I’ve recently reinstalled oblivion after a long hiatus and am having a few issues, and could use some help determining the cause.

About a year back, I had a fairly stable 90 hour save file with about 70 or so mods running. Then Windows XP decided to keel over and die. I did however back up my data regularly, and preserved a handful of good saves and an up-to-date copy of my DATA folder. I have recently reinstalled Oblivion (I have the GOTY edition, if it matters) and various components (OBSE, Wrye Bash etc). After putting everything in its proper place, I ran the game and was able to load my save files without issue. Everything looked fine, and it ran nicely at a high resolution. (There was an issue with the menu text, but this went away after reinstalling DarNified UI). So far, so good.

Not quite.

The game will regularly crash to desktop (the standard, “oblivion has encountered a problem and needs to close” message) when transitioning between cells. It just locks up after the loading screen and sends me to the desktop. This occurs on fast travel as well.

Also, my computer will shut off (screen goes black, music loops, monitor gives a “no signal” message”) shortly after entering new cells. I’ve been monitoring the temperatures with speedfan, and the only issue was a bit of a jump in my HD temperatures. I’ve had heating issues in the past, however my previous overheating problems occurred after at least an hour of play, and now I can’t remain in-game for more than a few minutes before experiencing a CTD or shut-off.

Most of all, I’d like to know if this issue is related to the fact that I’m using these old save files. I am able load them without issue and they seem healthy enough. I’d hate to have to scrap this character and have to reinstall everything.

I apologize for this wall of text.

Any help would much appreciated.

In my opinion I doubt it's the save file that's causing the problems. You could try going to an area/cell in the game-world that you know is likely to be unaffected by your mods and make a fresh save e.g. some basemant in a house you never visit. Afterwards, load this save up without any mods in place (backup your load order and activated files/omods first if you can) and see if your problems persist. If they do persist, then you can rule out the mods and the save file(s) as being the problem.

If saves or hardware temperatures are not the source of the problem then it may be worth trying to make a patch using http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit which should (hopefully) eliminate any mod conflicts. BOSS (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516) is also good at putting your mods in a more stable order, and so that may be worth trying out.

I had problems with my PC shutting down before but it was fixed completely by cleaning the dust out of the fans inside which were clogged up, it could also be that you need a new PSU or the one you have now can't handle your GPU being taxed by high resolutions. For Problems with CTDs I would advise posting your load order in the mods section and ask for help there.

Thank you both for the feedback.

@ Gorefiend

I'm quite familiar with BOSS, I used it to craft my load order prior to loading up my old save files.

I have cursory knowledge of the workings of TES4edit, so I'll read up on it, and see what that yields.

Forgive me if I'm displaying my profound ignorance regarding the subject, but could disabling all my various mods render my file unplayable? I understand the idea of saving in an unaffected cell, creating a save not using any mod resources, but I use a custom race mod (the one with mystic elves), so I imagine that trying to load this file without said mod active could be problematic. I mention this because I remember something similar happening to me in the past, with a save file crashing upon load, until I reinstalled a certain mod.

I created a totally vanilla test character and played (on ultra high settings) for about a half hour without issue. No crashes. I also monitored the temperature with Speedfan and everything seemed alright. I’ve also noticed that all CTD’s occur in outdoor cells or while transitioning from indoor to outdoor.

Would it be worth posting my load order here, or should I just move over to the mods thread?

@ Br0sk1,

I’ve run into this shutdown problem in the past. I actually bought a new power supply unit for just that reason. It has been over a year since I’ve cleaned out all the dust, and I’m probably due, but in the past that wasn’t a permanent fix, although it did lower my temperatures. I never really totally resolve the issue, with Windows being reset before I could determine if any of my various attempts proved successful.

At this point the game has been only crashing to the desktop, not shutting down. I recently reinstalled the newest drivers for my video card and it seems to have helped, though I’m hesitant to declare victory. Could out of date or corrupt drivers cause these shutdowns? And would it be worth posting DxDiag report at this point?


Again any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Post your load order in the mods thread and you will more than likely find help from someone.

If you want to test with all your mods disbled you will have to make sure you have nothing added by mods in your inventory, change your race (only if you're using a custom race mod) using "showracemenu" and then use "coc testinghall" and save there, then disable your mods and reload the save. Honestly it would just be easier to diasble them all and start a new game to test. You can always just reenable them if you want to use your old save.


Unfortunately my knowledge on the subject is limited so I wouldn't know but it couldn't hurt to try.

The fact that it's crashing when transitioning between cells sounds to me like a mod conflict problem. Do you know if it happens in certain areas and is it possible to reproduce the crash by visiting them?

I would try and solve it by creating a merged patch in TES4Edit. Simply run the program and make sure the mods you are using are selected. When they all appear on the left panel with a + sign next to them right click on any one and a drop down menu appears. Click "Create merged patch" and give it a name. Wait for it to do its stuff then close the program saving any changes. Place the merged patch at the end of your load order when you run your game.

If you still being given trouble then you can apply a filter to show which mods are conflicting (you're best off following a http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit_Cleaning_Guide for that).

With regards to making your saves unplayable, if your game refuses to load after disabling your mods then simply re-enabling the same mods should allow you to play that file again without any problems (often easier said that done, I know).