System instability

[Loewchen]

System instability generally means that a machine miscalculates or corrupts data, in factorio this causes crashes, desyncs or corrupted save files.

Differentiate from Factorio bugs

Any factorio problem caused by system instability could theoretically be caused factorio itself, but there are indicators that allow to differentiate:

Indicators for system instability:

• problems only occur on that machine
• problems can never be reliably reproduced
• crashes occur in different parts of code
• crashes occur in code known to unmask system instability
• the system also experiences kernel crashes

Indicators that do not rule out system instability:

• system is new
• drivers and bios are up to date
• system worked flawless before
• other games work fine
• already corrupted save does not work on other systems

Indicating a factorio bug after all: The ability to reliably reproduce the issue on other systems, meaning you can provide exact steps (and save file if gameplay related) to perform after which the problem will occur, every single time and always at the same time.

Diagnosing unstable systems

The fastest and most reliable way to find out why a system is unstable, is to rule out one possibility after the other. The causes are (most common first):

• unstable overclock, especially memory (XMP/EXPO)
• high component temperatures
• defect hardware: memory, mainboard, GPU, CPU, power supply, storage

So remove any overclock, update the BIOS, check temperatures, replace components until the issue disappears. This might not be easy to do though especially without replacement parts and experience with computer hardware.
Diagnostic software like memtest86+ can be an alternative but is less reliable, only works on specific defects and does not give clear direction on what to replace. In the end it might be necessary to consult an electronics repair shop.

Good luck!