Sorry for the late reply... things got a bit hectic last night.

I think I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I have update the sound driver, without it making a difference. If not, apologies. I try to include as much detail as possible in my replies. I had completely overlooked the motherboard drivers though, so after kicking myself for a while I update them and tested the game again. Crash.

I have an ASUS P5N-D motherboard, and the temperature and fan settings are in Hardware Monitor. Oddly, the temps there are on average 15-20 degrees higher than what HWMonitor and Speccy say they are immediately after crash, so I updated my BIOS to version 1401 (latest) for good measure. As for my start-up directory, the only thing that loads aside from windows processes are Avast and RivaTuner. RivaTuner has only been a part of things for a few days, and was added to keep the GPU fan on 100% at all times, in case it was the card that was over-heating.

I don't have a spare PSU laying around, and for obvious reasons I'm a bit reluctant to purchase one just to troubleshoot the only game that has problems on my system. I'm open to suggestions on how to test my current PSU.

Are you running Gamer OSD or Smart Dr by any chance? If so, uninstall them. They are known to cause issues with the Gamebryo engine.

I just noticed you have an X-Fi and Win7 x64

Fallout3 was notorious for crashing if you had an X-Fi on x64 Vista/Win7

However, there is a fix. Well, there's a fix for fallout 3, but since NV is the same as F3, the same fix should work, except you will need to adjust the install path as listed in the registry:

You'll need http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/ALchemy%20for%20XFi/Home.aspx

The general settings are:

Buffers=6
Duration=5
MaxVoiceCount=128

DisableDirectMusic= unchecked

You'll know it's installed if it puts a dsound.dll file (something like that) in the FalloutNV folder.

Believe me. No matter what people advice you, you won't get this game fixed. I had exactly the same experience with FO3 some years ago. The game was BSODing the [censored] out of me and no matter what people told me, the game simply crashed on and on. Then, about a year later the game worked fine. There was absolutely no difference. Same patch, same hardware drivers, same sound codecs...but no more crashes. Just magically fixed.

I got told thousand times it isn't related to the game but to my hardware. Don't believe this. I run more then 50 games on my computer like: Mass Effect, Dead Space, Call of Duty, Medal of Honour etc. etc. etc. the list of actual titles is endless. I'm sorry to say, but you obviously have a similar problem to mine, and you won't get happy with this game. Lay it off and return a year later. At the current stage all you get with New Vegas is anger.

Things don't 'magically get fixed. If you're BSODing it can always be traced to a few things: Hardware, software(including those that run on startup), or drivers.

That's all there is to it. Some fine examples over the years from my personal experience of fixing machines, for businesses(I was at one point the IT admin for a county and had 7000 machines to deal with) and people.

Hardware issue: Machine suddenly starts BSOD, then suddenly is fine. Well I banged my head out on that one forever, and then I figured it out. Heat. Computer crashed like crazy in the summer, and was fine in the winter when the room was cooler. But it wasn't the usual thing you'd think(no clogged cpu/gpu/south/northbridges). The contacts on the DIMM slots were expanding and contracting, and when the machine was hot the pins weren't mating properly. When it was cold, all was good.
Hardware issue: Same as above, result was 100% different. Too cold, and the pins weren't mating properly with the ziff socket of the CPU causing it to crash, or lockup. This was a hardware failure.
Hardware issue: Machine would crash at exactly the same time, every day. Came down to the microwave transmitter that we used for WIFI here, causing bounce back off another multi-positional dish
Hardware issue: Machine would randomly lock up. Power dropped into the sub low 90v range when the nursing home up the street started up the kitchen to make the residents food, or when laundry was being done. The end solution was to have the utility come and install a new transformer. The short-term solution was to use UPS's and then get the country's ass moving to get in a redundant battery backup, that would level-out the voltage.
Hardware issue: If someone bumped the machine, it would lockup. Came down to there being a ground fault in the outlet, and the ground becoming charged with +10v, causing the PSU to surge, and that caused the machine to BSOD.

Software is a mess no matter what platform you're using. I don't like the 'nuke from orbit' approch, but there is so much sloppy programming out there especially in the last 8 years I could fill a 24 ed. selection of Britannica. My personal favorite was the machine which would randomly nuke itself from orbit. This wasn't a machine used for anything special, but was there to handle the vehicles entering and leaving the dump. The guy who was at the shack, had installed his own software(ms-office suite) which was causing the proprietary software to crash, and take all it's records with it.

