After 1.5 installed GalCiv3 crash powers off laptop

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hello, a long time forum lurker and player of the various GalCivs but I need some assistance with the current game crashing my laptop (Lenovo W510 Q720, 16Gb).  I have had no problems with the laptop since I bought it new about 3 years ago. I installed GalCiv3 a month ago and on that version 1.4 I had no problems with the game. I played a couple games trying to figure out the best way to progress on GalCiv3 without taking a beating. 

Last week the game loaded version 1.5 and the current game I was playing started crashing after a random number of turns, always powering off my laptop. I thought maybe it was the laptop and ran extended disk and memory diagnostics which run without error. I have deleted and reinstalled the game multiple times per the link https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/default_import/Knowledgebase/Article/View/496/161/general-galactic-civilizations-iii-troubleshooting On Stream I have ran Verify Integrity of Game Cache and always get 7 files will be reacquired message after each run.  I got the same net of 7 files to be reacquired even after I have reloaded the entire game. 

I started a couple new games and the same results – at random times the system just crashes. It has happened while assessing the next move, taking a turn and when picking out which foes to play with on a new game. I thought maybe it was due to the sounds the game produces but with both configurable sound options off it still fails. Watching the task manager the CPUs are running around 20%, memory around 8Gb to 11GB and disk activity anywhere from 10% – 90% right before things turn south. I have had failures with other applications running in the background and with no other applications running. 

I opened ticket MLU-100-16104 with Stardock but all I got so far was the game sent in worked fine there and to try the link above. I am open to any ideas of what to try next, thanks in advance.

9,347 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I had a similar problem with the 1.5 update (including the 7 bad files).  The main difference was that it would crash before loading up.  What worked for me was installing a "BETA" version of the AMD's Radeon video driver.

Hope that helps.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes, check your drivers for updates (video drivers in particular). A spontaneous shutdown/reboot, if it's not heat/hardware related, will likely be due to a BSOD with Windows set not to actually show them; BSODs are typically caused by hardware or driver issues.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks for the suggestions, my Nvidia video driver is the latest available. I suspected that may be the culprit initially but it was current. I upgraded the sound driver and no change in the outcome. Will have to look around for a cpu stress test to see if there is a problem with a core.

 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ran the IntelBurn Test 10 iterations on High and no issues found with the processors. Went to Lenovo site updated all drivers on the laptop then to the Nvidia site and reloaded the latest video driver they had.  No luck on a new game or continuing the last saved game same old crash.

Next tried turning Norton antivirus but that made no difference. I did change some settings on performance monitoring just in case. Next I tried some settings in GalCiv3. I already had the sounds off so I deselected Fullscreen mode. That helped, I got about 4 turns before the system crashed Next boot up I turned off Auto Save and even better luck, a dozen turns then the power off. 


I had no issues on version 1.4x and played for hours. Does anyone know how to get back to that level?  That may be my next option as I a running out of things to try. 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

From the description, my gut instinct would be that its a thermal shutdown. Grab a copy of Coretemp and check the temperature the processor is hitting when the game reaches the map screen - the processor will happily keep overclocking itself til it hits around 85 degrees and at 105 it'll automatically close down. Some minor graphical changes could be causing the gfx card to work a tiny bit more intensely since the patch, leading to it just nudge the ambient temperature up too much for the process to dump effectively. Thinkpads are awesome (I've got a much-abused 420 for when I'm away from home), but the shell isn't great for dumping excess heat and that i7 in the W510 is a real beast when it ramps up.

 

If coretemp comes back at like 80 degrees when the game crashes, we can rule out hardware more or less and it's a driver issue. You using Win 10? Because Nvidia's record on Win 10 drivers thus far has been... pretty bad, overall.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes using Win 10 and have the latest Nvidia driver. I added Coretemp and the cores are running between 74C and 76C when the system powers off.  I turned back on sound as it is easy to tell when a failure is about to occur, the sounds repeat like in a tight loop or the tick noise when you press a mouse button. 

While watching things in the Task Manager before a failure I have noticed System Compression and Memory task is always right below GalCiv3 before the failure. With 16GB available and 7 or so in use, not sure why compression/decompression should be running. Few Google scans offered up turning off Superfetch in services. Will try that next.....