Computer Shuts Off While Playing Sims 4 «12...Next Go

brytewolf

Heya!

I was playing Sims 4 City Living a few weeks ago, and didn't encounter any issues. After I downloaded the Toddler update the game is now unplayable. If the game has been on for up to 30 minutes it makes my computer turn off. No error messages, no glitching beforehand. I'll be playing one second, and the next my computer is completely shut down. The last time I tried today, it was on for 7:33 minutes before my computer turned off.

It doesn't seem to happen during Create-a-Sim, only during live mode. The game can even be paused, and the computer will still turn off.

I can play other video games with no issues. It is something that only happens with Sims 4. I've taken out all my mods. I've done two fresh installs (cleaning out everything left behind after uninstall programs finishes), where I uninstalled both Origin and Sims 4. Done "repair game" through Origin. No crash logs in the Sims folder, no critical events that could point to what's happening (only "Windows was not properly shut down").

Nothing so far has done anything. I would really love to play my game ;n;

DxDiag in case it'll help

luthienrising

Have you run HWmonitor to check on heating? What other games are you playing? Does the computer turn itself back on? It does sound like a hardware fault that this game is triggering but others aren't. If you monitor CPU and GPU usage and temps during Sims 4 and during the games that aren't crashing the system, that might help. Also, consider cleaning out the case.

brytewolf

I haven't done any software monitoring of heating yet, but I have done "touch the back of the video card xD" Yesterday, fresh sim, completely empty lot, on for less than 10 minutes when the computer crashed (it does not turn itself back on!): a smidge warmer than when I'm surfing the internet. World of Warcraft and a raid, playing for over an hour continuous: warmer, but still not too hot to touch comfortably.

As you can probably guess my tower is open - there's not a lot of dust in there atm. I can certainly download a program and have it monitor, if that can help solve the issue.

luthienrising

brytewolf wrote: »

I haven't done any software monitoring of heating yet, but I have done "touch the back of the video card xD" Yesterday, fresh sim, completely empty lot, on for less than 10 minutes when the computer crashed (it does not turn itself back on!): a smidge warmer than when I'm surfing the internet. World of Warcraft and a raid, playing for over an hour continuous: warmer, but still not too hot to touch comfortably.

As you can probably guess my tower is open - there's not a lot of dust in there atm. I can certainly download a program and have it monitor, if that can help solve the issue.

I'm wondering if isn't more CPU than video card - or a combination of the CPU and the power supply (failing power supplies will shut a computer right off - been there, done that!). Sims is heavy on CPUs compared with most games, and WoW is doing most of its work not on your computer at all but online. Definitely give HWmonitor a run, see what's happening leading up to that shutdown.

What are you playing on, hardware wise?

aldavor

IMHO it sounds very much like an issue I had a few years back; it turned oiut that I had upgraded my monitor to a larger one and my CPU wasn't big enough to handle it. Upgraded to a 500W from a 350W and it did the trick. The other issue could be a faulty memory stick (again through personal experience) so it could be worth checking your RAM...

chesterbigbird

brytewolf wrote: »

Heya!

I was playing Sims 4 City Living a few weeks ago, and didn't encounter any issues. After I downloaded the Toddler update the game is now unplayable. If the game has been on for up to 30 minutes it makes my computer turn off. No error messages, no glitching beforehand. I'll be playing one second, and the next my computer is completely shut down. The last time I tried today, it was on for 7:33 minutes before my computer turned off.

It doesn't seem to happen during Create-a-Sim, only during live mode. The game can even be paused, and the computer will still turn off.

I can play other video games with no issues. It is something that only happens with Sims 4. I've taken out all my mods. I've done two fresh installs (cleaning out everything left behind after uninstall programs finishes), where I uninstalled both Origin and Sims 4. Done "repair game" through Origin. No crash logs in the Sims folder, no critical events that could point to what's happening (only "Windows was not properly shut down").

Nothing so far has done anything. I would really love to play my game ;n;

DxDiag in case it'll help

What case do you have? and do you have a good cpu cooler? (non stock.)
This game can thrash the cpu leaving people with overheating issues (AMD can heat up more.)
Download
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html (free version.)
Leave that program OPEN while you play, then go back and check the MAX temps for your cpu cores.

brytewolf

luthienrising wrote: »

brytewolf wrote: »

I haven't done any software monitoring of heating yet, but I have done "touch the back of the video card xD" Yesterday, fresh sim, completely empty lot, on for less than 10 minutes when the computer crashed (it does not turn itself back on!): a smidge warmer than when I'm surfing the internet. World of Warcraft and a raid, playing for over an hour continuous: warmer, but still not too hot to touch comfortably.

