PC Shutting down

[Korgen]

I saw one other post here about someone having their entire computer shutdown in starfield. People were saying thermal or voltage related but for me it is very specific and can be reproduced 100% of the time. In the Akila City GalBank after getting the note for sam in the quest "The Empty Nest", leaving the bank will always cause my PC to power off unexpectedly. A temporary fix for me was to load a save before getting the note and leaving the bank by fast traveling instead of exiting through the door. I can then enter Akila City without any issue and have not ran into any unexpected shutdowns. This doesn't seem like a heat or power issue to me.

Edit: To the people just seeing this post now, no one has been able to figure out the issue yet, but we have confirmed that it is not a PSU or thermal issue. Several people have indicated they have these problems on AMD systems, one person even replaced their PSU with a more powerful one and is still encountering the issue. This is an issue with Starfield and only Starfield. My best guess right now is that it's something with AMD drivers.

[bokke_commando]

R5 5600x
4070 ti
16gb ddr4
SSD installation.

I have had it hard crash two times. Once when I was helping a cowboy guy get his papers from an old dude (can't remember names lol}
The second time was when I was doing the "Mantis" mission and things got a little exploady.
Had to Power down then reset the pc.
I have done two 20 minute passes of OCCT power test. This test highly stresses your system. No issues found. Ran Memtest. no issues found. Updated bios.
I have made sure my cpu fan is running full noise. I have removed XMP and turned off PBO.
I am running the game at mostly medium. full res. no dynamic. I have not had a restart since making these changes.
There is information about Nvidia GPUs running at low power draw with this game. I'm wondering if it's a power spike issue because of the very low initial power draw.

[Tricky Treat]

If your PC does that, that's a CPU overheat issue. Something is going on with your CPU cooling

[---]

Originally posted by Korgen:

I saw one other post here about someone having their entire computer shutdown in starfield. People were saying thermal or voltage related but for me it is very specific and can be reproduced 100% of the time. In the Akila City GalBank after getting the note for sam in the quest "The Empty Nest", leaving the bank will always cause my PC to power off unexpectedly. A temporary fix for me was to load a save before getting the note and leaving the bank by fast traveling instead of exiting through the door. I can then enter Akila City without any issue and have not ran into any unexpected shutdowns. This doesn't seem like a heat or power issue to me.

wtf AHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Team Triss]

Looks like the latest NVidia drivers were what was doing it for me. Downgraded to 536.77 (the most recent before the 8/22 ones) and it's fine now.

[Kozzy]

15 hours on the game and ZERO crashes or gamebreaking bugs. Yes fps goes down lower in big cities but thats it, not had any other issues.

I would suggest trying a different gpu driver (doesnt' have to be newer or newest) and make sure you have the latest Chipset driver and Bios installed.

[Temple [That Guy]]

Starfield has bricked my graphics drivers three times, requiring a full wipe and reinstall of drivers. None of the fixes for this have worked.

[bokke_commando]

Originally posted by Tricky Treat:

If your PC does that, that's a CPU overheat issue. Something is going on with your CPU cooling

Are you addressing me?

[la_nague]

Originally posted by Korgen:

I saw one other post here about someone having their entire computer shutdown in starfield. People were saying thermal or voltage related but for me it is very specific and can be reproduced 100% of the time. In the Akila City GalBank after getting the note for sam in the quest "The Empty Nest", leaving the bank will always cause my PC to power off unexpectedly. A temporary fix for me was to load a save before getting the note and leaving the bank by fast traveling instead of exiting through the door. I can then enter Akila City without any issue and have not ran into any unexpected shutdowns. This doesn't seem like a heat or power issue to me.

Do you have any kind of undervoltage/eco mode going on with your CPU/Mainboard?

undervolting can cause instability that only reveals itself at very specific times (instruction combinations on the CPU).

[Korgen]

Originally posted by la_nague:

Originally posted by Korgen:

I saw one other post here about someone having their entire computer shutdown in starfield. People were saying thermal or voltage related but for me it is very specific and can be reproduced 100% of the time. In the Akila City GalBank after getting the note for sam in the quest "The Empty Nest", leaving the bank will always cause my PC to power off unexpectedly. A temporary fix for me was to load a save before getting the note and leaving the bank by fast traveling instead of exiting through the door. I can then enter Akila City without any issue and have not ran into any unexpected shutdowns. This doesn't seem like a heat or power issue to me.

