# Dragon Age Origins Restarts my PC



## MartinMorrison (Nov 15, 2009)

Hi, 

I bought Dragon Age Origins on Friday. I was able to play for about 4 hours fine and then it restarted my computer randomly, no error messages, nothing. I kept playing and it would work for a few hours before restarts sometimes.

Today, it's started restarting so often that it has become unplayable. I'm playing and suddenly my PC will just restart, that's all that happens, I have no idea what's causing it. My CPU core temperatures are all fine, my fan doesn't go crazy, my PC doesn't make any noises.... 

All other games work fine, I'm on Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit), 8800 GT, 3 Gigs RAM.


----------



## Mosquito555 (Apr 25, 2007)

There are two possible problems:

1) Insufficient or bad PSU. If your PSU can't feed your 8800 with enough power your computer may restart. Try testing with another game and see if that continues to happen.

2) Driver problem. I'm not familiar with windows 7 but on XP, when a driver error occurs your computer will restart or display a blue screen of death (depends on the settings).

On XP you can right click on my computer/properties/advanced/startup and recovery/deselect automatically restart. 

Try finding a similar option in win7. Your computer will display a BSOD instead of restarting. Note any info on this BSOD, especially the title, error code and the driver/file that caused the error if displayed.

Of course updating your drivers and installing DirectX 9c won't hurt...

Great game BTW, I just got Morrigan in my party and I looking forward to see her in action!


----------



## MartinMorrison (Nov 15, 2009)

I hope by 'action' you mean combat . It is a great game but these issues are ruining it for me.

My PSU is fine for my rig, I have played multiple games on it on a daily basis on maxed out graphics. To name a few, LOTRO, Fallout 3, Total War, World of Warcraft. I have NEVER had it restart or even crash on me a single time till now!

I have turned automatic restart off, and it still restarts without a BSOD. So something else is happening.

My drivers are updated. I have directx 11.


----------



## Mosquito555 (Apr 25, 2007)

MartinMorrison said:


> I hope by 'action' you mean combat . It is a great game but these issues are ruining it for me.


Of course I mean combat...What else could I possibly want from her? 



MartinMorrison said:


> My PSU is fine for my rig, I have played multiple games on it on a daily basis on maxed out graphics. To name a few, LOTRO, Fallout 3, Total War, World of Warcraft. I have NEVER had it restart or even crash on me a single time till now!


Just out of curiosity, try another game now. Your PSU may have been working fine for months but we need to ensure that it runs stable on other games as well. We need to eliminate the possibility of a failing PSU...



MartinMorrison said:


> I have turned automatic restart off, and it still restarts without a BSOD. So something else is happening.


Well, since your CPU and GPU temperatures are fine...Try installing the patch for the game:

http://social.bioware.com/game_patches.php

Backup your saved games first, I don't know how safe this patch is since I haven't installed it myself...



MartinMorrison said:


> My drivers are updated. I have directx 11.


As I told you I'm not familiar with Win 7 but on Vista you could have both DirectX 9c and 10 installed without conflicts. In fact I had to install DirectX 9c on Vista machines to ensure compatibility with older DirectX 9 only titles.

I bet you can do the same on win 7 as well. I'd give it a try if I was you...


----------



## MartinMorrison (Nov 15, 2009)

I've been playing WoW all day with no problems. I tried running it in Windows XP mode and it seems to be working but no time to play for a long time to check it out, will report back.


----------



## shihni (Jun 24, 2008)

Did you install the toolset? It supposedly can break your game, something to do with the C++ installation, though I luckily didn't have any problems myself. There's a fix over on the official forums.


----------



## Mosquito555 (Apr 25, 2007)

While doing some google research I came across this thread on the official Bioware forum:

http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=708593&forum=146

So, do you have any DLC installed?

Some problems with multicore processors have been reported as well, I can't however directly comment on this one. I've been playing for about 7-8 hours and no problems so far.

As I previously suggested, try installing the latest DirectX 9c version. Also try updating your sound card drivers.

I also noticed that the game's configuration utility falsely reports that my CPU has only one core. That's probably not related with your problem but you may want to check it.

The only other thing that I can thing of is that the game doesn't like your memory configuration. You have 3GBs, are the modules even in size and made by the same manufacturer?


----------



## john48 (Jan 2, 2009)

Interesting that the same thing happened to me. I have an AMD athlon 64 x 2 Dual core 3800+ 2.01 with 2gb Ram. Graphics card is ENGTS250 1G. I first installed the game on Vista, then installed Windows 7. Then is started to close down the PC like yours well spaced at first then more frequently. I reinstalled on Windows 7 and noticed that the configuration utility had changed in layout, so figure maybe it installs differently in Windows 7. Anyhow, never had another problem since.


