Hard-crashing PC, Im desperate

[BaconDragon42]

A friends game keeps crashing whenever we try to play, and it doesnt just crash, it takes the whole PC with it. Everything goes off, but the fans keep spinning and it needs to be unplugged to shut down finally. No crash reports or error logs to be found by either windows or the game itself.
At around year 50 it will always crash, loading a save will cause it to crash soon again.

What was tried: reinstalling the game (its on steam), verrifying the game files, verifying windows files, turning mods off and on, updating GPU drivers and direct X and even windows.

When I host I have all the DLCs and he of course has none because he just wanted to look into the game, but that shouldnt matter, right?
I really want him to enjoy this game as its probably my favorite paradox title but its getting more and more difficult to talk someoen into risking their PC blowing up.

Please, if anyone has ANY suggestions tell me.

His specs:

Msi X470 gaming pro motherboard
Amd ryzen 9 5900x CPU
Gskill trident z 3200mhz cl16 2x8gb (xmp profile 1 @ 3200mhz) RAM
Gigabyte RTX 3060ti Vision OC GPU

 

[AndrewT]

Are you or your friend using an ASUS computer? If so they have an MP 'helper' app (whose name we don't mention publicly) that causes this to our games. You'll need to unload that before you play MP.

Or does this also happen in single player to them and/or you?

 

[BaconDragon42]

Are you or your friend using an ASUS computer? If so they have an MP 'helper' app (whose name we don't mention publicly) that causes this to our games. You'll need to unload that before you play MP.

Or does this also happen in single player to them and/or you?

He does not have an ASSU computer, what other kinds of "helper" apps are there? What else could be causing it?

I also heard that maybe a cleaner reinstallation may help, is that true? I would hate to make someone download a whole game again with additional steps if its not likely to help at all. What we did the first time was simply unsubscribing from all mods and uninstaling then reinstalling the game. Are there any folders that contain temp files that may be creating issues?

 

[AndrewT]

Does this also happen in single player to them and/or you?


Here's the clean reinstall process:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.