Computer crashes when trying to play Assassin's Creed 3

The_Spaniard

I just installed Assassin's Creed 3 for the first time to prep for AC4 and my computer hard-crashes after just a few minutes when I try to play it. My setup can more than handle it, I just finished RAGE at beyond maximum settings. Ran a memtest, came back clean. I'm wondering now if there is something wrong with my GPU or Mobo, but don't know how I'd go about checking. When my computer crashes there is no blue screen it just goes dark, sound locks and just goes continuous ERRRRRRRRRRR, and the fans go into nightmare wind tunnel mode until I hit the reboot button, maybe that's a clue.

I've only had one other game ever do this in the last few months and that was Witcher 1 when I'd play the dice poker mini game for more than a few minutes at a time. But the exact same thing would happen on my laptop too. So could it just be a memory leak in both of these games?

I hope I don't have to replace any parts the DAY AFTER I bought an iPad. That would suck for me and my wallet, especially two weeks before I pick up my PS4.

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System Information

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Time of this report: 11/3/2013, 13:28:33
Machine name: SPAN_WOLF-PC
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130828-1532)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: Z68XP-UD4
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.7GHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 580
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16302MB RAM
Page File: 7016MB used, 25596MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 64bit Unicode

The_Spaniard

Update:

I've run Hot CPU Tester and got no errors during the test. Here are the results:
Hot CPU Tester Pro(Lite Edition) 4.4.1
Copyright © 1999-2003 7Byte Computers
Monday, November 04, 2013 - 10:45:35
Diagnostic Report

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Test Started at: 22:05:37
Test Duration: 06:00:00
Physical Processors Available: 8
Logical Processors Available: 8
Multi-Processors System(SMP): Available
Hyper-Threading Technology: Not Available
CPU Name String: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
Speed: 3391MHz
Logical Processors Tested: CPU 0, CPU 1, CPU 2, CPU 3, CPU 4, CPU 5, CPU 6, CPU 7
Average CPU(s) Performance: 100.0%

Modules Results:
Complex Matrix: Finished without error
Calculating Pi: Finished without error
Sorting Algorithms: Finished without error
Prime Test: Finished without error
Fast Fourier Transforms:
Chipset:
L1 Cache:
L2 Cache:
Memory: Finished without error
HD: Finished without error
MMX: Finished without error
SSE:
SSE2/SSE3:
3DNow!:

The_Spaniard

Update 2:

I've updated my motherboard's Realtek Audio drivers. I even tried disabling my dual monitors because I heard the game doesn't support multi-monitor and just having more than one monitor active can screw things up. Still crashing. I could try flashing my bios, and re-seating everything inside my tower, but I think I've done enough at this point. I think I'm going to just give up and install the game on my old laptop and just hope that it will run decently on it. Maybe I'll try playing in Big Picture mode while I'm at it. If I can just burn through AC3 and all the DLC then I can be ready for AC4, which I'll probably have to pick up on PS4 since it runs the same engine and I'm a bit skittish now. Boy this seems like the exact kind of thing that could have been avoided with a simple demo.

Draygo

Try swapping out your PSU and see if the crashes continue.

The_Spaniard

Draygo wrote: »

Try swapping out your PSU and see if the crashes continue.

I appreciate the suggestion, but I've put more than a reasonable amount of effort into trying to track down what the issue is for a single game. If I'm not going to bother flashing my BIOS, I'm surly not going to spend money on the mere possibility of finding the cause. I'm just going to make due with some mild lag and jitters on my older laptop and play it in big picture mode in the living room.

Le_Goat

After this problem, can you again run RAGE at the same settings as before? Just trying to help figure out if this is just an issue with AC3 or if it is going to continue to be a problem going forward. I had a similar issue in the past and it turned out to be that my PSU was going bad. Didn't figure that out until after my PC wouldn't even POST; looked inside the PSU and it had blown multiple capacitors (product of going cheap on my PSU).