Computer randomly reboots without warning while playing

Post » Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:41 am

Hey all,

I've had this incredibly annoying issue with Skyrim since I first bought it at release. I have clocked a total of 122 hours on the game but that is spread over vast periods of time because I keep rage quitting the game "for the last time" and abandoning my character only to return a few months later and start a new character. I really love the game and I'd like to actually be able to sit down and play the game without worrying about this issue - so here I am hoping to finally get a fix for this.

So let me outline the problem here and then I'll try to go into further depth:

-While playing Skyrim my computer will randomly power off instantly and then reboot.

-Computer does not go through a full 'restart' procedure, it acts as if I did a hard-shutdown by holding in the power button.

-The computer starts up again automatically (and instantly) and does not display any errors other than the basic "windows did not shut down properly" message

-Running the troubleshoot on the Improper Shutdown does not turn up any problems

-Reboot is 100% random. There is nothing noticeable that triggers it; sometimes I can play for 4 hours without a crash, other times I get 3 crashes in a half-hour period. Sometimes the crash happens when I open the world map, other times it's in the middle of a fight, other times it happens when I'm simply walking around the world.

-The only trend I've noticed is that the crashes do appear to be less common insides caves/dungeons/ruins where you zone in/out (although they do occasionally happen)

-This does not appear to be a heating issue despite that it may sound that way. I have run tests while playing Skyrim and my CPU/GPU never approach heat levels that would concern me.

-Skyrim is the only game this problem manifests in. I regularly play Fallout 3/New Vegas, Oblivion/Morrowind, Rift, Guild Wars 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and League of Legends - none of these games give me any problems though I run them all on max settings.

Finally, here are my PC Specs:
-AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz
-8GB DDR3 1333MHz
-AMD Radeon HD 6870 (1 GB)
-700W Power Supply

So just to recap: while playing Skyrim my PC will randomly power off to a black screen, then immediately go through a normal start-up sequence. This does not appear to be triggered by any one consistent in-game event, or even by the period of time spent playing; The shortest amount of time playing before a crash is probably under 5 minutes, while the max is over a week. This does not occur on any other game. I have played Skyrim on every available graphical/audio settings without any noticeable correlation or effect.

Does anyone have ideas? Or even better has anyone had the same problem?

Thanks for responding
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Rhysa Hughes
 
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