Drivers: Yeah. My personal favorite. nvidia, ati, intel, doesn't matter. If something goes squirly in ring 0, or ring 1 by a bad driver, you're screwed. If however it's writing a dump, you can read it and figure out what's going wrong with trial and error. Lots of trial and error. My record was 11 days 15hrs to figure out why the ide drivers were crashing the machine.

You don't need to be an IT admin, or create the illusion that you are or where an IT admin for a county that maybe only exists in your head, fixing bugs and BSODs related to microwave transmitters, or aliens that penetrated your head with microwave transmitters and made you treating your hardware bad, so it turned on you to create even more BSODs. It's to funny that "Nerds" like you always show up, when people show up to argue with real experiences they've made with this engine.

I'm a IT admin
I'm a Programmer Ace
I was the guy that personally programmed the last shuttle that has been send to I.S.S.

Common sense is the only thing needed to understand that it's related to the faulty Bethesda engine and not hardware that only this game isn't working (or the other two games related to this engine) and tons of other games work without a problem. This engine is old. All games with this engine had to be patched multiple times before they where even close to be playable. I remember the horrible stuttering with Oblivion, the horrible crashing with Fallout 3 and yet have to experience the most hillarious bugs in a game ever playing New Vegas.

Have a look at the tons of threads around here. If you ever followed the rate at which Oblivion or Fallout 3 forums got bombarded with issue threads when they saw it's first release, and compare the rateof issue threads around here, then you know New Vegas is in serious trouble.

But hey, your an IT admin pro and I'm just ranting here...not that I'm playing games since I'm 10 years old which was 25 years ago and want to create the illusion to have any experience with games, soft- and hardware^^

Just to clear something up. When you say crash, you mean your computer is still shutting itself off? If so, this is key to the problem. SOmething other than the OS is shutting down your comp. This is a unique issue that no application program should do. This usually indicates a hardware problem, driver problem, service problem, or some auto shutdown feature (like the cpu overheating or overcurrent/voltage protection). You talked about start-up items (avast and Rivatuner). What about service items (these run in the context of the kernel). Try a windows 7 clean boot. This involves shutting down all third-party (non-microsoft) services and shutting down all start-up items. Games usually recomend this anyway (but who actually does it B) . http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135 <===This link will tell you how to perform a clean boot.

What are the BIOS temps reading? 15-20 degree higher? That may be significant. You read 65C in prime95? Thats hot for a CPU. Im assuming fan cooling. Make sure theres no dust clogging filters or fan intakes or outtakes. If theres alot of dust inside the cse you might want to purchase some compressed air and dust it out. Make sure no fans are kicking off while your playing.

As far as the PSU is concerned, you can go inside your system and pull out non-essential components (extra HDs or cd-roms) even some memory modules or network cards / sound cards. Try with just the required components.
Make sure you have all the right PSU connectors in the right places. The graphics card requires two PCI-e connectors. The CPU requires an atx12 V connector at the top of the board. The motherboard block connector is ATX 24-pin. Make sure every thing is well seated. Finally, make sure to run the game as low as possible in terms of graphic settings. Go into the options menu at the fallout 3 new vegas loader screen.

Fallout 3 new vegas runs perfectly fine on my system as does fallout 3 as does oblivion. So based on that evidence the game engine is NOT faulty? It would be interesting to really see some numbers on how many people actually have PC issues with fallout 3 games.

His Fallout 3 nv seems to be shutting his computer down not giving him blue screens. Apples and oranges.

I kinda agree. The game works flawless now since the patch. I have Nividia GTX285 GPU, i7 920 CPU and Windows Vista x64(!). Works like a charm.

My suggestion, if you haven't tried it and will be a very frustrating one, is that you format you drive, reintall everything, update everything and reinstall the game before you intsall anything else. See if it works. If it doesn't. Well.... shoot yourself...

Thats an option but a last resort IMO.

jasper1979 I dont mean to be argumentative here but have you even looked at the numerous help threads in this forum of people asking for help with this game, and you say you havent had any problems playing this game, would you mind giving a dx report of your system ? Im more than alittle curious to know just what you have for a system that this game will play on that all these other people dont.

Yes, last i checked this was a F3 new vegas hardware and software issues. I had stuttering on my system until the latest patch. Thats the only issue ive had.
Ive looked at the numerous help threads on this forum and I fail to see how people can say those who post here make up the majority of the people who bought the game.
Yes I can see there are some who have issues. There are always those with issues no matter what PC game comes out.