As you can probably guess my tower is open - there's not a lot of dust in there atm. I can certainly download a program and have it monitor, if that can help solve the issue.

I'm wondering if isn't more CPU than video card - or a combination of the CPU and the power supply (failing power supplies will shut a computer right off - been there, done that!). Sims is heavy on CPUs compared with most games, and WoW is doing most of its work not on your computer at all but online. Definitely give HWmonitor a run, see what's happening leading up to that shutdown.

What are you playing on, hardware wise?

I ran it to 15 minutes (as I've had it shut off before then, and I don't ~really~ wanna run it until it turns off cause that can't be making my computer happy). According to HWMonitor my CPU was about 60 C with Sims on pause, utilizing 20%. GPU at 44 C and about 3% utilized (I've had it turn off while paused as well, after just loading a save). After running for the 15 minutes the CPU was hovering 65-70 C and about 30% utilization (more or less depending on the processor) GPU at 50 C and about 15% utilized.

WoW might be online, but my video card still has to process all those lighting effects, and the shadows, and the antialiasing, etc. I play on max settings so it's pretty intense xD

My current setup:
AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
16 gigs RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
EVGA Supernova G2 850W

I think I should also add: my boyfriend has exactly the same setup (except his video card isn't quite as good as mine) and he can run it no problem. I also built his. It may be hardware glitching, but it's not that my system can't handle the game (it was playing it just fine until the toddler patch broke something).

brytewolf

aldavor wrote: »

IMHO it sounds very much like an issue I had a few years back; it turned oiut that I had upgraded my monitor to a larger one and my CPU wasn't big enough to handle it. Upgraded to a 500W from a 350W and it did the trick. The other issue could be a faulty memory stick (again through personal experience) so it could be worth checking your RAM...

Hmmmm. I do have an 850W power supply (had to upgrade to go with the super video card xD) So that's probably not it. It could be the RAM, it's about 3 years old. But I'd be more inclined to believe a hardware issue if it happened with something other than Sims (and had happened prior to the toddler patch).

chesterbigbird

brytewolf wrote: »

luthienrising wrote: »

brytewolf wrote: »

I haven't done any software monitoring of heating yet, but I have done "touch the back of the video card xD" Yesterday, fresh sim, completely empty lot, on for less than 10 minutes when the computer crashed (it does not turn itself back on!): a smidge warmer than when I'm surfing the internet. World of Warcraft and a raid, playing for over an hour continuous: warmer, but still not too hot to touch comfortably.

As you can probably guess my tower is open - there's not a lot of dust in there atm. I can certainly download a program and have it monitor, if that can help solve the issue.

I'm wondering if isn't more CPU than video card - or a combination of the CPU and the power supply (failing power supplies will shut a computer right off - been there, done that!). Sims is heavy on CPUs compared with most games, and WoW is doing most of its work not on your computer at all but online. Definitely give HWmonitor a run, see what's happening leading up to that shutdown.

What are you playing on, hardware wise?

I ran it to 15 minutes (as I've had it shut off before then, and I don't ~really~ wanna run it until it turns off cause that can't be making my computer happy). According to HWMonitor my CPU was about 60 C with Sims on pause, utilizing 20%. GPU at 44 C and about 3% utilized (I've had it turn off while paused as well, after just loading a save). After running for the 15 minutes the CPU was hovering 65-70 C and about 30% utilization (more or less depending on the processor) GPU at 50 C and about 15% utilized.

WoW might be online, but my video card still has to process all those lighting effects, and the shadows, and the antialiasing, etc. I play on max settings so it's pretty intense xD

My current setup:
AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
16 gigs RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
EVGA Supernova G2 850W

I think I should also add: my boyfriend has exactly the same setup (except his video card isn't quite as good as mine) and he can run it no problem. I also built his. It may be hardware glitching, but it's not that my system can't handle the game (it was playing it just fine until the toddler patch broke something).

A complete pc shutdown is more or less hardware/driver not game related.
Have you looked into "Windows event viewer" to see if there is anything that might point to a problem?

luthienrising

Do you have anything else intensive to run that you can test on? I'm really tempted to think that your power supply is faulty and not supplying as much power as it says. (When mine was dying, I ended up taking the whole beast into the shop to have them swap out parts to test them. It did indeed turn out to be that my power supply was claiming to be 750W but not acting like it anymore. If you happen to have a spare around, you could swap it in maybe.)

chesterbigbird

If it's a new Supernova G2 power supply it might be faulty.. but they are a great unit.

brytewolf

chesterbigbird wrote: »

A complete pc shutdown is more or less hardware/driver not game related.
Have you looked into "Windows event viewer" to see if there is anything that might point to a problem?

