Simcity "signal loss" "Black screen of death" thread [ Edited ]

[noeyjerd]

There are a ton of threads about this issue. EA or Maxis hasn't acknowledged this problem yet. When you call EA they blame your computer but how can it be all our computers? How can this be the only game that messes up our computer like this? There are a few people on here telling people it is their faulty hardware OR it is an overheating issue. All our cards overheating? All of us have faulty hardware that just so happened to mess up while playing Simcity? I doubt it. I don't know what it is but it couldn't be that I don't think. 

Here is my issue. I will try and load a city. Before it is loaded all the way my screen goes black and my monitor says "no signal" The lights and fans on my computer are still on but nothing happens. I have to manually turn off my computer. If I try to turn it back on, it doesn't turn on. I have to wait a minute before I can turn it back on. My city sometimes load and when it does I am able to play as much as I want in the city (which shows me my graphic card is stable enough to run it) but when I go to regional view it happens.

These ARE signs of hardware problems but if so, how can this be the only game? Is that even possible? I ran The Witcher 2 on uber settings and ran around trying to crash my system. It didn't happen. I played Battlefield 3 on ultra running and shooting trying to crash my system. it didn't happen. I ran Furmark (GPU stress test overclockers use to test) my card was fine running that as well. I have both the CCC and coretemp up while playing. My CPU is a i7 920 OC to 3.8 and it is in the 60-70 temp range. My GPU is a Radeon HD 6950 and is in the 70-75 temp range. Those are not overheating temps what so ever. If it was a hardware problem we are all experiencing wouldn't the same problems show in other, more graphical games? If I am shown proof that it is overclocking doing it I will turn all mine off but seeing that other games and stress tests (Furmark and prime95) work just fine, I am having a troubled time seeing any ties between the two.

I have contacted someone who works at Maxis (MaxisMC over on reddit) and they said they will pass the error a long to the graphic guys so we shall see what happens. I would suggest others do the same for they can see that this is a wide spread problem. I hope it gets fixed soon. It is getting frustrating. 

Here is my video of what is happening. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMClZSCCnEw

Here are a few more videos from people on these forums seeing the same exact problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-Y1HoablU&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcgx985f-mQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLBf_o0UFiw

If you have the ability to record and this is happening to you, record it and post it in this thread to show EA/Maxis.

To show how many people are having this issue;

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Crash-Black-Screen-Reboot/m-p/717212/highlight/false#M3404

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/monitor-losing-signal-and-crashing/m-p/707522/highlight/false#M3325

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Black-Screen-Of-Death/m-p/721966#U721966

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Simcity-shuts-my-computer-down/m-p/729902#M3592

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/SimCity-runs-fine-for-30-60-minutes-then-Blue-screens/m-p/737626/hi...

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/BSOD/m-p/740874/highlight/false#M3764

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/VIDEO-Computer-automatically-shuts-down-30-seconds-after-start/m-p/...

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Typical-day-of-SimCity/m-p/749400/highlight/false#M3870

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Keep-getting-a-blue-screen-in-Simcity-5/m-p/736018#U736018

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Crashing-my-PC/m-p/762048#U762048

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/URGENT-HELP-CRASHING-PC/m-p/774136#U774136

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Simcity-BLue-Screen/m-p/642678#U642678 

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/Try-this-potential-fix-to-the-BSOD-no-input-problem/m-p/780686#U780...

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/SIMCITY-Crashing-my-COMPUTER/m-p/634884#U634884

Those are just the threads on these forums (on the front page) and there are new posts being made every day about the same EXACT problem! I didn't paste in the threads I am a part of on other forums with people having the same issue! How can this be our computers if it is happening to a lot of us?

They need to look at this and try to find what is going on with us. Like I typed before, I can accept it is hardware if I am shown proof that it is but stress tests and playing other games show otherwise.....

[flyinghawkic]

Thank you for this post!

Everyone with the same problems: click "ME TOO"

[noeyjerd]

No problem. I want this fixed ASAP. I don't know if this problem could be bad ram or not. Doesn't seem like it though. I haven't done a memory test but I am stress testing my machine with both prime95 and furmark at the same time and no "no signal" error shutdown happening.

[noeyjerd]

I ran the tests for almost 2 hours. I know you usually need more time but I put my CPU and GPU to 100 percent load and it was going just fine when Simcity crashes after minutes so in my eyes 1 and a half hours is plenty time to see if it is hardware causing it or not.

When the black screen of death happens it is your computer shutting down to prevent any damages to your card right? It usually happens when the card is overheating am I correct? Could the card somehow THINK that it is overheating and shut down? I know some about computers but I am not a big tech guy so I have no idea how that stuff works. I can be wrong and I am probably wrong on this one heh. CPU 60-70 GPU 70-75 is not overheating temps.

[flyinghawkic]

Could be, but I'm not a tech guy either.

It's up to EA and Maxis to solve the problem now! It's getting very frustrating....

[noeyjerd]

Could be the drivers as well. That would lay on AMD's doorstep. but from what i saw nvidia users are having problems as well. There is a recent nvidia driver out on the 4th that is made for simcity though. (for nvidia users) This isn't happening to all of the amd users but it seems to be a good amount. It is getting frustrating. I can deal with server issues (been a WoW player for 6 years) but this issue is non excusable. I would be happy with word from Maxis saying that they know and are working on a fix. I don't want to wait here for a fix and have them never even take a look at it.. 

[mr_juhan]

Me too. Playing with MIN lighting and no shadows as a workaround until SOMEONE SOMEWHERE OUTTHERE FIXES THIS!

Using an AMD Radeon HD 6850.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Crashes/HERE-ARE-CRASH-SOLUTION-s/m-p/732598#M3632

[muleskinnalu]

Whoever was involved in making this game should hang their head in shame. Being an actual IT professional this is a complete disgrace to something labeled as "Professional". I have similar issues where it goes black and then just crashes the computer completely and then I have to hard reboot. No fix found for myself yet. Hope someone does though.

[flyinghawkic]

I hope every day for a fix, so I can finally play the game I paid for. And they should fix the blue grid shining through... Like you see in my video.

It looks like these problems are mainly with ATI Radeon?

EDIT: why isn't there still a fix? Because this is their priority: http://frontpage.fok.nl/nieuws/590051/1/1/100/simcity-modders-vinden-super-debug-mode.html

[Darkmercenary988]

this BSOD is a problem with the games software, from what i can tell, varyations in the time before the BSOD is differentiated by the graphics cards ability. From what I have seen and what i know of programming, im guessing somewhere in their code its overloading a function for display and audio (in many BSOD cases the audio freezes or repeats). from what i can tell, my systems still running, it just forces the graphics card and auido to crash. ive even run it in the lowest end settings and highest end settings using EVGA's Precision X software, runs fine in either untill whatever function is called then crashes.

EA's admins probably planned this and are laughing their heads off, if they do make a 'patch' to fix a BSOD they shouldn't use 'fixed crash' but 'fixed BSOD error' instead, so those of us suffering from this problem dont get our hopes up.