# GTA V Causing my PC to Freeze



## marmiteonpizza (Apr 21, 2015)

I'm really confused of late. I started playing GTA a few days ago and at random intervals, it freezes and the only way to get out of the freeze is to cut the power to my PC.
Sometimes the freeze happens early on (after 10 minutes or so) and sometimes it only happens after an hour of playing.

Sometimes the game just crashes back to the desktop, but this is only 4 times of out 10.
I've checked my CPU temps, and they get to around the 60C mark, that's fine isn't it? And this only happens to GTA, no other game so I doubt it's to do with my CPU overheating, what do you guys think?

The temperatures of when I play other games are similar, so I don't know whether it's the processor or not!
Either way, I personally think it's either the CPU or a bug in the game, as I've seen other people online with similar issues with GTA.

One more note to add (which may or may not be related), is that when I was installing some more RAM today, the CPU fan stopped working whenever I tried to switch the PC back on. I then had to wait for 5-10 minutes and the fan would work again.
It's working fine now, but it's just a bit...strange. By the way, I've seen with my own eyes that the heatsink is still working whenever GTA freezes, so that's why I'm unsure of whether this is related.


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## erocker (Apr 21, 2015)

-update Windows
-update DirectX
-make sure you're using the latest GTA driver for your video card.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 21, 2015)

erocker said:


> -update Windows
> -update DirectX
> -make sure you're using the latest GTA driver for your video card.


I've done all of these steps previously  I've even cleaned my GPU driver history and reinstalled the latest one.


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## erocker (Apr 21, 2015)

65c is max for an AMD CPU. I'm thinking (with your mentioning of a faulty fan) that it is overheating. Temperature programs aren't always completely accurate.


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## the54thvoid (Apr 21, 2015)

I got a buzzing sound BSOD last night during my shooting range practice.  CPU was getting mighty taxed but not hot enough to kill it (high 60's, probably spiking into 70's) - good stability test!


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 21, 2015)

I've just applied some more thermal paste and the idle temp is now at just under 20C.
I'll start playing some GTA again in a minute and update you on if it freezes again.

Also, while applying the thermal paste, I noticed that my GPU was really hot a few minutes after I'd powered down; is it possible that it's my GPU that's overheating too?


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 21, 2015)

Okay my PC just rebooted whilst I was playing, which sounds like my CPU is overheating. But why??


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## ChevyOwner (Apr 22, 2015)

Joel Charig said:


> Okay my PC just rebooted whilst I was playing, which sounds like my CPU is overheating. But why??


That sounds like a PSU issue to me. Your OP sounds like overheating.
I cant say why for sure, but in my HAF 912 if I install the PSU right side up they overheat. Thus they are always upside down.


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## m6tzg6r (Apr 22, 2015)

GTA games tax the CPU more then any other games i play. When i first got the game my system BSOD while installing the game from steam haha, then it would BSOD not long after playing it. I figured it was my recent CPU overclock and voltage tweaks i had recently done, my CPU wasnt getting enough volts so thats why i was getting BSOD from GTA5. I bumped up my CPU volts abit and now all is well.

But at first i was playing in 1440p, and just recently i got a 4K screen and started playing in 4K. And at a couple different parts in the game my entire system would just power off, then turn itself on again, i have a 1200watt PSU so i dont think the PSU wasnt able to handle powering things in 4K, i think the game had a fault with certain parts of the game because the system crash would occur in a specific spot.

During the mission with Trevor in the desert, you need to go to the O'Neil farm house/drug house and once everyone is dead, you need to enter the basement and then lead a trail of gasoline outside the property. Well when i tried to enter the basement my entire system would shut down as i entered the basement. After this happening twice in 4K, i switched to 1440p and it worked fine, i finished the mission without a crash.

Now recently i modded my car at a los santos customs near the vinewood hills, and when in 4K as my car drove out of the shop my system would shutdown, tried it twice and yep shut down both times. In 4k that was, i switched to 1440p and then exited the car shop without issue.

So i dunno if the game freaked out because it was rendering something in 4K and it overloaded and crashed my GPU's, then the whole system shut off. Maybe my PSU is faulty and shuts itself off at a certain load level, even though its 1200watts?


