PC shutting off while running BG3?

[Rushnerd]

Yeah I'm going to be THAT guy this time.
My 850 EVGA G+ from 2019 is likely shutting my computer off in this heat after an hour or so of gameplay. I haven't had issues at all with any other heavy AAA game yet.

Just wondering if my fancy PSU is finally going out or anyone else had this issue.

EDIT: CPU: 9700F GPU: 3080 (EVGA) OS: Win 11

[Cirrus]

Publicado originalmente por cblan1224:

Publicado originalmente por Weird Potato:

You're right. You got me. BG3 is shutting down PC's.

lol

This didn't age well, clearly.
It had absolutely nothing to do with hardware and still hasn't been fixed. We just figured out how to get around it.

You have people on here who are inexperienced, and you're contributing to comments that suggest they go out to upgrade their pc for no reason.
Meanwhile, it's 5 patches later and it still happens if you don't do certain things.

This happens with broken, unoptimized games. It doesnt matter if you have a 4090, 7950x3d, 1600w psu, pcie 5 ssd.

I sincerely hope the next time you ask for help with an issue, some know-it-all who doesnt know a damn thing comes along and repeatedly gives you the wrong information and tells you that you're stupid.
Then, after you spend money on something that has nothing to do with the issue, maybe you will stop acting like a clown

This is still full garbage. There is no "too much power demand". There is only CPU and GPU raw insturctions. And you are allowed to run them as fast as you can and run ask CPU and GPU to do as much as they can.

It is you job to build computer which can do this. It is not game developer job to limit asking to 90% or any other arbitary level.

Optimization has nothing to do with this subject.

[76561199371186784]

Publicado originalmente por Rushnerd:

Publicado originalmente por Protoz:

You seem to be aware that it could be a heat didn't bother to monitor the temps? Look at your CPU & GPU temps while playing, if they get too hot PCs turn off to prevent damage.

Actually the first time it happened I was de-clocking and setting the power target at 80%.
The temps aren't the issue.

there is your answer, you messed up the declocking overclocking, it was fine before right ?

[dingobite201]

Ive had two psu's and a gpu do this.

The four year old psu slowly started migrating to other games till it started its intermittent off and on without fully shutting off even just looking at the windows home screen.

Two year old psu i just replaced without thinking after it started this.

Gpu /toast

[Doctor Zalgo]

Publicado originalmente por cblan1224:

Publicado originalmente por Weird Potato:

You're right. You got me. BG3 is shutting down PC's.

lol

This didn't age well, clearly.
It had absolutely nothing to do with hardware and still hasn't been fixed. We just figured out how to get around it.

You have people on here who are inexperienced, and you're contributing to comments that suggest they go out to upgrade their pc for no reason.
Meanwhile, it's 5 patches later and it still happens if you don't do certain things.

This happens with broken, unoptimized games. It doesnt matter if you have a 4090, 7950x3d, 1600w psu, pcie 5 ssd.

I sincerely hope the next time you ask for help with an issue, some know-it-all who doesnt know a damn thing comes along and repeatedly gives you the wrong information and tells you that you're stupid.
Then, after you spend money on something that has nothing to do with the issue, maybe you will stop acting like a clown

The Windows security model means that games (or any programs) can't shut down PC's (unless you're running them as administrator, in which case aren't you just mother's special boy.)

If your hardware is overheating or drawing too much power, that's not the game doing it. If a driver is buggy and causing the PC to crash or reboot, that's not the game doing it.

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/driversecurity/windows-security-model - This is a bit of a driver specific intro to the concepts, otherwise you have to pay Microsoft to get at the good stuff.

[Heu, Iterum Id Feci]

Here's a bit more
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/gettingstarted/user-mode-and-kernel-mode
especially this picture explains it:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/gettingstarted/images/userandkernelmode01.png

Games (even when ran as administrator run on the application layer in usermode.
Restarts/shutdowns/BSODS (all pretty much the same) Happen in Kernal mode, OsKernal or lower.
Higher level software simply does neither have the capability nor access to be the cause. there's to much stuff in between. If it could, windows would show you a ypical message box informing you that you are installing a system driver., at the very least...there would also be a access elevation request neccessary each time you install something.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Publicado originalmente por Powerword: Shill:

Here's a bit more
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/gettingstarted/user-mode-and-kernel-mode
especially this picture explains it:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/gettingstarted/images/userandkernelmode01.png

Games (even when ran as administrator run on the application layer in usermode.
Restarts/shutdowns/BSODS (all pretty much the same) Happen in Kernal mode, OsKernal or lower.
Higher level software simply does neither have the capability nor access to be the cause. there's to much stuff in between. If it could, windows would show you a ypical message box informing you that you are installing a system driver., at the very least...there would also be a access elevation request neccessary each time you install something.

