I've got a Radeon HD 6950. I was having hard crashes from day one. They would cause the screen to go black and sound to hang/loop/static. The only way to get the computer to turn off or on again was to literally hit the power switch on the power supply on back of my computer. I used Windows XP and when people on the forums recommended it, installed Windows 7 (x64). Crashes would occur anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 minutes after starting game play. Before the 11/21/11 patch I could disable Steam and play Skyrim in offline mode to reduce the crash frequency. Nothing seemed to work except to reduce the frequency of the hard crashes. There was also a definite tendency for hard crashes to occur when accessing the map.

Over the past 5 days though, I haven't had a single hard crash...I do experience crashes to desktop now, but no hard crashes. Here's what I did:

1) Downloaded http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm.
2) Checked GPU temperatures while running skyrim. Temperatures hit 85 degrees celsius within 5m of game time.
3) Used MSI Afterburner to enable user defined fan speeds (settings -> fan). Set the card to go to ramp from 20% fan speed at 40 degrees celsius to 100% fan speed at anything over 75 degrees celsius.
4) ????
5) Profit.

My conclusion:

RADEON HD CARDS ARE UNSTABLE IN SKYRIM OVER 75 DEGREES.

My solution:

USE MSI AFTERBURNER TO INCREASE FAN SPEED. NO MORE CRASHES.

EDIT:

Hard crashes are caused by hardware failures, driver failures, or invalid low-level hardware commands. One cause of hardware failures is high temperatures. This is not the only cause. Until Bethesda releases a patch that causes Skyrim to no longer run code that causes driver or hardware failures, or AMD releases a driver that no longer causes hardware failures, this is one possible solution.

What power supply have you got?
What graphics card before what you have now?
Or this is all new system you have now?

I can confirm that a lot of issues that I experience is when my GPU temps get high. Don't know the actual temperature, but I do know that all the issues pop up when it gets too hot.

Can't remember. It was a 750w PSU that I got at Fry's electronics. Some fancy thing that was black with red LED lights. I'd have to tear open my case to find out.
This is the same graphics card that I've had. Didn't make any changes to it except using MSI Afterburner to take control of the fan speed.
I've had this system for about a year now. Never had any problems with any games until now.

Why I am asking because it happen to me in Oblivion. I had a crappy stock iCute 500w power supply that came with the case powering a ATI Readon HD3870 256MB card. My pc was hard crashing every 5 to 15 minutes. It was shocking. So I replace with a much better one with a new card and never look back since. Said for I have replace the card because it died on my early this year.

Finally, someone isn't blaming Bethesda for their crashes.

I have a 1GB HD5830 and the worst problem I have had is that the game has suddenly closed, with no warning or explanation, a few times and, one time only, a Jarl was dressed in a purple textureless tunic. That's it. On the other hand, I am seeing people with 6xxx cards complaining that the game is unplayable.

The reason the temperature get so high is because, like many of us, you pushed your graphic settings too high for nothing.

You know, it seems that everyone and his sister is using the cooked-up over-souped extra-spicy mega super-extra-ultra-beyond-amazing config

you know, the beyond ultra settings config that s been flying arround, WITHOUT WARNINGS
and that everyone setup without even trying the game

I reduced my setting on my 68xx from ulra to just high, and I get no more glitches.
I never had any crashes thought, this probably happen when you push the view distance beyond bethesda ultra settings

the most citical feature you want is anisitropic filter, texture quality depend on it.

also, it seems that bethesda support 4gb out of the box now, no more need for an external patch for that

anyway, be carefull before playing with your hardware.
you are better off installing extra fans, or improving the air flow in your house,
than installing some software. a fan can generate heat too if puushed too hard all the time

the software you linked to seems much along the lines of overclockers, and intended to bring your card to its knee,
at the risk of dammaging it, use with caution

in any case, one thing that struck me with skyrim is that even low quality is still pretty good. because of the way it depend more on shaders and LOD control than on texture size, much like poser

It remind me the youtube video of an ignorant kid thinking he was showing how clever he was by tricking the config file to force rebdering all the trees for a ridiculous distance. I m sure next week he ll post a video of his gpu melting down. and he ll never get a degree in computer science. no understanding of the LOD concept (level of details)

You're probably right on the money there. I haven't touched my settings because I defaulted to High and, to be perfectly honest, haven't remembered to turn anything up.

I'm kind of surprised that you assumed that I'd done any sort of modification to the INI files. Or done the 4gb patch. Or played with overclocking hardware. I've done none of those things, and I'm using the recommended system settings that the skyrimlauncher.exe chose for me, though I did turn anti-aliasing from 8x to 2x. I laughed out loud when I read your comment about fans producing heat. It's true that fans produce trivial quantities of heat, but the increased airflow enormously overwhelms the heat generated by any fan motor.