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 22, 2015)

ChevyOwner said:


> That sounds like a PSU issue to me. Your OP sounds like overheating.
> I cant say why for sure, but in my HAF 912 if I install the PSU right side up they overheat. Thus they are always upside down.


My PSU has always been upside down, and whenever my PC reboots, it doesn't actually cut the power but just restarts. Does that still sound like PSU overheating?



m6tzg6r said:


> GTA games tax the CPU more then any other games i play. When i first got the game my system BSOD while installing the game from steam haha, then it would BSOD not long after playing it. I figured it was my recent CPU overclock and voltage tweaks i had recently done, my CPU wasnt getting enough volts so thats why i was getting BSOD from GTA5. I bumped up my CPU volts abit and now all is well.


So how do you crank up the voltage? And how do you know what voltage it should be?


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## Jetster (Apr 22, 2015)

With such a large game I'm thinking you have it on your 1.5 Tb drive? Check the drive smart status with HDtune or  other program. If the game in on your external drive move it


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 22, 2015)

Jetster said:


> With such a large game I'm thinking you have it on your 1.5 Tb drive? Check the drive smart status with HDtune or  other program. If the game in on your external drive move it


Yes, I have it on that drive, but all my other games on that drive are fine! I have nowhere else to move it anyway. But I doubt that's the issue; I'm redownloading the game again as preloading it might have something to do with it.


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## Jetster (Apr 22, 2015)

It only take a second to test the drive. But probably not the issue


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 22, 2015)

How do you test it?


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## Jetster (Apr 22, 2015)

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Don't use this on your SSD. Just the platter drives then check the health tab. Or use the Seagate tools. Or Crystal Disk


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## Cartel (Apr 22, 2015)

give us some shots of CPUZ
also mix-matched ram could be a issue...have you run memtest86?

I'd try removing the 2 4GB sticks and see if that helps


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## Frag_Maniac (Apr 22, 2015)

The game is buggy as hell. It looks like they spent that nearly two years of extra development time on making 1st person animations and general optimizations, and completely blew off any bug testing and fixing. There's no way in hell this should have passed QA. There's a numerous page thread on the official forum complaining of the common crash to desktop when the game auto switches characters in the "Blitz Play" heist, and now and then manually switching characters even when NOT on missions can result in the same.

Worse yet, Rockstar haven't acknowledged it, or even said they're looking into it. Hell, even Ubi have better pre launch testing and post launch response and support than that. The game is better optimized than Ubi games, but technically speaking, that's about all you can say for it.

And the save system is utter shite too. Whenever I've tried to make a manual or quicksave to avoid replaying a half hour or hour of gameplay in spots that have crashed, it always loads me to the original point before the problem started, as if the saves I made never registered.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 22, 2015)

I went into my BIOS and upped my CPU fan speed and I can definitely say my CPU is not causing the crashes. The max readings I'm now getting when playing GTA is 45.6C for my CPU and 82C for my GPU.
The two times the game crashed just now was the moment I fired a shot from my pistol to hurry a shop clerk to empty their till. I restarted the game straight away, drove at top speeds to another shop and the game crashed when I did the exact same thing.
What does the cause of that sound like to you?


Cartel said:


> mix-matched ram could be a issue...have you run memtest86?
> 
> I'd try removing the 2 4GB sticks and see if that helps


I started getting these crashes before I installed the two sticks of 8GB RAM, I only installed those sticks yesterday.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 23, 2015)

Another crash, just casually driving down the motorway...


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## Cartel (Apr 23, 2015)

whats cpuz say?


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## ...PACMAN... (Apr 23, 2015)

Apologies if I have missed it, do you have a page file? Some people have had memory leak issues with the game or have had crashes without a page file.

 I can imagine how this can be very annoying for you, I used to have a dodgy PSU years ago that would only switch off the computer when I went into the Crysis menu and had insane fps lol. Every other game worked fine.


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## ChevyOwner (Apr 23, 2015)

Joel Charig said:


> My PSU has always been upside down, and whenever my PC reboots, it doesn't actually cut the power but just restarts. Does that still sound like PSU overheating?



Might be, but I cant say for sure I'm no expert on power supplies.