If you want my system specs for some comparison ok:
windows 7 home 64-bit
amd phenom II x4 3.2 GHZ cpu (not overclocked)
4 GB 1066 ddr2
gigabyte ga-ma790x-ud4p board
nvidia geforce 275 gtx
creatve x-fi Xtremegamer PCI
160 GB WD sata 2
600 Watt ocz gamexstream PSU

Thing is you cannot expect people to always have clean startups, people want to be able to use what they want. a game should NEVER conflict with anything else on your system. if it does then the tech team is not doing thier job.

if there are a lot of configs and you think it's so hard to make a game that works on all them need to get a clue, becuase you should have made the engine "not care" what else is running. The engine should be stable enough to not be so picky.

Also not expecting users to have any codecs installed is lame also, most people use thier systems for multi-purposes not just one thing. I use mine for everything.

1) People who aren't having problems don't post in tech support threads because they don't need help. They are busy playing the game. So there is NO WAY to tell how many people are playing without problems. So just stop talking rubbish about "the game is broken for most people". Its nonsense so just stop.

2) If a computer is BSOD or shutting down/locking up entirely it is almost certainly a hardware problem. If it was just the game/engine Windows would be able to recover from the problem and would CTD. If it is a Driver issue, GPU recover will crash the driver and force you back to desktop. Fallout cannot shut your computer down directly as a result of a fault. New Vegas is most likely simply highlighting an underlying weakness in your computer somewhere. It could be CPU, RAM, Motherboard, PSU, GPU, hell, even a network card can cause computer instability.

3) The reason that people have such severe reactions to Oblivion engine games is that they stress machines far more than other engines do (and arguably more than they should). No games based on the Unreal engine are as big and open as FO:NV so it just isnt a fair comparison. That said I think they have pushed this engine to the limit and it really needs to be retired now.

I was having a problem with FO:NV locking my machine and I could not find the problem. Ultimately I took my computer apart and cleaned out EVERYTHING. All the case fans, the GPU cooler, CPU cooler and I even hoovered off the HDDs. The result was that instead of locking my machine I get the occasional CTD, which I expect with PC games. i have completed the game and am now on my second playthrough, and all because I went through basic PC maintenance.

EDIT: I wanted to add that I was convinced it was not a heat issue as all temps seemed fine, but my system cools so fast it was obviously not recording the temp at the time of crash. There are programs that can record temperatures on a graph that you can then view after a restart to see what the max temp your various componenets reached.

To the OP: If your computer is simply turning itself off after approx 30 minutes of play I can only suggest two causes:

1) The computer is shutting down due to a temperature warning. All BIOSs should have a set of thermal limits that will turn the machine off to prevent damage in the even that temperatures reach a certain threshold.

2) The PSU is supplying insufficient power or is shorting out. Poor quality power supplies can fluctuate wildly in their real power output, especially under load, and this can result in a critical loss of power to the system, thereby shutting it down. Alternatively it could be faulty in some way and is just shorting out under extreme load. Like I said, New Vegas will place a much greater strain on your system than you would expect.

It could be something else, these are just the two most obvious causes that come to mind as the most likely culprits.

That's a lot of replies... I'll try to cover them all. Here goes:

wolfpup: I have neither of those two applications installed.

DON3k: Thank for the suggestion. I tried following it, but ALChemy says my sound card isn't supported. Not encouraging, given that my installed copy of ALChemy is the one that came with the driver.

jasper1979: Sorry about that, I'll try to be a bit more clear. My BIOS was consistently showing a much higher temperature than any diagnostic tool I used within Windows. So even though the CPU was fine, my BIOS thought it was over-heating. It turns out that's a bug in the BIOS, that ASUS fixed in update 1404, and since I installed that update the CPU temperature in BIOS now agrees with the diagnostic tools and it took a couple of hours before the PC shut down again. And yes, when I say "crash" I mean "shut-down", and that's probably causing confusion. I'll use the term "shut-down" in my posts from here on. I also agree with the ones who said that the game runs much smoother and works better since the patch. Aside from when it shuts down the PC, that is.

And wiping out my OS install and starting over completely from scratch really isn't something I'd care to do. Nuking from orbit is not a good solution, it's desperation.

I'm working on trouble-shooting the various services and processes, using msconfig's start-up features, but since I have to play for about an hour before shut-down, it's slow going. I'm re-enabling one at a time, hoping that it's just a weird process gone rogue.

