Sims 4 Blue Screen Errors

[JaydeL13]

Hii, I've had the Sims 4 for a few years now, on the same laptop.

Within the last few months I've had blue screen issues.

I'll start up the game, it'll work fine for about 10-15 mins then it freezes and I get a blue screen and my laptop restarts.

The blue screen error is either, VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (nvlddmkm.sys) or VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR

I recently had my computer repaired and checked and apparently everything is working fine. I've also updated my drivers multiple times and I'm still having the same problems.

This problem happens whether I have mods installed or not. I've also repaired my game multiple times with no results.

I'm really stuck and ANY help would be greatly appreciated! Thank You

[puzzlezaddict]

@JaydeL13  Have you tried a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver yet?  And are you using the driver provided by the manufacturer of your laptop, or one directly from Nvidia?  If the manufacturer's version is less than two years old, please try that first; you can then try the one from Nvidia if the first one doesn't work.  Here's how to do a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver.

Spoiler

Download Display Driver Uninstaller from here:

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3067

Go to the manufacturer's website to download the driver, or to Nvidia's page if the manufacturer's driver is too old or doesn't help.

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Next, take your computer completely offline—disable wifi and/or pull the ethernet cord—and double-click the DDU.exe.  Take note of where the file will land, and click Extract.  If it's easier, you can copy the path and then paste it into the address bar in a File Explorer window.  Open the folder and then launch Display Driver Uninstaller.exe, and you'll get a message that you're not in Safe Mode.  Click OK, then go to Options and enable Safe Mode dialog.  Here's a screenshot of what your options should look like; make sure the box in red is checked:

Close options, and the DDU, and then open the DDU.exe again.  For launch options, choose "Safe Mode (Recommended)," and then click Reboot to Safe Mode (you'll need your password, so find it before rebooting).  Once you login, you'll see this:

In the blue box, choose GPU, then Nvidia if it's not already showing.  Then click Clean and Restart (red box).

Once your computer has rebooted, now back in normal mode, run the driver install .exe in custom mode.  Select "perform a clean installation" and install ONLY the GPU driver and the PHYSX software.

Reboot again, go back online, and see whether the game works normally.  If not, let me know.

If this doesn't help, or you've already tried a clean uninstall, please post a dxdiag.  I'd like to see what hardware you have, and if there are any other errors worth checking out.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

[JaydeL13]

@puzzlezaddict Hi! I tried the clean uninstall and reinstall and now I'm getting weird colourful graphic flickers like I did in the beginning of all of this which I forgot to mention. When this happens I have to restart my computer otherwise it affects other apps/games.

Here are the graphic glitches

I attached my DxDiag below!

[puzzlezaddict]

@JaydeL13  That doesn't look good.  There aren't any BlueScreens in your dxdiag, which doesn't mean they didn't happen, just that they're not any one of the last ten Windows errors.  Since you're getting a lot of basic Windows errors, please start by running a couple of basi checks on your Windows system files.  Here's how:

• Hit Windows key-X
• Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
• Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes into the window, and enter
• The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
• After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
• Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator)”
• Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes into the window, and enter
• Post the message you receive here

Please also open a File Explorer window and enter C:\Windows\Minidump.  For any you see from the last two or three days, right-click on the file and select Copy, then right-click on your desktop and select Paste.  Then zip them together, upload them to a free filesharing site, and link them here.

[JaydeL13]

@puzzlezaddict The message I received from doing the sfc /scannow is "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

Also here are those files you asked for

https://www.mediafire.com/file/47rd8bw27edb3h7/061120-9015-01.zip/file

[puzzlezaddict]

@JaydeL13  The minidumps all list the Nvidia driver as the issue, which is strange considering you did a clean uninstall and.  I did notice however that your computer's BIOS is four years old.  It's a good idea to update; although I'd be surprised if an old BIOS was somehow incompatible with a new GPU driver, it's helpful for the overall health of your system.

I think I found the correct Gigabyte laptop, but just to make sure, please go here:

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Support

enter your serial number, and you should be taken to the download page for your laptop.  There's an available BIOS update from April 2018.  The risk of a problem occurring while flashing a new BIOS is quite low, but it is real, so if you're not comfortable with the process, and you'd prefer to hold off for now, that's understandable.

Another possibility is that your graphics card is malfunctioning.  If you'd rather start with some hardware monitoring to see how it's performing, that's a reasonable alternative.  Here's how:

Spoiler

Download hwinfo from here:

https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

You don't need to install anything if you don't want to; just choose the Portable version, unzip it, and launch it from Downloads or wherever you want.  (If you would like to install, be sure to click the green button, not the orange one.)  Restart your computer, and don't open any other apps.  Launch hwinfo, choose "sensors only," and click the icon that's a sheet of paper with a + sign to start logging.  Save the file to your desktop for easy access later.

Wait five minutes, then launch Sims 3 and play for 20 minutes or until it crashes.  Click the same button to end logging.  Then upload the log to a third-party free filehosting site and link it here.  Please leave it in .csv format, or if you use OneDrive to share, please compress it in .zip format instead.

[JaydeL13]

@puzzlezaddict Hi, Thank you so much for all your help! I'm not 100% sure what I should do next and I don't wanna risk ruining anything so I think I will go to a computer shop and tell them the things you have said here and see if they can figure anything out! I really appreciate the time and effort you put into helping me, It means a lot!

[puzzlezaddict]

@JaydeL13  Just so you know, hardware monitoring is noninvasive and fairly simple to do: you just run a lightweight program while you play.  But I think it probably is a good idea to have someone physically look at the computer.  You should give the computer tech the minidump files too.

[JaydeL13]

@puzzlezaddict Ok, Thank you again!