Hard Crash on Vista Computer

Sounds like there is a bigger issue then just the game. Is the Power Supply in good condition or have enough wattage? No offense but the computer cannot be just shut off by a game. This sounds like a deeper issue possible with the power supply. And yes it can just come from one or two programs as some will not tax the CPU much so it doesn't draw much power while others (like Sins) can tax the CPU a lot and draw a lot of power causing this said issue. Mind you I am basing this off my own personal experience that when this happens (and Sins is often one of the games that causes this for me) my power supply is going bad or not enough wattage.

Was the desktop custom built?  Occasionally you will have computers shut off as a failsafe to prevent overheating...that's rather uncommon (and rarely if ever by design) but a possibility I suppose...

Are you playing any other intensive games on this computer?  If Sins is the only "intensive" program you are using then that is an entirely different situation than if comparably intensive games run just fine...

My son plays everything on this computer, and has never had a similar problem. Sins is not nearly the most cpu intensive game he plays. The game has been crashing the computer since we bought it (where he has to turn it off himself), but today it just went to a black screen. I'm concerned that the windows installation will be at risk due to all the bad restarts. 

It's very unlikely that, given all that he plays, that suddenly Sins just happens to find that one thing that is wrong with the computer. If sins is the only game in the world that can find a computer problem, then the problem is the game.

It could be a memory leak...is it fairly predictable how long you can play this game before having a problem?  If it tends to happen around the hour mark, try and monitor the memory usage and CPU usage with task manager and see if 1)  Sins keeps increasing, eventually hitting 2 GB and/or 2) Your CPU hits 100% usage...

If that doesn't seem to be the issue, I suppose it could be a graphics card issue...there aren't suppossed to be any issues with ATI but you never know...

Make sure to bump this thread on Monday when the devs get back from their holiday break...they may be able to help you...

Thanks for the advice. We'll do it.

Memory leaks (or any user-mode software failure for that matter) can't bring an modern entire system down. Issues like this are most often due to driver issues (driver bugs are found on a regular basis that may manifest only under very specific conditions) or hardware issues (heat, power, stress on specific components, etc).

The first order of business is to check that BSODs are enabled to be displayed in the Windows settings to be sure that isn't it (by default windows will just reboot or shut down) and to review the system logs from the time of the failure. If that doesn't turn anything up, then you probably are looking at a hardware issue.

No BSOD's have happened, and no system errors. 

We monitored the process size tonight. It grew steadily larger over time. The process starts at about half a gig then grows quickly to just under a gig. Over time it grows, though. We just quit playing when it got to around 1.4 gigs and it never crashed. 

I didn't monitor my process (it is Windows 7, not Vista). I will do that tomorrow and see if Windows 7 (or a system setting on my machine) is preventing the process from crashing when it gets past 2 gig where Vista isn't. 

If we ever crash while we're under that limit, I'll come and say so. If it doesn't, then it seems to me that there is a memory leak.

maybe see if you can find a CPU temperature monitor that will output measurements to a log that you can check after crashes, and see what the final entries are.

AMD might have a CPU load tester as well.

Most times its just the temprature. Nvidia NB-GRaphiccards are especialy good in this

just clean your  cooling system with "compressed air" or better by opening the notebook. Other games mybe use your systemcomponents on other ways than sins does it. So it could be that other games dont crash.

I doubt that it is temperature. The computer gets much hotter running Shogun Total War 2 in the middle of a huge battle than it does with Sins without crashes. 

The way we're handling this is to play for 30 to 45 minutes and then quit it and restart it on his machine. We've not had any crashes since we've been doing that. He also reduced the graphics settings, and though we don't know if that's affected the crashing, the load times for him getting the game up and running went way down.