Civ V shuts down my computer

Generic

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
3
Hi all

I have a rather strange error using Civ V.

At random times while I play Civ V, it simply shuts down my computer. Screen goes black, nothing seems to work, and the computer seems to be in sleep mode.

It is not a flaw I have encountered at any other time, and there do not seem to be a specific trigger.

My system is fairly marginal, but still within requirements.

Have anybody encountered similar problems?

/Generic
 
Is it really "sleep" mode or rather "off" or a hard crash? Sleep would be highly unusual, switching off would mean some hardware component is so overtaxed that the computer performs an emergency shutdown. What are the system specs and temperatures?
 
The screen turns off entirely, and the signal to the screen is gone, bur I still have a green LED on the comp as such.

I'm wondering if it's the graphics card.

I'm not at home, so I can't comment on core temp etc.right now, but will do so later today.

I'll post the system specs later today as well. As far as I remember my gfx card is a 9600 GT

Edit: System specs are:

2 GB RAM
Athlon X2 4800+
Nvidia 9400 GT

/Generic
 
Sounds like a hardware induced crash.

Should be next to impossible to overheat a 9400GT, unless the heatsink has fallen of, but might still be a good idea to check the GPU and CPU temperatures.
Ideally you should test it with another video card, but that symptom could be indicating a mainboard or PSU problem, too.

Civ5 is known to put a higher stress on the system than most other games.
 
My first solution would be to see whether a different gfx card does the trick, since the crash primarily affects the graphics output.

Testing it will not be straight-forward, though, as I do not have a specific trigger to force the crash. Just continued gameplay... though that is not too bad a situation :).

/Generic
 
I have a very similar error. The screen first turn black, then the monitor is set to sleep mode by the PC. The sound is still working, but nothing brings the screen back on. PC need hard reboot.

This happens every time in the first 20-30 turns. -> quit playing this junk version

XP SP3, HD4550 graphics
 
"Monitor set to sleep mode" means it doesn't receive a signal anymore from the video card, because the computer crashed. This together with the sound still playing for a while is indicating a hardware failure. So it's most probably not a fault of civ, but rather your computer's ;)
Try running Furmark, if it's not happing there, you should go through the routine of cleaning up your system/drivers/steam/civ installation. If the problem STILL persists after that, then it will be time to contact the official support.
 
My computer shuts down completely in Civilization V thought it might be Microsoft system updates or my hardware which it still might be, but I had my computer running a virus program all night without a shutdown or crash.

This is my computer
ASUS P5K Deluxe
Memory: 8192MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100618-1621) )
 
Out of curio, does the Windows Problem Reports and Solutions (or similar) application generate an error report when your PC shuts down? I ask because I had something very similar occur whilst playing a game of Civ 5 – and it turned out that my graphics card (an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of memory) had died – as that application reported. (Of course, as tokala quite correctly notes, a graphics card fault may be covering up the real cause such as a PSU or other issue.) It turned out that I had to buy a new (and improved) graphics card - since installing which, thankfully, I’ve yet (fingers crossed!) to experience another crash.

EDIT: One last thing. If it is a graphics card issue, have you updated to the very latest driver (released October 18th) for your 9400 GT?
 
I've had this problem as well: the pc just shuts off around turn 16 or so. I'm going to try furmark in a bit

system:

windows 7
amd athlon 2.7 ghz
4 gb ram
geforce gtx 470

I've encountered multiple problems on my pc though, so I may just reformat. :/
 
Also look into whether things are overheating, that could be triggering the shut downs. If its heat take it very seriously as it can permanently damage your video card.

I have a high end machine and video card yet for some reason Civ 5 has my system taxed more than any other game I currently own. All the fans just go crazy trying to keep up. I switched from running in DX10/11 mode to running DX9 mode instead and the fans are now a normal volume and I crash less often.
 
Same Issue as OP.

Runs fine then hangs and goes to blue/green screen and I have to restart.

My specs are:

Vista 64-bit
AMD Athlon dual core 2.6GHz
4 gigs ram
Ati 4830 (overclocked)

No Problems before the latest patch.
 
I have a very similar error. The screen first turn black, then the monitor is set to sleep mode by the PC. The sound is still working, but nothing brings the screen back on. PC need hard reboot.

This happens every time in the first 20-30 turns. -> quit playing this junk version

XP SP3, HD4550 graphics

Yes! I have just started having this same problem after updating my NVIDIA drivers (9800M GTS) to 260.99. :sad: I'm playing on my Gateway P-7811FX.
 
This same thing is happening to me a lot. It only happens when running Civ V. I read the posts here, downloaded FurMark and when I ran it, the EXACT same thing happened. Screen goes black, then 3-5 seconds later, the machine powers off.

I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 on an ASUS Notebook G73Jh Series with a 1.60GHz i7 core, 6GB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series.

Should I be using DirectX 9 instead of 10/11?
 
No, there's a bigger issue there.
Something's somehow going wrong with your...laptop?
Check, if it gets warm, and if yes, then see if you can do anything about air condition to it. Might be, that your current gaming setup blocks one of the fans, so that too much heat gets "stored" in the computer.

If this is not the case, you should think about contacting the customer support of your vendor, because the graphics card might be broken.
 
You should most definately contact your retailer's and/or ASUS customer support. It's a fairly new laptop, unlikely that it's dust in the system.
 
If it is a laptop, then it will shut down when overheated. A loptop is also, if moved around a lot, easy to get dust and fibers from clothes, blankets, etc. build up inside.
 
Same problem here: I played Civ V several days before it began to "hibernate" my hp pavillon dv5. Now when I play it keeps shutting down every 30 minutes.

These are my specs:
Intel CoreDuo2 T5800 2Ghz
4Gb Ram
Nvidia 9600M GT
Win Vista Home Edition

I play many other games (Stalker-Call of Prypiat, DragonAge, Risen, Sins of a Solar Empire) without any problems, crash or overheat issues.

Any suggestions?
 
My game just freezes randomely while doing a video refresh and it just started on the day the next patch was announced. Maybe you have a setting that when video is lost to the screen it goes into a shut down mode to protect the screen. My setting for the power button is hybernate. I am running XP though. I have to save the game every few moments and going into city view and cycling between cities there is a nightmare. I have turned off auto cycle units, but sometimes when it moves to the other side of the map it freezes. The task manager just says that Civ 5 game is not responding and I have to end it. Sometimes I can bring up task manager after the screen freezes and some times I have to put the laptop to sleep and wake it back up. I wish whatever they did they would reverse what has caused this.


I have turned graphics all to low, played online, and off and nothing helps. It has to be related to video refresh. Right now I have all the settings except leader screen to the highest they allow for my computer and everything looks great and it works better than having everything to the lowest. I just try not to move the view too fast or allow the game to either.
 
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