Full system crashing -- only this game

Can also confirm this is happening to me at least once a session. BSOD error is "attempted switch from dpc". Using Bluescreenview the only highlighted item is 'ntoskrnl.exe'.

Like OP, no other game or program causes this BSOD error and also like OP, I attempted updating drivers, verifying files etc but nothing so far has solved the issue.

I don't even get a bluescreen-- it just completely restarts immediately. As far as the RAM, it doesn't ever get remotely close to 60% of my available with this game.

As I had said, the only hardware change that happened would be the processor. It seems odd that it would be only this game (which hardly uses any of it) would be triggering a full system crash. I don't use any sort of extensions, no. I have a keyboard, mouse, an external hard drive, speakers, and a headset plugged in, the last two of which aren't USB. If it is this processor for some reason, I don't rightly know what to do about it, I guess just not play the game, as I'm not going to downgrade hardware just to play it, unless you or anyone else has any ideas on how to proceed with it or troubleshoot the issue. Having done more solo play, the crashing does still only happen when other players are being interacted with, whether it be chat or actual combat in the game. Earlier I crashed two different times just trying to open the chat to say something to people in an alliance. As correlation is not causation, I can't really say for certain that it's other player interactions that are the issue-- but it has only ever crashed when around, and in particular when interacting with, other players.

I've also tried to submit a ticket about it through the game's site, but if I select 'Hardware, OS, and Driver Support' it just redirects me to a generic troubleshooting page that wasn't too helpful, as this is an extremely specific issue.

No, as explicitly stated in the main post, I have even UNDERclocked all the hardware as well as manually setting it to stock frequencies. I had installed the game while the processor was running at stock settings, but maybe it boosted too high by default. I will lock it to base speed and try reinstalling the game.

Reinstalling while forcing base clock on hardware did not resolve the issue.

I also ran the in-game file checker after reinstalling it (gave me a prompt to do so because it remembered shutting down improperly last time) and that said it found nothing, though I did now confirm that the crashing can happen with other players absent, as what ended my last session was a crash long after sinking another crew and after their mermaid had disappeared. I continued to use the forced base clocks while playing.

I haven't downgraded back to my last processor, I do still have it though. I have reset defaults to test it, as that's what I did when I reinstalled windows, but it was still an issue. I also have disabled the Steam overlay and that didn't help like I had hoped. Keyboard and mouse are plugged into the rear because my front panel header broke, and I only use one monitor. I have not tried the windows store version, you're right, I do not have it.

I will try windowed mode the next time I play and with speakers unplugged. Even so, I don't understand why, if it is an issue with the processor, that it would be isolated to this specific game. I can run benchmarks and burn tests all I want or play things that nearly max it out (like Battlefield 5) all day without issues, but don't know enough about how games work with the hardware to really know if that matters anyway.

I definitely would rather not have to swap back my old processor, quite a pain to do that for two computers, but I will if the windowed mode thing doesn't help. It had worked fine for as long as I had played, which was until season one started, then I stopped playing until I tried about a week ago, so I would imagine it should work still. I also don't think it would be an issue with the Steam version inherently, this seems to be an extremely specific issue, which does suggest it's hardware related.

@bizi-betiko Thank you, I could not for the life of me remember the name of that program. Unfortunately switching SMT off, along with trying the other things I said I would, still did not resolve the issue, and since doing that it also made my in-game voice chat stop working, though undoing the changes didn't fix that particular issue.

I suppose so. That is indeed why I made this post though, exhausted the options I could think of short of putting my old processor back in, so wanted other peoples' input. Will be doing that later to see if the crashes still persist or not, as much as I don't want to. Been trying to do everything I could to avoid it.

How can I go about figuring that out/testing that? I can max out my CPU and GPU at the same time with IntelBurnTest and MSI Kombustor (which end up drawing peak 180w and 300w respectively) without issue as it stands

I had tried those settings after looking at issues with that particular processor, but to no avail. It seems it is another piece of hardware that is causing the issue for sure-- as I put my old processor back in finally and the crashes still occur. I had run Karhu RAM Test to 9500% or so, which presented no issues, but I will be trying some other memory tests to see if any of them are having issues.

I'm having this same issue at the moment, and I'm not sure when it could have started as I haven't played SoT for a few months. I upgraded some PC parts around the end of last year and decided to hop back into SoT and my whole PC will crash and reboot, with no errors in the event log. It is also really random. I can play for an hour or two and be in super intense fights and it will reboot my PC, or I can be idle on the boat AFK and for 15mins after logging in and it will reboot. There is no pattern. It doesn't matter if I'm sitting there staring at the innkeeper or if I'm fighting 2 Galleons with 12 people in my vicinity, it will reboot whenever it feels like it. The only error I ever see in the event log is the Kernel error saying my PC shut down unexpectedly.
I am also running this through the Microsoft Store, not Steam.
I'm running;

• i7-9700k - new
• 4 Samsung SSDs - SoT is NOT on my system drive it is on a separate drive as my system drive does not have room for the 60GB game
• ASUS Prime Z370-P - about 3yrs old
• GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER - new
• 2 x 16GB RAM - new
• 850w Thermaltake Modular Power Supply - new

I have water cooling and nothing in my PC overheats. I've been watching it while I play SoT and the temps never get up high and my CPU usage barely gets above 40%, whilst my memory stays at like 15%.

The funny thing is, it is only Sea of Thieves. I play WoW on two accounts and can have both instances open on both screens running on decent graphic settings with full addon memory load and I literally have 0 issues. Two WoWs open only puts my PC at 40% CPU and 40% memory. I've also played other intense games fine. I am at a loss why Sea of Thieves is making my PC reboot.

Tomorrow I am going to remove, clean and reseat everything in my PC, and double check the PSU connections since it is modular and maybe something is loose. I very highly doubt it comes down to dust or anything, as I did a big PC clean out only a couple of months ago when I got all my new parts. A friend also suggested moving the RAM around to different slots, and if it still crashes my PC, test the RAM sticks by using one at a time. I saw it mentioned above as well so if the reseating and clean doesn't work, that is my next step. If that doesn't work, I need some help haha.

I've tried the following in the system as well;

• PC Reset/Windows reinstall
• Paging files and allocating memory on the SoT drive for virtual memory
• Sea of Thieves reinstall and game file repair (I've had to do repairs multiple times because when it reboots my PC and I open the game it asks me to)
• Clean install of GPU drivers
• Updating all other drivers
• Updating BIOS

And this in SoT:

• Turning Vsync off
• Capping FPS at my screens refresh rate
• Turning settings down
• turning vsync on and fps cap off

My PC isn't overclocked, I have never messed with anything in the BIOS so its running at whatever all the defaults are.

I've also been having this weird issue where if I put my PC to sleep and wake it up, videos will not play, games will not respond when trying to open, and I have no audio. This is why I have updated my Realtek drivers today, and I haven't tested putting my PC to sleep and waking it up yet to see if it worked, but maybe whatever issue SoT has could be related?

Any other suggestions apart from cleaning and reseating everything in my PC would be super appreciated, and I have a feeling it isn't hardware and could be SoT related.