Ive been running my computer near flawlessly for a good while now. It has no framerate issues, and no stability issues. It used to play Oblivion on maximum settings with barely any disturbance.

And then a short while after starting the 1.4 beta, the hell began. Motherboard beeps. First one..Then another...Then another, faster than before. Then three beeps. Then three beeps faster, and again.

Then Oblivion started to do it. My computer did not overheat at any point. The fans continued to work, mostly. The only thing -- the ONLY THING -- that changed was Skyrim. During skyrim the beeps would come when moving around, especially looking at water. they would stop if I oepned the main menu (with the escape key) or minimized the game.

And then it just rapidly got worse and worse until it died. I tested it with Oblivion at max settings with autorun and a whole bunch of guards chasing me. It did eventually start beeping, but it took much much longer. Skyrim starts beeping after 2-3 minutes, and then will not stop.

I did not have the game on high settings. I have never had a single issue with this card. I do not believe it could have gone from working perfectly to comlete and total failure in such a short period of time all by itself; skyrim is the only variable.

The card I have is a GTX 260 dealie -- #45 on the official "will my pc run skyrim" thread. I have loads of memory (not loads. But more than required by at least a gigabyte.) my processor is fine. Really everything but the video card and. I want to be right, because the other possibility is...Very sad...

A few weeks back a power lien got hit by lightning right near my place. For some reason it didnt trip the circuit breaker like it should...Instead it made the breaker buzz extremely loudly for a second or two. I have never experienced this before...and several electronics (monitor, fan, cell phone) failed rapidly..

..So its skyrim right? Its the easy and simple to fix solution right? ...Right..?

right..?

I doubt it is the game. How do you know it's the GPU that's messed up and not something else? You mention a lightening strike, it's possible that it screwed something with the internals. However, it's unlikely to take a few weeks to become noticeable, I think, if it was a lightening strike. And how do you know the CPU is fine? You don't say anything about how you figured this out.

It does sound as though, at the very least, Skyrim was stressing your card more than it wanted to go - how old is the card? And if you turn down all the settings, does it make any difference? To be fair, your card may have been getting to the end of it's life and Skyrim pushed it over the edge, but that doesn't really make it the fault of the game. I've just replaced my GTS250 and it is a wrench getting a new card, but it's been well worth it - the game is beautiful everything turned up.

These things don't last forever; your problems have nothing to do with any software you're running, game or no. It's just that your computer needs to be fixed, that's it.

chicken and egg...did Skyrim push your system to new limits at some point and expose defects in the hardware/system that were already in place? Or did Skyrim create a defective condition that a similar game would not have?

On its face, the latter seems very very unlikely.

You give no info regarding:
- temperatures (cpu and gpu)
- driver version for gpu
- oc'ing info
- cpu specifics
- PSU specs

Without that kind of info, any conclusions remain highly speculative.

Oblivion isn't a good way to test and see if Skyrim will run on your computer. It's almost six years old. A more recent game would be a better way to go.

I build rigs and software and programs can fry your card why do you think graphics cards are used in conjuction with? I have seen my 580's SLI jack up to max now and temps close to 70's that are high for me and my setup.I fried the first 580 I bought 6 months ago playing dead island and messing around with ini file.

Not the sofwares' fault, your fault.

"A few weeks back a power lien got hit by lightning right near my place. For some reason it didnt trip the circuit breaker like it should...Instead it made the breaker buzz extremely loudly for a second or two. I have never experienced this before...and several electronics (monitor, fan, cell phone) failed rapidly..

..So its skyrim right? Its the easy and simple to fix solution right? ...Right..?

right..? "


LoLno......this is how my last rig mobo died. Skyrim did not kill your computer a surge did.

70's for dual 580's? LMAO you think that killed your cards? Those cards can safely handle 70 degree temps.

You need to study cause and effect.

This thread title vs this line are highly contradictory. Sorry but there's a reason I'm quoting the part where a very large and unstable quantity of power went across your house's lines which include interacting with your very advanced and highly sensitive electronics like your computer.

Ed: Had some coffee, re-wrote in a less jerkish way.

I'd agree it was the surge too. A game can't break your GPU, just highlight an existing fault through loading it with stress.

I think the evidence is clear. A storm dragon ruined your GPU, not Skyrim.

Sorry, but but your components probably got damaged during a power surge. I've got a nvidia gtx 260 myself, and I can assure you that they work with skyrim just fine. After you get your computer fixed or repaired, you should call an electrician to take a look at your circuit breaker. From what you've described, it could be damaged.

I would repair the circuit breaker before the PC, but I guess it's the OP's call.

Ah, good point. Yeah, you wanna get that fixed first. Also, @op, you should probably buy a surge protector as well if you don't already have one.

I have an expensive powerboard surge protector, because its way to expensive to have safety switches put in a 100 year old house, but what yourve got sounds very much like a problem i had last year, basically very much the same i thought it was my graphics cards, it was my motherboard and there was a faulty controller, kept doing all sorts of strange things especially grpahics related, needless to say my computer tech told me that those motherboards had been recalled because of faulty controllers, the power surge could have damaged something small, which may seem small but be a major problem.

Best thing to do is test it with other programs, that use alot of rescources, more than likely skyrim has only highlighted an existing problem, a program can wreck a computer, a game i wont mention here, was so unstable it constanly crashed and made my computer so unstable it affected my operating system that then, started affecting more and more software that was controlling my hardware, even after i reinstalled windows and all the drivers, the whole computer was unstable, did another reinstall, same again, the program would crash at least 20 times or more a day and reboot my computer.

My computer tech told me it was an unfixable problem, because there wasnt a single area that could be isolated as a problem, got a brand new computer, and installed the program to make sure and the first time it started crashing again, i uninstalled it, then went to and searched tech forums to find out its crashing was common and there was a fix that didnt fix it, but my problem was in the most extreme end of some of what i read, then i read it was a simple fix, that the company could have fixed just a single number in the ini file.

Modern CPUs and GPUs are designed to operate at 100% load for extended periods of time. They have thermal protection mechanisms that help to protect the circuitry from overheating problems. This makes it almost impossible for a video card to be damaged by software, no matter how hard the software pushes the card.

Most video card issues are caused by dust build-up inside the card's housing. The most frequent issue is that the dust stop the card from cooling as effectively as it should, and it heats up far quicker than it should. If this happens, you're most likely to see your display black out, or get a BSoD. The presence of dust on the card could also cause a short between two bits of circuit (although this is extremely rare). Shorted circuits = big trouble.

There are only a few proven cases where software causes permanent hardware damage. One was a virus that corrupted certain types of BIOS, effectively ruining the motherboard. Another was a type of DRM that caused damage to the head mechanisms in optical drives. Those were several years ago, and there haven't been any major reported issues since.

Maybe i should have added that it reset my temperatures and my computer was running at 100 degrees minimum, and the heat damaged my computers hardware, so no matter how many times i tried to fix it, it made no difference.