It might not help anything but maybe try installing the items from this list.
https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/articles/203458663







...PACMAN... said:


> Apologies if I have missed it, do you have a page file? Some people have had memory leak issues with the game or have had crashes without a page file.


To my knowledge I don't have memory leaks without a page file, but then again it may take a long time for me to notice.


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## Frag_Maniac (Apr 23, 2015)

If any of you are frequently tossing explosives on foot, it's been found to lead to crashes for many, esp character switch crashes. I suspect it may have also been why I could not get saves to write in certain segments.

Alternatives are using a grenade launcher or RPG, or tossing the explosives from inside a vehicle, the latter of which got me past the character switch crash bug in the Blitz Play heist.

There are also non explosive ways to destroy vehicles in missions that require it, like shooting the gas tank, then the spilled gas, driving them into water, etc.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 24, 2015)

Okay so last night when I was playing GTA, it crashed, but then my monitor received no signal (went black and was checking for signal) and I could see though the ventilation grill that the heatsink fan had stopped working (my PC was still "on" at this point).
When my stock heatsink stopped working, it wasn't working at all, but with this, it works right up until GTA crashes...I think, well not straight away anyway. 

Firstly, I don't know whether this is directly related to GTA crashing as it usually just crashes to the desktop and the fan is still working and secondly, is it a problem with the heatsink or something else? I replaced the stock heatsink only a few months ago due to that stop working, and this fan has a good reputation and has been treated well!

I thought if I'd wait for the processor/fan to cool down it would start working again, but when I turned it on this morning, fan was still not working and no image being displayed on monitor. 

What's happening guys? =(


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Apr 24, 2015)

Ouch.......
all the other fans are spinning up including gpu?
any beeps on startup?

sounds like mobo to me but im no expert.
Its strange how a previous fan stopped working, they are usually very reliable.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 24, 2015)

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:


> Ouch.......
> all the other fans are spinning up including gpu?
> any beeps on startup?
> 
> ...


okay that was a good shout about if other fans are working because I just opened up my case, fired the powered button and my GPU fans aren't working either!

No beeps on start up. 

I don't know if this is just coincidence, but before I went on holiday last week, I was playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 with no problems, and when I came back and started playing GTA, the problems kicked in. 
Although, I first started playing last Saturday night wth no crashes or issues at all. They started to appear on Sunday, the day after.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Apr 24, 2015)

do you have a spare psu?

I think you are going to have to swap out some parts to find the problem.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 24, 2015)

Found the problem!

The cause was because I installed an extra two sticks of RAM earlier in the week.
It was fine up until yesterday though which is a little weird.
Anyway, I've bumped up the speed from 1300mhz to 1600mhz as it should be (with only the original two sticks of RAM in).
Should I now be able to install the other two with no future problems? All the sticks are from the same Corsair line (although the two new ones are bigger in memory) and run at 1600mhz.

I don't think this solves the GTA crashing to desktop issue by the way, just te internal fans not running.


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## Frag_Maniac (Apr 24, 2015)

Honestly, I didn't think the fans were the cause of it. If it were, other games would probably be having issues too.

The game crashes a lot for many. Two common causes are shooting from vehicles on certain missions (thought to be use of RMB), and using throwable weapons on foot just about anywhere. The crash for the latter does not happen WHEN using the throwables, it usually happens on the next character switch.

The most mentioned missions this happens on are The Jewelry Store heist and the segment where Trevor is chasing the bikers in his truck when his character is first introduced (caused by shooting from vehicles), and Blitz Play and Caida Libre character switches (caused by throwing explosives while on foot).

The Jewelry Store crash can be easily avoided by just ramming the cops with the delivery van. The biker chase segment crash can be avoided by ramming the bikers with Trevor's truck instead of shooting them. Some have also avoided it by turning off Page Loading in the Saving and Startup menu.

The character switch crashes can be avoided in missions that require destroying vehicles by throwing the explosives from inside a vehicle, or using alternate methods for destroying them, like shooting the gas tank then the leaking gas, or driving them into water.

The game also seems to require a fairly large Page File. Many have set it to the default system controlled setting so it never runs out of space. Some are turning off Autosave along with Page Loading in the Saving and Startup menu. I have not had any crashes since not using throwables on foot.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 25, 2015)

Frag Maniac said:


> Some have also avoided it by turning off Page Loading in the Saving and Startup menu.