----------



## Mosquito555 (Apr 25, 2007)

So John, installing the OS from scratch solved this for you, right? That's interesting... 

That's one more reason why I think your issues have something to do with a driver acting funny...

Anyway, to put it simply:

1) Software can't just restart your PC. Unless of course "a stop error" occurs. Very likely if a driver stops working for some reason.

2) Random restarting is usually a sign of a failing or insufficient PSU. I understand that even thinking of this possibility sucks but it's still worth checking out. Remember a bad or insufficient PSU can damage your hardware.

3) Bad memory chips/memory configuration can lead to this behavior as well.

This forum is full of threads discussing PSUs and memory testing methods. If you need more help on this post back, I'll be happy to answer.

However, if you are absolutely positive that your issues aren't hardware related, I'd say try the official Bioware forum and tech support. That's the best thing to do, they may be unaware of certain issues. Informing the developers on possible bugs will help them patch the game asap.

Since DA is out for only a few days I doubt that you are going to find a lot of help on any unofficial or general tech support forum, especially if your issues are software specific.


----------



## john48 (Jan 2, 2009)

Thanks Mosquito for the advice. Still had no further trouble since reloading the game on Windows 7. Regarding the PSU, I had installed recently a new Coolmax PSU 600w which seems to be working well ( I wouldn't know how to check it?). Perhaps it was something to do with the memory chips. I will see if it happens again and go looking further but don't you think I should leave well enough alone for now or do you think its worth checking out further? Sorry to bother....tx John


----------



## Mosquito555 (Apr 25, 2007)

john48 said:


> Thanks Mosquito for the advice. Still had no further trouble since reloading the game on Windows 7. Regarding the PSU, I had installed recently a new Coolmax PSU 600w which seems to be working well ( I wouldn't know how to check it?). Perhaps it was something to do with the memory chips. I will see if it happens again and go looking further but don't you think I should leave well enough alone for now or do you think its worth checking out further? Sorry to bother....tx John


John, my previous post was meant to be an answer to the OP... 

Since you aren't having any problems I don't think there's something wrong with your machine. As I said, since reinstalling the OS solved your problem I'd bet you will be fine from now on. Probably a Vista driver was somehow conflicting with DA...

Regarding the memory chips, you only have 2GB of RAM, I understand that you are using a single stick or maybe a 2GB set, right? The OP is using 3GB which is a strange memory configuration...That's why I suggested checking his RAM for problems.

If you however want to check your RAM for errors try searching Google or this forum for "Memtest", you will probably find a lot of entries with detailed explanations on what to do. Feel free to ask if you need more information.

As for the PSU, I don't have any experience with Coolmax PSUs. Modern graphics cards rely on the PSU's +12V rail(s) to get power. If those rails can't provide enough current then you may experience restarts, reduced performance etc.

You should check the sticker on the side of your PSU (or its manual):

You will be able to see something like that:

+12V1 18A
+12V2 18A
+12V3 18A

I suggest using a PSU with at least three +12V rails with a current rating of 18 amperes for a modern high end card. I found one Coolmax unit with two +12V rails, both rated at 19 amperes. That's probably your PSU, it can't be considered high end but I guess it will be sufficient for your system. Unless you start having problems again I believe it's enough, IMO don't worry. 

And no worries, you aren't bothering anyone! That's why we use this forum, to ask for help and provide help if we can!

Cheers!


----------



## john48 (Jan 2, 2009)

Hi Mosquito, well just as I thought all was well, out of the blue after a few hours over a few days playing DA it happens again, computer shuts down. I reboot, start the game again, and within 5 minutes, down again. I reboot and don't play the game, computer is fine. I play another game, computer is fine. Play DA again, down she goes. I'm at a loss. My PSU by the way has 2 12v. any ideas??


----------



## MartinMorrison (Nov 15, 2009)

Hi sorry for the late reply been nerding it out in Dragon Age.

I run it in Windows XP service pack 2 mode and it works flawlessly now, not a single crash. Yes, I've got 3 Gigs of RAM which is a bit weird but they are synced and compatible with each other. 

There is something definitely wrong with the game and how it works with quad cores in W7, perhaps just some error that causes them to be overworked so much that your PSU fails or something. It's not a hardware error...... running it in XP mode should work.


----------

