Oblivion technical support needed

[leegroves86]

So I was playing Oblivion tonight and all of a sudden the screen went black (lost signal). I could still hear Oblivion's music & everything but nothing on screen no matter what I did. I shut computer off and restarted, nothing. Took out video card and reinserted, nothing. A restart later i'm back into XP just fine. I'm typing on the same computer right now. This is the second or third it's done it today. Anyone have any suggestion?

EDIT: it is happening a LOT more often it seems like. Haven't kept official #'s tracked but its about unplayable.

Asus A8N-E
3000+ venice
1 gig ram
7800GT
7200.9 HDD
500W Enermax PSU <brand new

 

[leegroves86]

No one has ANY thoughts? This is serious, please help

 

[dfuze]

Maybe your video card was overheating? Do you know what the temps were?
What card is it?

 

[leegroves86]

7800gt evga. The temps are just fine they are high 40's when idle and 50s when playing games. Celcius of course. It had done it 3 times today

 

[BadThad]

Sounds like your video card isn't getting enough power. Try a different power supply.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

REvived because I'm having the exact same problem . . . screen would go to black at random points. I've tried stock speeds and overclocked speeds on my 7900GT but there doesn't seem to be a pattern . . .

 

[leegroves86]

Well, I got a brand new 500W Enermax PSU because it was suggested by multiple people that the problem might lie in my PSU. It didnt' help. I'm convinced its a problem in Oblivion. It only happens in that game, no others. It especially seems to happen when entering door ways i've noticed. any more help?

 

[donblas]

When the screen goes black if you alt-tab back to Desktop and back in, the graphics reappear. I came here looking to confirm that this was a problem with Oblivion and not my card, which is what seems most probable.

Unless anyone has any other ideas ... ?

I'm sure this issue will be taken care of in the first patch.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Hmm, alt-tab seems to work . . . it's still annoying though . . .

 

[pkypkypky]

Originally posted by: leegroves86
Well, I got a brand new 500W Enermax PSU because it was suggested by multiple people that the problem might lie in my PSU. It didnt' help. I'm convinced its a problem in Oblivion. It only happens in that game, no others. It especially seems to happen when entering door ways i've noticed. any more help?

On AT, the power supply is nearly always answer #1 if nothing is obvious. Anyways, if it's the same game for you guys, go search the internet and gaming boards for similiar issues and make sure you're patched up. A shot in the dark is that it could be your windows power saving mode turning off the monitor even though you're playing the game. Couldn't hurt to try turning that off

 

[XJustMeX21]

It's oblivion i'll bet money it does it when going into a new area with a loading screen.

 

[donblas]

Originally posted by: pkypkypky
On AT, the power supply is nearly always answer #1 if nothing is obvious. Anyways, if it's the same game for you guys, go search the internet and gaming boards for similiar issues and make sure you're patched up. A shot in the dark is that it could be your windows power saving mode turning off the monitor even though you're playing the game. Couldn't hurt to try turning that off

Well, it's definately not the power, not power saving mode. As for patches, Oblivion is only a week old so there's nothing out yet. The reason for coming to this forum was to confirm it wasn't a hardware or power issue, which is pretty certain at this point. Myriad hardware with the same result, at random, points to the game.

I hope they patch soon.

 

[Cipherfaction]

are you sure its ONLY oblivion?

 

[leegroves86]

I'm positive its only oblivion. I've played BF2, NFS:MW, Quake 4, WoW, UT04. Its especially happens when Loading areas, in fact it almost always happens when entering doorways. I read it was a problem with HDR, but I don't have it on (2X AA instead) So any other suggestions???

 

[leegroves86]

bump

 

[Gherault]

I have this issue also, I googled it and apparently a lot of people have the problem. It's usually not that big of a problem for me as the alt-tab workaround isn't that painful on my system- however sometimes it makes the game freeze when I tab back in... so remember to save (unless you're in a conversation when it happens, UGH!) before you do it. Oh... and the fact that it can happen when I'm in a conversation makes me think it isn't an area load issue. In my instance I can also still see all the 2d overlays: the health/mana/stamina bar, mouse, and little mini-game conversation/lockpick games. It seems to not affect the 3d rendering of my character in the inventory screen, either- only the environment/mobs.