What do you mean by this? Which menu? What actually is page loading? It's linked with virtual system memory isn't it? I've increased the virtual memory, even though I now have 24GB of physical RAM.

This page loading theory seems to be my last hope. If it proves to be unyielding, my satisfaction of the game is in the hands of Rockstar; I hope they release a string of patches soon.

What is page loading and how can I turn it off?


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## Muhad (Apr 27, 2015)

Re-seat all components on the motherboard, and only do this with power off and when the system is cool.
Check all cabling to see they are connect properly especially power supply.
Turn all over-clocking off and try the game with the case open to see if all fans are running.
Is the system up to date with all AMD drivers, whatever they might be?

If you put to much paste on the cpu it will not help, and you probably should be using Arctic Silver 5.
http://www.arcticsilver.com/amd_application_method.html#

Is the motherboard BIOS up to date? Sometimes resetting the BIOS will solve a lot of problems.
Obviously you need to now how to set up the BIOS after resetting.
All RAM sticks should be exactly alike.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 27, 2015)

Should have bought it on console 18 months ago.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 27, 2015)

Muhad said:


> Re-seat all components on the motherboard, and only do this with power off and when the system is cool.
> Check all cabling to see they are connect properly especially power supply.
> Turn all over-clocking off and try the game with the case open to see if all fans are running.
> Is the system up to date with all AMD drivers, whatever they might be?
> ...


I can cross all of these off the list apart from the updated BIOS. But I'm going to wait a little longer and see what Rockstar Support have in store for me, as we're currently exchanging information through one-to-one emails. I'll also see what the near-future patches bring, then I'll see if my BIOS needs updating if nothing is fruitful.



Easy Rhino said:


> Should have bought it on console 18 months ago.


I've been thinking about that, and was sorely tempted to buy the Xbox One version before the PC release. But my Xbox is pretty much my brother's now as I've decided that I'm 100% a PC gamer. That may be stubborn, but PC gaming is my passion.


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## Frag_Maniac (Apr 27, 2015)

Joel Charig said:


> What do you mean by this? Which menu?



It's in the Saving and Startup menu like I said.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 28, 2015)

Frag Maniac said:


> It's in the Saving and Startup menu like I said.


Oh sorry bro, didn't read carefully enough.
I managed to play online last night for over 3 hours straight with no crashing!


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## Frag_Maniac (Apr 28, 2015)

Joel Charig said:


> I managed to play online last night for over 3 hours straight with no crashing!



Out of random luck, or did you change some settings?

I finally decided to do a lengthy redownload, reinstall, restart process, and so far, so good. I didn't have the no cops bug in the Prologue this time.

This game is such a huge file I think a lot of times the download process itself can cause problems. I probably should have bought it on disc like I wanted to, but the only way to get a good price was via DL, and I didn't want to wait for a price drop on the retail disc version.


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## marmiteonpizza (Apr 28, 2015)

Frag Maniac said:


> Out of random luck, or did you change some settings?
> 
> I finally decided to do a lengthy redownload, reinstall, restart process, and so far, so good. I didn't have the no cops bug in the Prologue this time.
> 
> This game is such a huge file I think a lot of times the download process itself can cause problems. I probably should have bought it on disc like I wanted to, but the only way to get a good price was via DL, and I didn't want to wait for a price drop on the retail disc version.


Random luck, today and yesterday I've randomly been getting fewer crashes, as is the pattern.
I reinstalled the game a few weeks ago to see if it would fix the crashes; it did not.


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## Frag_Maniac (Apr 29, 2015)

^So far the only bug I've had that I didn't before was one of the  AI going invisible when inside the O'Neill's house. I played it before at night though, this time during the day.

They need to go over this game thoroughly with a bug sweep.