By the way, I really appreciate the time you and others in this thread have spent helping me (and my wife) with this. Even if there is a possibility that nothing works, we're both very grateful to you all.

Rabidfish:
If BIOS is shutting down due to high temperatures, then New Vegas runs hotter on my CPU than Prime 95 does. Or, if the computer shuts down due to the PSU not being adequate, then New Vegas is putting a heavier load on my PSU than every other game or application I own. Both of which takes me back to my original thought when I first saw the crash: If everything else runs fine and only New Vegas is pushing my computer to shutting down without warning, you need to present me with some very good arguments before I'm willing to accept that it's not the game's fault. I'm willing to troubleshoot, I'm willing to keep searching, I'm willing to keep trying, but I'm not even for a moment willing to consider that the game Fallout: New Vegas is blameless in what's happening to my PC.

Hi jim,
You should try to do a clean boot and play the game. Dont reenable anything. If the same thing happens then its probably not a background app.

Oh its totally the games fault, like I said, the game puts far more strain than you would expect. I didnt realise that my GPU was overheating excessively until I ran NV and my machine started locking. All I meant was that I can't see any conceivable way that the code within the game can cut power to your machine. As far as I'm aware it is physically impossible. It has to be a harware failure of some kind that has only shown up since you started playing NV.

Anyway, I have no other theories to offer I'm afraid. I do wish you the best of luck with this issue. Try playing FO3 again and see if that causes the same problem. Aditionally try playing FO:NV with all graphics settings on the absolute lowest possible settings and see how long the game plays for.

I have been encountering a blue screen of death accompanied by broken looping sound whilst the blue screen shows... I can play Oblivion and many other games, so this is unique to Vegas.

EDIT: Apparently it is related to Creative Labs. Somebody else seems to have a similar problem to myself.

Impressive, not only did you flame, but you think you have a clue how people do their job. But hey, why let real life experience get in the way of trying to be an internet tough guy. I mean it's worth so much more than the years of experience. Just a useful tip, we really do exist, and the job was terrible, and not worth the time, pain or headaches.

So we're the same age. But one of us grew up, and did something with their gaming hobby. The other didn't, good show chap.

Hmm

I know there's a couple of versions of ALchemy, depending on your X-Fi card.

Hopefully you can find a working release, because I can tell you that this was positively a known issue with x64 OS and X-Fi cards. Pretty much, in the F3 support area, everyone with a X-fi and a x64 OS had to configure ALchemy to get F3 stable, me included.

However, I've since gone to a new MB and no longer use the X-Fi, so I've not had any issues with Fallout 3 or F3:NV

You could always remove the X-Fi and its drivers, and use only the on-board sound, to see what happens.

I'm using Windows XP, still, mostly because of stability. I narrowed down the crashes to the creative labs sound card. It seems as though Fallout was attempting to make it do something which it can't do and for whatever reason windows saw this as something which could damage the card.

It's a very outdated one - Audigy 2 Pro - I'll keep you updated with better detail.

I was getting the 'turn off computer' crashes on F3 after the Broken Steel release.

@jasper1979
i tried that, and it seemed to work, but I wasnt' able to test it as thoroughly as I wanted. I'm still working on that part.

@Rabidfish;
Fallout 3 hasn't been playable on this PC since Bethesda's last patch for it. I get one frame per second, at best.



This is actually what we ended up doing. Sadly, it did not help. The PC shut down after less than 20 minutes of play. At this point, it seems we have no choice but to blame hardware problems that no other application has pushed the PC hard enough to reveal until now. On the plus side, it means we can now use New Vegas as a diagnostic tool for our hardware from here on... and yes, that was sarcasm.

I'd have to say though, that even though I still think the game is one of the most bug-ridden and poorly coded/optimized RPGs I've played in a long time, the community here on the forum is easily one of the best I've come across in a long time. Practically everyone replying in my thread was helpful, constructive, and though I don't have a solution yet, I at least have a way of getting one, which is nearly as good. We're going to test the PSU next, and the video card, and take it from there.

Thank you everyone for offering help. You did help us.

And yes jasper, still working on the clean-boot-with-nothing-enabled angle.

They should "just work" when your system is up to snuff, standard and clean. I can understand if a user has fringe configs or outdated hardware or elite hardware.

Launched too early. I would bet if the beta was rolled out correctly the staff knew there are random issues and the bottom line pushed this forward.