You should know that I've got a bachelor's degree in computer science from Oregon State University, and I'm currently working on my Master's degree with an emphasis on computer graphics. I came to the conclusion that Skyrim wasn't at fault for the BSOD issues when I thought about one simple fact: It's practically impossible for any program to cause a total system failure, especially on a well-designed operating system. The only thing that can cause a BSOD is a hardware failure, driver failure, or invalid low-level hardware commands.

How does this fix the Memory Leak?

I haven't had any hardware issues with my HD5850 except for the occasional freeze (which I believe is related to my Core2 dual core hitting 100% utilization). Of course, the 5850 doesn't have a stock fan (it uses the stronger 5870 fan), and my case is an Antec 900, which is one of the better air-cooled cases. I also tend not to keep the temperature very high in my house in the winter. I'll keep the overheating issue in mind when summer comes around next year, thanks for the tip.

You have found a temporary solution.
I played with Skyrim for two days without any crashes, then begin crash, and now it's unplayable.

Many have my experience with Skyrim,
so the PC can easily support the game. If the game suddenly began to show signs of instability, it is the responsibility of the patch.

Then, Bethesda has created the problem and Bethesda solve it .

I do not edit any of my PC, simply because the game before it worked fine (I have 60 hours of play without crashing, Ultra settings).

This was happening to me on my HD 4850 a lot, and I did indeed notice the temps going through the roof.

I decided it was as good an excuse to upgrade as any and so got a GTX 560 instead. No more black screen crashes.

sorry to burst the bubble but this doesnt apply,as my card temperatures never went over 53 degrees for me and the crashing happened.

the crashing also occurs with the >

case open
3x 16inch house fans blasting straight at the board
card fan set to max
3x 120mm case fans all aimed at the board

and everything running off seperate power supplies [before someone starts that old tired "Psu is to blame"

then,,,
game runs the gpu at 37 deg and the cpu at 32 deg
so it isnt a heat issue for everyone,maybe for some,but not all.

the best you can say is the heat is an issue that compounds the crashing.

Not frustrate the problem is software not hardware.

If you raise your fan on a abnormal overheating of the graphics card, you risk breaking it. Why? For a Skyrim bug?

The memory leak causes crash to desktop. This is only for the black screen of death.

Wow. That's quite a bit of effort you went there to rule out heat as a cause of crashes. If you're getting a black screen of death (requiring a hard power cycle of the computer), then as I said, there's only 3 things that are to blame: hardware failure, driver failure, or invalid low-level hardware commands. Heat is only one possible cause of hardware failure. If you're getting a simple crash to desktop, it's most likely the result of memory leaks in Skyrim. Could you clarify what type of crashes you're experiencing?

Sorry that your card isn't stable when hot - this does vary according to different models though. My AMD 4870 idles at 70 and runs at 85 or so under load. This a) is quite normal for a 4870 and has no effect on stability - skyrim and other games are completely stable for me.

Incorrect. Extremely high temperatures can permanently damage a piece of hardware. Increasing fan speeds will decrease temperatures, thus preventing permanent hardware damage. There is no way that you can break a graphics card by increasing the fan speeds on it.

GPUs are only damaged with temperatures over 100C - and they all contain methods to throttle back before they get that hot, shutting down if necessary to prevent damage.

Yep. 85 degrees is considered normal operating temperature for many graphics cards (as you can see http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/12/14/amd_radeon_hd_6970_6950_video_card_review/8).

However, I was seeing temperatures as high as 90 on my Radeon HD 6850 while playing Skyrim before the system crashed. I also noticed that the fan never really turned on while the graphics card was under load...at least not until I overrode the fan settings with MSI Afterburner. It might be that the hard crashes are the result of the drivers or hardware being faulty and not activating the fan properly at extremely high temperatures. My Radeon HD 6950 brand is XFX in case it matters.

And you, my friend, have hit directly upon the issue. My graphics card (and probably many other people's) is shutting off when temperatures reach critical levels, thus resulting in the black screen of death. The critical temperatures are probably a result of improper fan activation on certain brands of graphics cards.

Yeah sounds like you are right. The GPU should be able to stabilise at a maximum temperature and not increase any further. What that temperature is doesn't really matter, as long as it's below the throttling point for the card, but the fan should ramp up to stop temp increases eventually - I guess many manufacturers concentrate on noise rather than cooling by default.

Absolutely not.
is abnormal, a graphics card raises the temperature (obviously graphics cards that support the game and settings) and forced to lower them with the fans for a game like Skyrim

Anyway ... If it works good for you.

cya

this is what i think is happening,the game is sending the citical temp signal to the card even though the cards not actually overheating.

however its untestable for us mere mortals,we need dev assisstance.