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## ANIHILUS (Mar 6, 2016)

Did you manage to fix this ? Im having the same problem..omg it';s so anoying


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## jboydgolfer (Mar 6, 2016)

I would atleast try something that helped me out, and is apparently not just affected me in the past,... i have no idea WHY it  would cause instability, but it indeed does,  launching ANY of the GTA5 executables in Administrator mode, or in compatibility mode caused issues for me and many others from what i read after googling MY problem with gta5. i would recommend a check to make sure they arent in either of those modes...it happened with my game recently. IF of course it IS indeed a software issue.  worth a shot.

i admit this sounds a bit deeper than what i mentioned above, based on the content of the thread so far, but it cant hurt. good luck


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## marmiteonpizza (Mar 6, 2016)

I upgraded to an Intel CPU in the summer, and everything's been working fine (apart from a few dodgy optimisations for my AMD GPU).
I'm getting 60fps with almost everything set to max in the city, and a few minor frame drops out in the country.

@ANIHILUS, if you could fill out your system specs for us all to see, maybe we can fix this for you


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## ANIHILUS (Mar 6, 2016)

Phenom 955be x4 3.5ghz , 8 gb ram 1600 , gtx 460 1gb , 1tb sshd

I know my specs are low... but before this crap pc i had other one worst.... dual core 3.0 ghz  , 4gb ram and same video card... and I was playing it for non stop 10 hours without any crash....so low specs is not the problem

This pc freeze is the most annoying because i cant even alt+ctrl+del to shut down the game... i only have to restart pc

All drivers up to date ; What I tried : underclock ram , cpu ; overclock ram , cpu.... disable page file....run in safe mode.... run in highest game settings... run in lowest game settings...

Bassicaly it;s random.... i can get it in 5 mins of gameplay or after 2hrs.... but never played more than 2hrs without getting it....instant freeze and a brown screen


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## marmiteonpizza (Mar 6, 2016)

Is the freezing only happening in GTA V like it did for me? Or is it more general than that?


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## ANIHILUS (Mar 6, 2016)

Only in GTA 5....... no other game happens that......And I play all kindz of games....newest up to date
https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/communities/public/questions/203329398-GTA-V-PC-Freezing-Issue
I found this and nobody from here found any solution.... and they got better hardware than me


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## xorbe (Mar 6, 2016)

GTA V is an excellent system stress test and will reveal weakness. It has never crashed on my system though.

Start testing things one at a time until you find the culprit.
- lower cpu speed, give small voltage bump
- lower gpu speed, try to give a small voltage bump with msi ab
- lower ram speed/timings, give small voltage bump
- check cpu temp
- check stability with Prime95 / IBT / MemTest etc

If still crashing, it gets harder
- failing psu, swap and test
- failing ram, swap and test
- really failing gpu, swap and test
- motherboard / motherboard caps
- motherboard <-> ssd/hdd issue
- malware in OS

For a quick fix just to avoid the issue, you might try game settings that are a step or two below max quality.  Just to lower stress on the system.  I realize many people don't care if the computer is actually totally stable ... they just want to play w/o crash.


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## ANIHILUS (Mar 6, 2016)

I just needed a solution from ppl that had the same problem....I know i can change every part from my pc and test but I dont have anyone to give me hardware for testing.....but as you can see in the link i posted .... many ppl have this problem with different specifications... so i guess it;s a software problem .....or  some  bios setting it;s causing it


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## erocker (Mar 6, 2016)

I had a freezing issue with this game when it was released, I found turning vsync on fixed it. A couple of patches ago though, I no longer have the issue. So, if vsync isn't enabled, try it.


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## ANIHILUS (Mar 6, 2016)

Did that already.....doesn;t help


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## xorbe (Mar 6, 2016)

ANIHILUS said:


> I just needed a solution from ppl that had the same problem....I know i can change every part from my pc and test but I dont have anyone to give me hardware for testing.....but as you can see in the link i posted .... many ppl have this problem with different specifications... so i guess it;s a software problem .....or  some  bios setting it;s causing it



You're looking for a silver bullet solution, but system instability doesn't work that way.


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## marmiteonpizza (Mar 7, 2016)

ANIHILUS said:


> I just needed a solution from ppl that had the same problem


Unfortunately I never found a solution with my previous setup; the only reason I don't have this problem anymore is because I upgraded my CPU, MoBo and RAM. So I technically had a new system.

I too was searching all over the web for solutions found by people with the same problem...but to no avail. I think this is a scenario where you need to *try every single idea possible*, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem, or how much effort and time it requires.


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