Factorio crashing on Windows 11

[McSniperliger]

Several months ago, I built a new gaming PC (worst possible timing ever). To give a run down to maybe help pinpoint the issues I am having:

Asus ROG Strix X870E-H Motherboard
Asus Loki Platinum 850w PSU
Sapphire RX9070XT 16GB GPU
AMD Ryzen 9 9900x 12 core CPU (I do not overclock)
4x16GB (64GB total) Corsair DDR5 6400 (dropped to 3600mhz by default have not adjusted speeds)
Thermaltake TH420 v2 AIO
2x 1 TB Corsair MP700 M.2 2280 nvme
1 2 TB Corsair MP700 M.2 2280 nvme
Windows 11 Pro

I believe that is all the main hardware. It is all cooled with 10 140mm fans

The issue I run into on occasion and its not even consistent when it happens. I could be in single player or I could be doing multiplayer with my brother, but the game will just randomly lock up and crash my computer. Could happen after 30 minutes of playing or several hours. I could even have a few several hour gaming sessions and have zero issues with the game. I do realize that DDR5 has stability issues when running 4 sticks of RAM, but I have zero crashing issues with say American Truck Simulator or Euro Truck Simulator 2. All the times the game has crashed, I reboot and go into Event Viewer to see if there is anything that sticks out. Other than seeing a bunch of warnings, errors, critical, nothing says one way or another what the issue is so I can address it. I did try tonight turning EXPO on just to see what would happen, nothing, would not even boot. Had to go back into BIOS and disable it, which no big deal, just an inconvenience.

I play the game through Steam, so I don't think that's the issue. On this gaming PC I have about 150 hours of gameplay on Factorio, the other 160 or so hours was done on a 2015 Asus Q55L laptop, game ran pretty well on that for being so old, but due to cats walking on the power cord going into the laptop, the charge port kept breaking off the main board and got tired having to fix it. That laptop had zero issues running the game with Discord in the background. Game crashes after being in for a while. The last crash I had tonight, was I think after about 30 minutes. I had the autosave timer set to the upper right of my screen next to the mini-map and it locked up at 3:44 to next autosave. Fortunately the only things I had done before the crash and in between autosaves was taking out a singular spawner and adding a couple Assembly 2 machines. When I was going into the last Assembly 2 machine to setup what I want crafted, soon as the GUI opened for it, game crashed. Kind of doubt this is a game bug, but I have no idea. Now full disclosure, but I doubt this is the problem, I setup my worlds in 2.0.32 then after I have them established, I set to current 2.0.76. They had made changes where if you tinker with the world generation, you get locked out of achievements in the current version, unless you make the world in an older version. But I doubt this is causing the issue.

Is there any place in either Windows that I can check to see where the issue might lie, if it is software related or a hardware issue? Part of me thinks that it is more than likely a RAM issue with all 4 slots filled with RAM sticks, which is dumb that they never optimized DDR5 to run all slots perfectly fine like every other generation of RAM. If that is the problem, its going to be a while before I can fully address it and just take the instability issues, until I can afford to get 2x32 of DDR5 to replace the 4 sticks I have.

[Xelephant]

My Suggestion would be to test your RAM with something like memtest from https://www.memtest.org/, to check for faulty Ram.

Your Ram is already on the maximum Speed available if all 4 Banks are used (3600 according to specs). You might get higher speed if you only use 2 (5400 according to specs), might even be possible to run the expo profile with only 2 banks.

[pioruns]

A proper commissioning of a new PC requires stress testing of all components to make sure they are working. Have you actually done that, after putting together your PC a couple of months ago? Even if you did, now it seems some component is failing, and you need to determine which one it is.

What I would do:

1. CPU: Use Prime95 www.mersenne.org/download/
Do several hours of stress testing (select one of the maximum heat/stress options and let it run). Must show zero errors.

2. RAM: Use MemTest86 https://memtest.org/
Boot from a USB stick, let it run for several hours, make sure to look for a few passed rounds. Must show zero errors.

3. GPU: Use FurMark 2 https://geeks3d.com/furmark/downloads/
Run it for several hours. Computer must not crash, monitor must not flicker etc.

In each test, watch temperatures. Computer must not shutdown. Check Event Viewer during the CPU and GPU tests too, look for any errors.

See if you can do these tests and come back with your findings.

As you mentioned you have 4 sticks of RAM, you can temporarily remove 2 sticks and use the computer like that for a few weeks to see how stable it is.
Anecdotal note: I also somewhat experienced this problem on a DDR4 AMD platform. First generation Ryzen gave me some problems while running 4 sticks. I finally settled on 4 slower speed ECC UDIMM sticks for that machine. On my newer build, but also with AM4 and DDR4, I went to 2x 32GB ECC UDIMM right away, to avoid any issues. I run these two sticks overclocked from 3200 to 3600 MT/s since I bought it.

[Loewchen]

Try running two sticks with 6000 MHz and see if that is stable.

[McSniperliger]

I did run a stress test back in Feburary after I built it. Can't remember which one I did. At the moment using my TV as a monitor. My desk is a bit too small to have my tower under it or even on top, so need to get a new desk fo accommodate it. But I will run those tests to see what it does. With my AIO, I have it setup to show me CPU temps on its LCD screen, so I can glance over at it. Ryzen 9s tend to run hotter but they are designed to do so.

[McSniperliger]

Running the memtest in the Windows Run, mdsched.exe. The stress tests you all shared, need to get flash drives accord to their own instructions, so those will have to wait until I get new drives to do it.

Do any of the web browser based tests do much or are those more limited in their scope vs these standalone tests?

[McSniperliger]

At least at the moment, the Windows test completed with no errors found with the RAM. Doing a CPU web browser based stress test at the moment. Nearly 15 minutes in and CPU is running at around 172⁰F.

[pioruns]

Good to hear at least Windows built-in memory test is a pass, that's something.

Running the memtest in the Windows Run, mdsched.exe. The stress tests you all shared, need to get flash drives accord to their own instructions, so those will have to wait until I get new drives to do it.

Do any of the web browser based tests do much or are those more limited in their scope vs these standalone tests?

Browser based tests are not good enough, you need to run them faster, using native code.
Prime95 and Furmark do not require USB drive - only Memtest86 one does.
You can install Prime95 and Furmark and launch immediately in Windows.

Also remember to take out two RAM sticks at some point and use computer like that for a while.

[McSniperliger]

Ran the FurMark GPU test for about 45 minutes, no issues with that. Doing the Prime95 CPU RAM test now.

Still running with 4 sticks of RAM just to be sure that its not a full on stability issue.