Windows event viewer just lists "Windows was not properly shutdown" or however that's worded, so it's not helpful

The video card and the power supply are about a month old, the video card was a Christmas present and I had to get the power supply to run it (I didn't have the right connectors on the old one).

I do have one other graphically intense game I can test run. See if I can turn my poor computer off again xD

brytewolf

luthienrising wrote: »

Do you have anything else intensive to run that you can test on? I'm really tempted to think that your power supply is faulty and not supplying as much power as it says. (When mine was dying, I ended up taking the whole beast into the shop to have them swap out parts to test them. It did indeed turn out to be that my power supply was claiming to be 750W but not acting like it anymore. If you happen to have a spare around, you could swap it in maybe.)

Sadly the old power supply doesn't have the connectors for my video card, so that's not an option. But I do have another game I can try out that should be mean xD

luthienrising

Good luck!

chesterbigbird

brytewolf wrote: »

luthienrising wrote: »

Do you have anything else intensive to run that you can test on? I'm really tempted to think that your power supply is faulty and not supplying as much power as it says. (When mine was dying, I ended up taking the whole beast into the shop to have them swap out parts to test them. It did indeed turn out to be that my power supply was claiming to be 750W but not acting like it anymore. If you happen to have a spare around, you could swap it in maybe.)

Sadly the old power supply doesn't have the connectors for my video card, so that's not an option. But I do have another game I can try out that should be mean xD

Try running the other game, you could even run a few benchmarking programs to really test it. I would think if it were hardware related it would happen with a benchmark stress test.

brytewolf

chesterbigbird wrote: »

Try running the other game, you could even run a few benchmarking programs to really test it. I would think if it were hardware related it would happen with a benchmark stress test.

Ran through a couple benchmark programs, no problem. And then SiSoftware's Sandra Lite made it turn off 8|

chesterbigbird

brytewolf wrote: »

chesterbigbird wrote: »

Try running the other game, you could even run a few benchmarking programs to really test it. I would think if it were hardware related it would happen with a benchmark stress test.

Ran through a couple benchmark programs, no problem. And then SiSoftware's Sandra Lite made it turn off 8|

So the Sisoftware benchmark made it turn off? Were you monitoring temps while this was going on? we need to figure out if it has anything to do with temps before we can go into defective hardware.
Another thing to do, open hwmonitor and check voltages

brytewolf

chesterbigbird wrote: »

So the Sisoftware benchmark made it turn off? Were you monitoring temps while this was going on? we need to figure out if it has anything to do with temps before we can go into defective hardware.

I wasn't monitoring temps as it says to turn all programs off during benchmarks ;n;

chesterbigbird

brytewolf wrote: »

chesterbigbird wrote: »

So the Sisoftware benchmark made it turn off? Were you monitoring temps while this was going on? we need to figure out if it has anything to do with temps before we can go into defective hardware.

I wasn't monitoring temps as it says to turn all programs off during benchmarks ;n;

You need to monitor the temps... just run hwmonitor along with the benchmark.

chesterbigbird

Or you can use https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php (64 bit) it's got more in depth readings for voltages and temps.

brytewolf

chesterbigbird wrote: »

You need to monitor the temps... just run hwmonitor along with the benchmark.

The CPU was sitting at 84 C for quite a bit before the comp turned off. Video card didn't get above 40 C.

DeKay

brytewolf wrote: »

chesterbigbird wrote: »

You need to monitor the temps... just run hwmonitor along with the benchmark.

The CPU was sitting at 84 C for quite a bit before the comp turned off. Video card didn't get above 40 C.

Pretty sure that's very hot. Chesterbigbird will gives you suggestions when she gets back.

chesterbigbird

OK 84 is too hot.
The AMD cpus cannot take that much heat before throttling down and shutting down the pc.
I think the throttling down will occur around 70c and above that you could do damage. I know this was a stress test which will max the cpu at 100% However the sims 4 has been known to go above 70% usage, My guess is at one point the game was hitting high usage and your cpu was hitting the high temperature and the pc shut down.
What case do you have? and do you have a NON stock cpu cooler?
However open Hmonitor and check your voltages, and note them down here.
Or download Hwinfo

https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php
And open the sensor tab and tell me the voltages there. (it supports current motherboards.)
The voltages you will need to know are under the Motherboard section of the sensor page. (ie, +12v +5v)

Cinebar

brytewolf wrote: »

luthienrising wrote: »

brytewolf wrote: »

I haven't done any software monitoring of heating yet, but I have done "touch the back of the video card xD" Yesterday, fresh sim, completely empty lot, on for less than 10 minutes when the computer crashed (it does not turn itself back on!): a smidge warmer than when I'm surfing the internet. World of Warcraft and a raid, playing for over an hour continuous: warmer, but still not too hot to touch comfortably.

