I think the orange screen was the game telling me i have my first promethium mine cut scene and it happened to freeze at that moment. That is the random thing but the observable pattern is the router being disabled after each crash - that is a pretty solid observable pattern, and the game has been running wonderfully for days now after updating the driver.

Good example on the dating! hehehehe

I am the kind of person who is more likely to observe patterns, sometimes it is crazy, sometimes it is shockingly accurate..... the trick is learning to tell the difference??? lol

Cool, thanks.... game still running perfectly as it gets more advanced on the map one size larger than gigantic.

Although as it gets more advanced my computer has started making very creepy sounding whirring noises. When i say creepy i mean stand the hairs on the back of your neck 'demonic' creepy!!! And last night i was watching a creepy movie and the whirring noises made it extra creepy!! I mean WOW, i should record my computer sound and sell the sound to Hollywood!!!

Yea probably the GPU.

But i never heard it making those noises in previous advanced games? The only changes to the system are the new DLC that i added plus updating the wireless drivers.

Its possible previous games were not quite this expansive though..... they always crash before getting this far in, and then i am more inclined to start a new game than reload the saved game several turns behind.

those previous crashes were nothing special like what this thread is about though.... just the standard exiting to the desktop and giving me the send crash report  option, which i always say yes.

So now its not crashing, and the computer is saying "oh gee, looks like i actually have to do some work for a change" wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I am not playing any other hardware intensive games.... i have x2 and x3 which can be power hungry with large fleets, but i have not played it much for a long time since getting my current computer.