Do you have any kind of undervoltage/eco mode going on with your CPU/Mainboard?

undervolting can cause instability that only reveals itself at very specific times (instruction combinations on the CPU).

I don’t believe so, I’m actually running on a laptop (Zephyrus G14) so maybe Asus put something like that in for battery performance, I play while plugged in to the wall though.

[Ahroovi]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

PC powering off is very likely due to hardware. There could be a few reasons for it.

The first of which is that you power supply (psu) is not be to provide enough juice to your GPU or even the whole system during more intensive sections of the game.

Another possible reason is that your power supply's OCP is too sensitive and trips whenever there is a large power draw. Especially if it is cheap psu that does not even have any efficiency rating or a fake one.

The last possibility has to do with how you wire up your graphics card. If your card has two pcie power connectors, then you are supposed to use two separate pcie cables to hook up to each one. Using a single daisy chain (ie 1 cable with two pcie heads) cable to hook up to both is not going to cut it during high power draws even though it might be sufficient for lighter gaming and browsing.

For the first two, you will either have to change your PSU or lower your settings drastically so that your system will draw less power even during less intensive scenes.

For the third one, use separate cables to connect to each power connector on your GPU. If you don't wish to change your cable or don't have a spare one, then you will have to drastically lower your settings in the hope that the gpu will not draw more than what a single cable is able to provide during more intensive scenes.

Get ready for everyone to tell you "My PSU is more than enough, it's the game not the PSU". Then go through weeks of troubleshooting, changing every part out, THEN finally changing the PSU and admitting it was that. Or even not admitting it. Every time I have seen this except ONCE, it's been the PSU.
People don't plan for the current spikes on newer systems especially. The GPU's can draw WELL over what they state for microseconds but it's enough to shut down.
I am running this and other games on a 4th gen i5 and a 1070, so I very commonly get maxed out CPU and GPU usage together. I specced my PSU out to account for max load, over that, then the PSU wearing down over time or getting hot. I have never had my PC randomly shut down outside of the power to the house dropping out.
I know the usual "runs fine for me" crowd is annoying but this being a software issue is a tiny minority of cases. You all just haven't stressed your systems enough on other games. My friend had this issue when playing a 2D game that seemed non intensive, yet Payday and other actiony 3D games didn't do it. He replaced PSU, no more issues.

[T]

Originally posted by TREXINATUX:

Originally posted by T:

For those asking about CPU and GPU as well as PSU, I'm working with-
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900x
GPU: AMD 6800 xt
PSU: EVGA 750 80+ gold
32gbs of ram
Not sure what could remotely be causing the problem but as my previous comment stated it seems to be completely random, run most of the games I play on ultra, and this is the first I've had my whole pc shut down and restart for seemingly no reason and at random.

With your specs I would not suggest ultra settings. Ultra is for screenshots and god-tier PC's with very good cooling.

Sorry I wasn't very clear about what I run starfield at, I'm running it at high since that's what it recommended for me, I'm averaging about 60 frames and it's running rather smooth tbh. My temps have been fine but it has continuously happened with no warning. Again, it has been the only game to do this with. I will say since I redownloaded the game I have not had the same crash once yet. I will keep playing and see if it still continues to happen.

[Korgen]

Originally posted by Ahroovi:

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

PC powering off is very likely due to hardware. There could be a few reasons for it.

The first of which is that you power supply (psu) is not be to provide enough juice to your GPU or even the whole system during more intensive sections of the game.

Another possible reason is that your power supply's OCP is too sensitive and trips whenever there is a large power draw. Especially if it is cheap psu that does not even have any efficiency rating or a fake one.

The last possibility has to do with how you wire up your graphics card. If your card has two pcie power connectors, then you are supposed to use two separate pcie cables to hook up to each one. Using a single daisy chain (ie 1 cable with two pcie heads) cable to hook up to both is not going to cut it during high power draws even though it might be sufficient for lighter gaming and browsing.

For the first two, you will either have to change your PSU or lower your settings drastically so that your system will draw less power even during less intensive scenes.

