Unable to open the game without it crashing to desktop

My game constantly crashes to desktop. I can't get past the login screen most days. It either crashes during the intro graphic or when I'm on the login screen. Can't even get to character selection.

I've been experiencing this problem since 3.23, but have used the work around to select "efficiency mode" on the path of exile process in task manager. However recently even that work around has been failing.

My computer stats:
OS: Windows 11
RAM: 64gig DDR5
CPU: i9-13900KF
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 super

These are the current steps I've followed:
1: Verified integrity of game files (in steam)
2: Deleted and re-downloaded the entire of PoE at least 10 times. Clearing all cache and local folders
3: Reformatting my computer with windows 11 keep files.
4: Reformatting my computer with windows 11 delete everything.
5: Re-installed steam.
6: Changing between Direct X 11, Direct X 12, Vulkan graphics.
7: Adjusting down all graphics settings

Please help, is there something else I'm missing?


Last bumped on Apr 23, 2024, 7:21:08 AM
Very weirdly there's some users that used either Balanced or Energy Saver power plan in windows and it helped.

For me, I tried putting my maximum CPU efficiency at 99% instead of 100%, and while its not great for performances, I stopped crashing so often.

Also, going back to 1920x1080p somehow was way more stable and crashless than 1440p... Weird since it only happened since this league.

If you: Right click Windows Icon, go to Event Viewer, Windows Logs: Application.

Locate the timestamp of PoE crash, and if it's error code 0x00005 or something like that, MANY users has the same problem and they all have different specs.

If it's something else, probably something on your end then.


And by the way, reformatting your computer with delete everything, did you actually hard format your drives in the setup or just let windows delete your personal files and nothing else. Big difference there.

*I am not affiliated to GGG in any ways*
Try disabling Engine Multithreading.

If you can't get to the game long enough to change it go to C:\Users\*windows name*\Documents\My Games\Path of Exile\ and open and edit your settings in the production_config file.
I only reformatted my windows drive. But I'd deleted POE from my steam library on my other drive before hand.
When I then re-installed steam and POE fresh on the windows drive rather then my separate gaming drive.

The disabling of multi-threading didn't help either. :(

I've done a bit more digging and analysis and it looks like there might be a hot spot on my CPU that could be causing this issue.
I'd done burn in tests and other tests and had no issues, but POE seems to cause 4 of my cores to hit 98C. This looks like why it worked for so long when I had energy saver active.

I've up'd my fan profile to have them max out earlier and aim for a lower temp before starting the game. This looks like it works with energy saver active at the moment.
I'll try and grab some more thermal paste over the weekend and re-seat my heatsink then report back :)

:( can't get the image to work
Last edited by spuderator on Apr 23, 2024, 7:22:03 AM

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