On a side note, while playing Oblivion my PC occasionally locks up (maybe once every two days), can't alt-tab or anything, have to do a hardware reboot. Not sure if that's Oblivion or not but it hasn't happened in anything else (though Oblivion has me obsessed the past two weeks. ). I thought I'd just throw that in just in case someone else was having the same thing happen in game- though usually complete freezes like that are hardware related- or driver/firmware type stuff. *shrug*

 

[leegroves86]

I can't Alt + Tab. I have tired ctrl + alt + delete and it does nothing also. And my screen goes completely black. I have to restart Every time. Mine has never locked up though. I have reinstalled the latest release drivers but no help. Its happening so much that I am scared to death to open a door lol. It happens a lot.

 

[Android8675]

This probably won't help at all, were using DELL XPS systems at the office, me and a buddy are playing oblivion on the same systems, he crashes all the time, I don't.

If you stop to think about it for a second, Oblivion is a pretty "graphic intense" game, it's also on it's first version and i'm guessing it was pushed out to market as all PC games are. You might just "deal" with the problems you're having for now (maybe set your system to all default settings if you're overclocking anything), and send some bug reports to www.bethsoft.com if they have some comment or feedback avenues there.

Good luck,
A.

 

[imported_red5]

I had the same issue with my old computer. The screen would randomly go black. I'd press the power button to turn it off and that wouldn't work, I'd have to hold it, but I could download files from my laptop while it was black. A day later, I smelled smoke and I thought the motherboard fried. When I turned the computer on, it turned on, beeped 3 times and rebooted and did the same thing. I had to unplug it to make it stop.

As it turns out, the video card died. Most of these issues are caused by PSUs most of the time. As it turns out, I put in an old video card I had lying around and when I got a new one for it it had some major conflicts with my hd controller and then my input devices (usb or ps2, didnt matter) stopped working even after I put the old one back in.

But the problem started when I put a belkin usb2 card in. On the very first boot the problems started. I removed it, and they continued, but I cannot believe that card did not play some effect

 

[Gherault]

Ok, if you don't see the healthbar/mouse, or any other "2d" graphics such as hitting tab to look at your inventory/quests/etc then it's a different problem than what most people are getting- and if alt-ctrl-del isn't tabbing you out and opening the task manager (I'm assuming Windows XP of some flavor) then you probably do have some sort of hardware issue, but of course I can't be 100% about that. I would try swapping out your video card if you have another compatible one handy and see if that resolves the issue.

I also noticed you have an ASUS board- now don't go changing all your settings willy nilly, but I had to go over every one of the settings on my A8N32-SLi Deluxe and set them to manual because ASUS likes to overclock by default. They have a real thing for upping voltages without saying anything, so 1.3v becomes 1.35v on your Vcore for instance... So you might want to check all the stuff in your bios against stock settings. (cheaper than buying a videocard to find out that's not the issue) Of course using a driver cleaner and doing a reinstall of your chipset/graphics card drivers might help also.

You can also google "nvtemplogger" and get a little program that I've found tremendously helpful in pinpointing heat issues with my GPU; it writes a log to a text file of your core and ambient(if available) temps every 15 seconds or so, if it's heat you can open the file after you have crashed and see if that's the problem. ( actually, come to think of it- You say you restart your machine a few times then it suddenly seems to work? That sounds like it's cooling off perhaps, and works when it goes below a certain threshold? )

Of course using a driver cleaner and doing a reinstall of your chipset/graphics card drivers might help also.

Just grasping at straws really, but those are the top few ideas that come to mind. I really do hope you can get this sorted out- I know how much it stinks to worry about having to replace expensive components. (Currently worried about my processor, myself. *sigh*)


**disclaimer: I've been awake a long, long time.

 

[MikalCarbine257]

I have the same problem, isn't temperature or power related, definately some setting or something in the game. Mine mostly happens after autosaving, I haven't tried alt tabbing though

Anyone have this problem on drivers other than 84.21?

 

[LiquidImpulse]

could it be a driver issue?

 

[MikalCarbine257]

Wouldn't doubt it whatsoever, I noticed when I was having the black screens if I rebooted it would be fine, very weird

 

[Gherault]

Re-read his description of exactly what is happening, though. It's probably not exactly the same as what is going on with most everyone elses machine.

 

[leegroves86]

I get a black screen and then i have to reboot once. It works everytime. This is only happening in Oblvivion. And maybe I'm crazy but it is happening more & more. Use to be an annoyance now it is almost every other door I open (load area). I've quit playing oblivion b/c I can only go a couple of mins w/o havening to restart.