Hello, I started playing Skyrim recently, and I had received 4 BSoDs before the end of the first area. I don't get them with any other game or ever really. My computer is easily powerful enough to play Skyrim on max settings; I now play on min settings because I found that that decreases the amount of BSoDs I get. I have been playing and putting up with frequent BSoDs but now I'm just completely sick of them. I have tried a few things all in vain. The error code I get is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Apparently this is driver related, so I reinstalled my audio, video and chipset drivers. I activated Windows Update for the first time ever, and installed ~400MB of updates. Here are my specs: Intel E8400 Asus P5KPL-CM 2x2GB DDR2 HD6950 Seasonic X-400FL WD15EARS Windows 7 64-bit If anyone has any ideas or suggestions that would be great. Thanks in advance.
I've not had this with Win 7 but had a similar problem with Windows XP iirc - for me it was a ram problem - have you upgraded your ram recently? Could you try with 1 stick of ram only? Skyrim should run with just 2gb of ram...
Thanks for the reply. I haven't upgraded my RAM recently. I can run Battlefield 3 fine, it seems to be just Skyrim that gives me BSoDs. I will run a memtest overnight although I am fairly sure my RAM is fine. Any other ideas?
In my experience BSOD can be caused by non genuine copies of windows too, I thought it was RAM issue too but it wasn't in my case, once I bought a copy of windows, all vanished.
Thanks, but that shouldn't be an issue. Out of curiosity, what is the difference between a legit copy and a cracked one that would cause BSoDs?
Honestly I have no idea but this may shed some light on it, I went from using a copy of windows 7 professional 32bit to using 64bit ultimate, and the problems and hassle I got was unreal, I was led to think it was hardware related but it wasnt, turned out when I reverted back to an legit 32bit everything was solved. Now im still a newb in IT domains but perhaps 64bit is the wider issue here as opposed to a bad copy of windows, as i got the same issues when installing updates on 64 bit. I thought RAM was issue but it wasnt ran memtest for ages and nothing wrong. imo unless your using CAD, avoid 64bit, very problematic especially with mainly 32 bit A/V and internet browsers.
Well the main reason that I use 64-bit Windows 7 is that when playing games my 4GB of RAM is usually all used up, so I don't want to reinstall with 32-bit Windows 7 because I fear I won't be able to access enough RAM for it to run smoothly. Anyway, as interesting as this side topic is, does anyone have any ideas of how to diagnose/fix/etc my BSoDs while playing Skyrim?
post on related boards to do with skyrim, i think I remember seeing some threads elsewhere, perhaps o/c'ers uk
Could be the game itself It could be because of the game itself, since its new. Try installing the latest graphic drivers. Over clocking shouldn't be an issue if its running fine on battlefield 3.
I already had the lastest GPU drivers (cat 11.10) and tried reinstalling them more than once. I tried Skyrim in Windows XP on the same machine, and no BSoDs. I do however get weird freezes for a few seconds at what seems like the same kinda points I got BSoDs in Windows 7. Ah well, looks like XP just turned into Skyrim OS (tm)
Please tell me your joking. There is absolutely no reason not to use 64bit windows anymore, unless your CPU doesn't support it (atom etc). @OP The fact that you only just updated Windows would be something I would point towards a possible culprit. Those updates are pushed out for a reason. Try running FurMark for a while and see what happens with that. That should eliminate both graphics card problems and PSU problems.
Yeah. I've always stayed away from Windows updates in the past, I've just in general pretty much always balked at the idea of more content from microsoft, but I thought it might help fix stuff, and I figured, hey, I update linux all the time, and that usually helps... 500MB of Windows updates later and all that seemed to change was that I get an annoying security popup Will try Furmark, never have before. While my GPU core temp seems fine (never above about 70C, more like 40C while non-gaming) I did notice that the back of the PCB was *really* hot, I couldn't touch it for more than a second or two. Is this normal or should I start considering new cooling options? @64-bit: I agree with cerberus that you may as well just go for 64-bit, but then I have also noticed some strange trends with 64-bit copies of Windows, mainly much higher RAM and HDD usage than 32-bit equivalents. Could be coincidence, sure, but still a bit annoying that I'm noticing lag cause my RAM is full on my 4GB of RAM + 64-bit Windows 7 system, while my friend is happy on his 32-bit system with 1.5GB of RAM. Just sayin Thanks a lot for all the input.
Windows loads stuff into the RAM so its ready to use. Just looking at Task Manager and seeing that it says nearly zero if free means nothing really. If you are running a non-legit copy of windows, then it may possibly be that, not sure. Could be something in the DirectX code or something? GPUs will get hot, my 8800GT got quite hot, I had a HR-03 cooler on it, and I couldn't touch the heatpipes as they would burn me straight away, .