For the third one, use separate cables to connect to each power connector on your GPU. If you don't wish to change your cable or don't have a spare one, then you will have to drastically lower your settings in the hope that the gpu will not draw more than what a single cable is able to provide during more intensive scenes.

Get ready for everyone to tell you "My PSU is more than enough, it's the game not the PSU". Then go through weeks of troubleshooting, changing every part out, THEN finally changing the PSU and admitting it was that. Or even not admitting it. Every time I have seen this except ONCE, it's been the PSU.
People don't plan for the current spikes on newer systems especially. The GPU's can draw WELL over what they state for microseconds but it's enough to shut down.
I am running this and other games on a 4th gen i5 and a 1070, so I very commonly get maxed out CPU and GPU usage together. I specced my PSU out to account for max load, over that, then the PSU wearing down over time or getting hot. I have never had my PC randomly shut down outside of the power to the house dropping out.
I know the usual "runs fine for me" crowd is annoying but this being a software issue is a tiny minority of cases. You all just haven't stressed your systems enough on other games. My friend had this issue when playing a 2D game that seemed non intensive, yet Payday and other actiony 3D games didn't do it. He replaced PSU, no more issues.

All the testing and trouble shooting I’ve done indicate a problem with the game. If it really was a hardware issue I wouldn’t deny it but it just wouldn’t make sense given the information I have.

And I have definitely played demanding games, Cyberpunk and Star Citizen for example and never had this issue. I have also ran benchmarks that should have pushed my cpu and gpu, but still I only see the issue in Starfield. And it’s not random, it’s very consistent and when loading specific areas of the game.

[T]

So with how much this is happening to people with different specs (mostly AMD cpus tho) where temps seem to be fine, no sudden spikes in anything, I'm going to say again, that this seems to be a game side issue of some sort. I could understand hardware problems if it was just one or two people, but seeing more and more pop up is worrying, why would people be having the same problem that they have never had with any other game, all on one single game (that just came out mind you, and it's Bethesda so it might not be a bug, could be a feature 😉) it doesn't make sense to me to say that it's a hardware problem when so many people are having the same problem, like I said. I was fine playing cyberpunk, Bg3, etc. and now starfield, is bricking more then just my pc. Let's wait for a patch or few and see what happens ❤️

[Hypo]

Solved for this NVIDIA user:

I found a post on another thread that said they fixed this issue by rolling back and reinstalling a previous set of NVIDIA drivers.

I just did this, and have had zero complete shutdowns in 2 hours of playtime. I was getting powerdown crashes about every 10 minutes randomly, and haven't had one since. This is absolutely not a bad PSU, power draw spike or thermal issue. Everyone who's saying it is is the equivalent of tech support telling you to check if your power cable is plugged in.

For NVIDA users only, search nvidia.com for "GeForce Game Ready Driver - WHQL
Driver Version: 536.99 - Release Date: Tue Aug 08, 2023" and I recommend doing a custom/clean install.

For AMD users, I can't test an older driver version as I don't have an AMD card, but it might be worth trying the previous set of drivers.

Hope this helps someone else who's stuck with this crappy problem.

[T]

Originally posted by Hypo:

Solved for this NVIDIA user:

I found a post on another thread that said they fixed this issue by rolling back and reinstalling a previous set of NVIDIA drivers.

I just did this, and have had zero complete shutdowns in 2 hours of playtime. I was getting powerdown crashes about every 10 minutes randomly, and haven't had one since. This is absolutely not a bad PSU, power draw spike or thermal issue. Everyone who's saying it is is the equivalent of tech support telling you to check if your power cable is plugged in.

For NVIDA users only, search nvidia.com for "GeForce Game Ready Driver - WHQL
Driver Version: 536.99 - Release Date: Tue Aug 08, 2023" and I recommend doing a custom/clean install.

For AMD users, I can't test an older driver version as I don't have an AMD card, but it might be worth trying the previous set of drivers.

Hope this helps someone else who's stuck with this crappy problem.

Well thank you for this, as an AMD user I can say the last 2 drivers that I had before this most recent released one also had the crashing problem that we have been discussing so we might have to go even farther back until the problem is fixed