As you can probably guess my tower is open - there's not a lot of dust in there atm. I can certainly download a program and have it monitor, if that can help solve the issue.

I'm wondering if isn't more CPU than video card - or a combination of the CPU and the power supply (failing power supplies will shut a computer right off - been there, done that!). Sims is heavy on CPUs compared with most games, and WoW is doing most of its work not on your computer at all but online. Definitely give HWmonitor a run, see what's happening leading up to that shutdown.

What are you playing on, hardware wise?

I ran it to 15 minutes (as I've had it shut off before then, and I don't ~really~ wanna run it until it turns off cause that can't be making my computer happy). According to HWMonitor my CPU was about 60 C with Sims on pause, utilizing 20%. GPU at 44 C and about 3% utilized (I've had it turn off while paused as well, after just loading a save). After running for the 15 minutes the CPU was hovering 65-70 C and about 30% utilization (more or less depending on the processor) GPU at 50 C and about 15% utilized.

WoW might be online, but my video card still has to process all those lighting effects, and the shadows, and the antialiasing, etc. I play on max settings so it's pretty intense xD

My current setup:
AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
16 gigs RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
EVGA Supernova G2 850W

I think I should also add: my boyfriend has exactly the same setup (except his video card isn't quite as good as mine) and he can run it no problem. I also built his. It may be hardware glitching, but it's not that my system can't handle the game (it was playing it just fine until the toddler patch broke something).

Does NVIDIA have a setting in the card's panel to set the frame rate to hold at 60FPS? This is how I solved that problem in my game. I have an AMD card and it does have a feature to make TS4 stay set on 60FPS. The vysnc in the game doesn't really do anything. I had the same problem since the CL patch. Crashing last Oct. and Dec. was a different problem for me and sure it was object related in the game. ETA: you CPU is overheating from the game, it's the game's problem, making the game not fall or go above 60fps helped my game tremendously. No more crashing for now. It was horrible and I am guessing this is a problem with AMD processors recently with something about a patch. I never had this problem before in the last two years.

Nearia35

Cinebar wrote: »

Does NVIDIA have a setting in the card's panel to set the frame rate to hold at 60FPS? This is how I solved that problem in my game. I have an AMD card and it does have a feature to make TS4 stay set on 60FPS. The vysnc in the game doesn't really do anything. I had the same problem since the CL patch. Crashing last Oct. and Dec. was a different problem for me and sure it was object related in the game. ETA: you CPU is overheating from the game, it's the game's problem, making the game not fall or go above 60fps helped my game tremendously. No more crashing for now. It was horrible and I am guessing this is a problem with AMD processors recently with something about a patch. I never had this problem before in the last two years.

That's actually kind of what vsync does - it caps the FPS of the app to the monitors refresh rate, which is typically 60. (unless you have a new Alienware machine, they now use 120hz panels) Yes, nVidia's control panel also has it's own vsync setting. It won't "hold" it at 60, i.e. if your game drops to 45FPS, it's not going to force it to try to run at 60FPS. If you are getting consistently higher than 60FPS, though, it will cap it off to reduce the excess dropped frames.

Cinebar

Nearia35 wrote: »

Cinebar wrote: »

Does NVIDIA have a setting in the card's panel to set the frame rate to hold at 60FPS? This is how I solved that problem in my game. I have an AMD card and it does have a feature to make TS4 stay set on 60FPS. The vysnc in the game doesn't really do anything. I had the same problem since the CL patch. Crashing last Oct. and Dec. was a different problem for me and sure it was object related in the game. ETA: you CPU is overheating from the game, it's the game's problem, making the game not fall or go above 60fps helped my game tremendously. No more crashing for now. It was horrible and I am guessing this is a problem with AMD processors recently with something about a patch. I never had this problem before in the last two years.

That's actually kind of what vsync does - it caps the FPS of the app to the monitors refresh rate, which is typically 60. (unless you have a new Alienware machine, they now use 120hz panels) Yes, nVidia's control panel also has it's own vsync setting. It won't "hold" it at 60, i.e. if your game drops to 45FPS, it's not going to force it to try to run at 60FPS. If you are getting consistently higher than 60FPS, though, it will cap it off to reduce the excess dropped frames.

As I said setting vsync in game only made it worse for me, I had to set this in the AMD controls. Which AMD has new tech in their new App for 'Chill' to keep this from overheating AMD processors when playing high, intense games.