High five windows understander buddy.

[Kojavs]

So, I am going to weight my two cents here in this board, just for the sake of it.

First off, the whole idea that is permeating this discussion, that software can never cause a PC to forcefully shut itself down, are completely wrong. Because, poorly coded software can reflect on how your PC "acts". One example I have is an old friend of mine back from my college days, who would have his PC suddenly shut itself off whenever he would play a very obscure indie unity game. I don't remember the name, only that it was a fairly generic platformer, like a mega man game. This was around 10, 9 years ago as well.

He would play games like GTA V for example, and he would have no problem, but as soon as he booted that small unity game his PC would shut itself off in minutes. So, I decided to look into it with him.

Game seemed to work normal, no problems whatsoever. But, when I used HWMonitor to see his temps, oh boy. His GPU would spike from 45 degrees (celsius) all the way to 98 degrees, and it would shut itself off.

So, one day I went to my friend and as we tried to troubleshoot the issue, I noticed in the settings that the game had an inbuilt FPS counter. I turned it on and then...

The FPS counter was showing a number around 4000 FPS, more or less. It was forcing his GPU to work well beyond overtime, heating itself up to the limit, causing the temperature to spike, which would prompt the PC to shut itself off to protect the components.

What we see in this case is a piece of poorly coded software that would cause the GPU to practically burn itself out. It wasn't a fault with the hardware, the issue was the software itself. We turned on VSYNC in the settings, and his PC never shut itself off again.

So yes, software can cause a PC to shut itself down, if it is poorly coded, and said poorly coding somehow reflects on how the hardware is being handled by the system, in this specific case, forcing the GPU to generate so much FPS that it couldn't handle the stress.

Now, as to the topic at hand:

I play this game exclusively coop with a friend, and, around a year ago, my PC started to shut off by itself whenever I played BG3. The first time it shut itself down it did so in an hour of gameplay. Then I played for a whole week before it shut itself off again (this time, in the middle of a 4 hour long session). The third time, my PC shut itself off in 5 minutes of gameplay. Literally booted the game, loaded the save, invited my friend, and as he joined, we walked around a bit and bam, PC shut itself off.

At first I thought the problem was with my PSU or some of my components (CPU or GPU) overheating under the stress. after my PC shut itself off the third time I decided to test the temperatures. I played the game for three hours, there were no temperature spikes, no overheating whatsoever. And yet, my PC shut itself down for the 4th time.

So, rather than simply going to buy another PSU right our of the bat (since mine is brand new, and showed no supposed power supplying issue with any other game), I decided to test some stuff to make sure it was a hardware issue, and not something else. So, here are the results of my research:

First, my PC would shut down EXCLUSIVELY when playing BG3. RDR2, AC VI, Elden Ring, DMC V, DOOM Eternal, Final Fantasy XV... I played a multitude of games, and none of them caused the PC to shut itself off.

So, it was a problem related exclusively to BG3. So, I started to tweak with BG3, and the settings, and I played solo for a time with the same character I use to play coop with my friend, so I could test if the game would force my PC to shut down, and where it would happen. If there would be a specific place, maybe an action, maybe an act of the game. And, for a whole month of testing, my PC never shut itself off, regardless if I was playing on high settings, or low settings.

I then decided to get my friend on so I could run the same tests while in an online session with him. After 2 hours of gameplay, the game forced my PC to shut itself off.

After another month of testing, I found out the following (which may or may not be exclusive to me):

1. Game would never force my PC to shut down when I was playing offline, by myself, no matter what graphics settings I used, or what area of the game I played.

