"Entering Save Power Mode" When Playing Games

[gabeluna27]

Since the end of 202, I've been having some serious problems with playing some games on Steam.

On some modern heavy graphic games like Ark: Survival Evolved or Jurassic World Evolution (2018), my computer would go into "Entering Save Power Mode", causing the entire screen to go black, and crashing my entire computer in the process to the point I have to manually turn off and on my computer.

In 2020, my computer was a Windows 7 Alienware machine until mid-2022. Games like Half-Life 2 would run perfectly fine. But by the end 2020, Half-Life 2, Jurassic World Evolution, Ark: Survival Evolved, and pretty much all of the modern graphic heavy games (engine running games on UE4, Unity and Cobra) would crash my entire machine by going into black screen and the "Save Power Mode", rendering my computer useless and unable to get out of it unless I turn it off then on again manually. Signs of potentially getting that way is when my computer's fan becomes LOUD due to the heavy graphics. Go further, and it will crash, even if a game is paused.

It is by mid-2022 that I got a brand new Alienware computer that's bigger, and the Windows version is Windows 10. I got that machine because I needed it to play Jurassic World Evolution 2, since my old one was outdated to play it.

Since getting the new Windows 10 Alienware machine, older games like Half-Life 2 and (to an extant) Black Mesa no longer have this problem, but graphic heavy games on UE4, Unity, Cobra (Jurassic World Evolution 1 and 2) still have this problem. I can lower my graphics settings to minimize the risk, but it still is there when I enter something that is potentially graphic heavy in those games.

I've looked hard as I can online to see if anyone else having the same problem as I am is reaching out for help and find any potential answers to solve my problem, but all of the Google searches I've come across have turned out to be completely useless.

Please help me understand what my situation is and how I can solve it, especially since my current computer is brand new since mid-2022, exactly one year from now, and I still can't play any of my modern games without the fear and risk of crashing my game, screen, and machine as described above.

[Illusion of Progress]

That message seems to be from your monitor itself informing you that it is going into standby mode because it is losing signal from the source (the PC).

It is losing signal because your PC is having an issue.

Check Event Viewer to see what happened at these times.

Right click the start button > Event viewer. In the "Event Viewer (Local)" section (should be the default it comes up to), check the critical and error section.

You'll likely see Event ID 41 logged in the critical section if you've been forcing power off by holding the power button. So in that case, you can ignore these logs themselves as they are a side effect of that. However, use them to match up to the time of other logs. Each Event ID 41 should have another critical or error log from the same time. Your answer is (likely) there.

My guess is your graphics card drivers are likely crashing. It could be the drivers themselves, or a hardware issue (read as, faulty graphics card).

Regardless of what event viewer shows, here's what I'd also be prepared to do...

1. Monitor temperatures. Have you done this? Libre Hardware Monitor is a favorite of mine, as it's a simple and small but shows all the important stuff I want. You can also run GPU-Z in the background since it's probably the graphics card acting up, but I'd just go broad and check everything to save time.

2. Reinstall GPU drivers.

Posting a CPU-Z validation link as well as listing what PSU you have (sometimes not easy to know on OEMs so you'll need to physically look at the label on the PSU) would also possible help.

[Cathulhu]

Does your monitor say power saving mode or where did you get that from?

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

Does your monitor say power saving mode or where did you get that from?

I presumed this was a message from the display OSD itself, yes, because I've never seen a Windows PC show this only to start displaying signs of a graphics card/graphics driver (or system) issue/hang/freeze/crash/whatever.

[gabeluna27]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

Does your monitor say power saving mode or where did you get that from?

I presumed this was a message from the display OSD itself, yes, because I've never seen a Windows PC show this only to start displaying signs of a graphics card/graphics driver (or system) issue/hang/freeze/crash/whatever.

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

Does your monitor say power saving mode or where did you get that from?

My monitor does this. Once I play those said games above, my monitor goes into "Entering Save Power Mode" into a black screen. Everything in my computer is then rendered useless because I can't do a single thing. One second of audio sometimes loops, which I also forgot to add.

Even games like Half-Life 2 would do that on my old computer, but not anymore with my new one. Which was odd because it never did that before for the years I've played on that machine and monitor before late 2020.

[_I_]

that often means the monitor is not getting signal
make sure the video cable is plugged into the gpu, not the mobo

and try hitting alt+enter, most games it will toggle from full screen to windowed modes

[gabeluna27]

I've been thinking lately. Is it possible that my monitor's DP cable is bad?

I still haven't gotten around or the time to fix it yet. But I came across someone saying something similar on Reddit, saying they changed the DPs which fixed their problems.

If so, can DPs go bad over time, even without much physical interference on the cable itself? Or could they have been "pushed" in some way by accident that makes them work bad?

Because as I said a few times, Half-Life 2 worked perfectly for five years on my old computer until 2020 when it would go to "Save Power Mode", despite no being as intensely graphical as like Ark: Survival Evolved/Ascended for example. Since 2013/14, I've been using a monitor that I still use for my new machine I got in 2022, yet it still has the same problems with a slight lesser degree because Half-Life 2 works perfectly now with no said above issues while others don't.

[Illusion of Progress]

Yes, the cable is a possibility, but only if the display is losing signal and that's all that is happening.

If the game or PC actually crashes then I'm fairly sure a bad cable isn't causing that. The cable just carries the signal from your PC to your display. If that gets interrupted, the display gets lost but the PC itself would still be operating fine (just "headless" as it's called, which is what running without a monitor is referred to as).

You can replace the cable and see if that fixes it (and it's fast cheap, and easy so there's little reason not to rule this out), but you have reason to believe that it's not merely the display losing signal but maybe also that the game or PC is crashing (like the audio stops or there's other clues that the PC/game has been interrupted), then it's likely to be more than a cable issue.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Not all DP, or HDMI, cables are created equal and everything in life degrades over time.

Also, make sure your power profile is set properly regarding processor state of power and such.

[gabeluna27]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Yes, the cable is a possibility, but only if the display is losing signal and that's all that is happening.

If the game or PC actually crashes then I'm fairly sure a bad cable isn't causing that. The cable just carries the signal from your PC to your display. If that gets interrupted, the display gets lost but the PC itself would still be operating fine (just "headless" as it's called, which is what running without a monitor is referred to as).

It isn't just my monitor that crashes into the mode, it's the rest of the PC that crashes at the same exact time. Sometimes, my game's audio will loop a second of sound over and over until it drops silent, and every single time the crash happens, I assume my game freezes because I can't perform any action on it, let alone exit it to the main desktop, to the point i have to manually reboot it up. It only happens when my monitor screen display is turned on, so I know it's only when intense graphics happen because it has to display them for it to happen. When it's off, but everything else is working like the PC and the audio speakers, the problem never occurs.

This has confused me because, my new PC is made to run new games my old one couldn't. It's like my problem has (mostly) carried over to my new PC and I can't seem to narrow down what exactly my problem is, but I'm trying.

[Guydodge]

since its the same problem on a new pc the process of elimination should be easy test and eliminate them one at a time,the DP cable (plug in a midi if you have one handy) the monitor
(use your tv if you dont have a secondary.your wall socket use an extension cord and plug
into another wall socket not on that breaker.if your using a power strip or back up power
UPS eliminate it and plug directly into wall.

and if your installing some kind of software like using torrents or some sketchy AV
youve installed on both machines.
try eliminating those as well that would probably take a factory reset of win 10.for
any kind of virus.

also monitor your games with something like msi afterburner sounds unlikely
that both your machines are throttling due to heat but worth looking at none the less.