that can cause random shutdowns. It could be something as simple as, like BaronElectricPhase said, dust buildup, to something as potentially expensive as a core component in its death throes. I had a computer once that was randomly shutting down due to a short in one of the interior power supply connectors. If cleaning out the dust doesn't help, try using a heat monitor to see if any of your components are overheating, and if all else fails, take it to a computer repair shop to see if they can find the cause.
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