2. The game would only forcefully shut down my PC when in act III, and only when I was in a coop session with my friend. Act I, II and IV wouldn't force my PC to shut down, no matter how long we spent playing, or just goofing around. 100% of all the forceful shut downs happened EXCLUSIVELY on act III. Graphics settings also played no role in it, it caused my PC to shut itself off both in low, mid and high settings.

3. When on act III and in a coop multiplayer session the game would force my PC to shut itself down on random intervals: sometimes, I would be capable of playing the game for days without issue, other times, the PC would shut itself off 3 times throughout the day (would completely stop playing after the third time).

So, my guess out of all of this? The game probably has a poor line of code or optimization tied to online play, where it probably demands more power than it should from the PSU, which possibly trips the OCP system which causes the PC to just shut itself off. If this were a proper hardware issue, any graphic intensive game should cause the same issue with the PC shutting itself off, but it doesn't. This issue that many people are facing isn't tied to poor hardware, but a poorly optimized software in some way, shape or form. If my guess is correct, then that also explains why some people suddenly had the problem "fixed" by buying new, more potent PSU's; said PSUs would be capable of "soaking" the extra demand for energy. But the problem still persists, you just have a beefier PSU capable of "soaking the damage" so to speak.

Now, I must confess, I am not an IT specialist, or an expert of the field, but I know my way around well enough to be capable of troubleshooting most of my own issues. Yet, the fact remains: my PC only shuts itself off when playing BG3, online, in act III. It never shuts itself off when playing any other game, or when playing BG3 offline in any act at all.

It is, to me at least, clear as crystal that this is a software issue. I might be downplayed our outright dismissed (like many in this discussion), but I felt like I had to share this with everyone running into the same problem. If you are, then try doing the same tests I did: check if the game only forces your PC to shut itself down when playing online or offline, if it only happens in a specific part of the game, etc, and if you feel inclined to it, share it here.

EDIT: Have been meaning to attempt to forcefully lower how much power my GPU can draw to see if it resolves the issue. Haven't gone around to doing that yet, but when I do, I'll post it here if it fixed the issue or not.

[Klutch]

Bad build. GPU shouldn’t crash ever if your rig was properly configured. Doesn’t matter what the software throws at it—if the power supply was worth more than a bag of corn nuts and your thermal paste wasn’t older than your Windows install, it wouldn’t fold like a lawn chair the second Act III loads a cutscene and a rat walks by.

Your PC’s shutting down? That ain’t the game’s fault, cowboy. That’s on you. It means your system’s got no headroom, no tuning, and probably some sketchy BIOS defaults left untouched since 2018. Blaming BG3 because it dared to use more than 20% of your GPU’s potential is like blaming the microwave for setting off your breaker when your whole house runs off a single power strip.

Try undervolting. Update your BIOS. Or better yet, buy a real PSU instead of whatever discount "800W" unit you found at the bottom of a Newegg bargain bin. Because right now? Your build ain’t ready for Faerûn.

[Weird Potato]

Your PC shutting off has nothing to do with Balders gate or any other game.

[Mike Garrison]

This was a problem someone was having more than a year ago. I assume it was resolved since then. I don't see the point in responding to it now.

[Zombie]

my pc was crashing as well. Then i noticed win update so I reverted back to 23H2 from 24H2 and now I start the game and then I get to the any key button then it is just black screen with sound and the spinning icon in the lower right corner.

[Whargoul]

If your PC is turning off while gaming then your system is unstable. Get rid of any overclocking/undervolt and load the default bio settings. Make sure all your drivers are up to date and turn off any optimization software.

[Mr D Grim]

GUYS THIS THREAD WAS 2 YEARS OLD.

no need to continue on arguing with OP who's long gone by now.

Publicado originalmente por Klutch:

Bad build. GPU shouldn’t crash ever if your rig was properly configured. Doesn’t matter what the software throws at it

I do want to point out real quick before i skedaddle myself, that this comment is wrong and silly. software can and will easily crash a system even those that are perfectly configured.
the chance of a video game doing so tho especially this one. is abyssmally low to the point of non existence.

[Perception312]

This happened to me whenever Rafael teleported me, no matter how much I lowered the settings. In the end, I underclocked my graphics card by 5% and the problem vanished.

[Eli]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.