Gears of War 4 Crashes Constantly - Possible Graphics Card Issue

Darrell01 · 06 May 2020

Hey,

I've been playing Gears 4 online for months now but within the past few weeks the game's been crashing every half an hour or so. The game would freeze and I would get alerts in the notification centre but I can't remember exactly what they said. I'm sure that they were about the AMD Radeon Software and that they were along the lines that something has recovered unexpectedly. At the time, I had actually disabled the AMD Radeon Software from running automatically at start up thinking that it would improve performance.

Figuring that it was relating to the graphics card software, I reinstalled the AMD software. The crashes continued but the error notifications stopped. As such, I tried a more thorough uninstallation and reinstallation using the free version of Driver Fusion. That wasn't very thorough, so I tried again with DDU. I'm still having the same issue though.

I'm currently running Radeon Software version 20.2.2 and my drivers are said to be up to date. Please help!

sygnus21 · 06 May 2020

First things first is you need to upgrade your video card!

And Gears of War 4 system requirements also exceeds that card.... Gears of War 4 system requirements | Can I Run Gears of War 4

Here are the Gears of War 4 System Requirements (Minimum)

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2 GHz or AMD FX-6300 3.5 GHz
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 8 GB
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
VIDEO CARD: GeForce GTX 750 Ti or AMD Radeon R7 260X
PIXEL SHADER: 5.0
VERTEX SHADER: 5.0
FREE DISK SPACE: 80 GB
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2 GB

Gears of War 4 Recommended Requirements

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5 GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 16 GB
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
VIDEO CARD: Radeon R9 290X / GeForce 970
PIXEL SHADER: 5.1
VERTEX SHADER: 5.1
FREE DISK SPACE: 80 GB
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 4 GB

The first thing to note is those GPU's contain more than 2GB of VRAM.

That out the way, have you updated your drivers - GPU, Sound, motherboard, OS updates? Also was the game patched recently prior to issue(s)?

BTW it looks like your card supports the latest 20.4.2 drivers released on 23 April 2020

Darrell01 · 27 May 2020

Yeh, I know that my graphics card is old. It has been fine for the past few years of playing Gears though.

The only updates that could have installed are for Gears itself or Windows - as those are handled automatically.

The issue did go away for a bit, actually. I was able to play games without Gears freezing. They've come back within the last week or so though. I updated my graphics card drivers to the optional one and it's made no difference.

Is there any way to determine exactly what's causing these crashes?

Helmut · 27 May 2020

I would go through basic Hardware and Software checks including:
1) Scan HDD for bad sectors.
2) Use SFC and DISM command line stuff to check on your Windows install. Guides on here.
3) Check temperatures of CPU and GPU while running something suitably stressful.

First thought would be 3) due to the time factor of around 30 min involved, but it could be the HDD if it is very old and you never check it.

Whilst you may get an alert concerning the AMD graphics driver that can be due to underlying problems as in the basic checks 1), 2), and 3).

Once the basics have been done then you move on to some other things.

Darrell01 · 30 May 2020

So, here's what I've got so far:

1) I ran the error checker on both partitions on my HDD and it said that they're both fine

2) SFC said the following:

Gears of War 4 Crashes Constantly - Possible Graphics Card Issue-sfc-scannow-results.jpg

This means that I don't have to do the DISM checks, right?

I haven't run Gears 4 since SFC performed those fixes. What's the best way to stress test my PC and monitor the CPU and GPU temps?

Darrell01 · 03 Jun 2020

Ok, so I did the following DISM checks and they all came back fine.

Gears of War 4 Crashes Constantly - Possible Graphics Card Issue-dism-scan-results.jpg

I've been looking at stress testing my PC and Prime95 keeps coming up. Could someone advise me how to use it, please? I don't want to damage my PC by accident.

Thanks

- - - Updated - - -

So, I downloaded Speccy and ran it alongside Gears 4. My PC had been on for about half an hour before recording the temp below:

Gears of War 4 Crashes Constantly - Possible Graphics Card Issue-before-crash-copy.jpg

Then about half an hour into Gears, it crashed and I took a screenshot of it as soon as I could. This is what I got:

Gears of War 4 Crashes Constantly - Possible Graphics Card Issue-after-crash-copy.jpg

So, I've stopped playing Gears! I Googled my CPU and couldn't find any temp ranges for it. I did find somewhere that, on the whole, 80°C is too hot for a CPU.

Could someone advise me where to go from here, please?

Faith · 03 Jun 2020

Hey Darrell.

It depends on the cpu. The Intel i5 3570K has a Tcase of 67c and a TDP of 77W. Core & Tjunction - safe temps - for that cpu is around 75c, with a throttle temp around 100c. Basically your cpu is running too hot for comfort. Your PC is not really ready for Gears 4 and I am quite surprised you even made it run for this long without it crashing. What cooler do you use on the cpu? It's possible that the thermal compound has become too dry.

Darrell01 · 04 Jun 2020

Thanks for replying. I’m just using the fan that came with the CPU. Nothing special.

RoadBlaster · 04 Jun 2020

Darrell01 said:

Thanks for replying. I’m just using the fan that came with the CPU. Nothing special.

So you could buy an upgraded CPU cooler ? & what about your case fans as it looks like even the GPU is getting hot, maybee you case does not have enough air flow for cooling ?

As a gamer I always use an upgraded cooler as you are really using the power in your CPU for a long time & not just for short bursts.

Faith · 04 Jun 2020

Depends on what 7800 series he has, but in general 62c is within safe range. The cpu temp is what's concerning. The stock cooler from intel should operate better than this at stock frequency (3.40 GHz). You should use HWinfo64 instead to check the temps, as it will pull from sensors from each component more accurately. Confirm with that, and if it's still high 80c then try to first blow out dust from it using compressed air or similar. If that doesn't work try re-applying new thermal paste if you have one available, or get someone to help you with that.

Dunno if this has anything to do with the game crashing though, but regardless that temp is not comfortable.