I'm using w7 64bit with 5780 as graphic card. I've updated to the latest drivers and the latest fallout 3 patch.

The problem: It seems to happen when I hold in more than 3-4 buttons, but that might just be a coincidence. Sometimes (after a few minutes) the movement locks up completely, I can't move the mouse or the keys. I can't press escape or anything, it doesn't seem to register any input at all.

This is not a game freeze/crash as the game actually continues, it's just me that is unable to move/interact.

...bump? I'm still stuck with this problem.

Hi there. Let me weigh in as the foremost expert at posting this problem. About a year ago, on my third play through, I began experiencing this problem, seemingly out of the blue. I had experienced several of the other problems, not the stuttering problem, or the codec issue. But random ctd, mystery reboots, crash @ startup, and several bugs ingame, were the norm, and I lurked this board in search of answers, and usually got what I needed here, until this happenned. After much tweaking and redoing and .ini editing, I found the only way around this was to go into the .ini and change the setting that controls audio ( I have long since forgoten the string, but wait, oh yeah), benable_audio=1 and change it to =0 and found out that the input freeze went away. So the only known workaround (this requires a diehard dedication to play) is to disable audio and roleplay a deaf guy, who can read lips(subtitles). I coulds only handle a couple hours like that and then I shelved it for a while. Then I loaned oit to a guy who has had no problems with it and bought all the dlc, and I cant find him, and I got Quake wars in exchange

I cross posted on the oblivion boards and found that a small percentage of the people there also experienced this problem with no know fix. No one on here, afik, have figured it out. seems only a few of us get it and the rest cant figure out why. If I'm wrong ppl please weigh in here.

As I remember it, you could go into windows hard ware manager and disable audio device, and it would work that way.

And just for shiggles, let me see, you turn it on and play for maybe 5 to 7 minutes and it freezes, then when nothing else works, you hit ctrl+alt+del and it goes away and windows task manager lets you kill the game, then you restart the game, and this time you play for 45 seconds tops, then the freeze, ctrl+alt+rinse +repeat. every time thereafter it will happen quick, like the second run freeze, until you reboot windows, then it resets the cyle.

The only consistent thing I sdaw in the several DXDiags i saw, were realtek onboard audio hardware. that what you got?
I thinkone of the victims had a soundblaster card tho :/ some said maybe its my wireless kb/mouse.

TLDR= me too and nobody knows how to fix it except to disable audio,


Heres a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1043149-mouse-keyboard-lock-ups-on-xp/page__p__15129984__fromsearch__1&#entry15129984 of this, with maybe a lil help.


Read the last post in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1036541-fallout-3-freezing-any-ideas/


Maybe ahttp://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1038303-sound-causing-freeze/too.

Heres hoping you get to enjoy the best game ever.

so nothing? I love how this one issue generates minimal interest from the community. nobody really has anything to say about it. you still having this problem?

I'm using a realtek onboard audio device, yes. Considering people have already pointed out what causes the bug it shouldn't have been too hard for bethesda to fix this in a patch. I guess it's too late now though.

perhaps i should just buy a new audio card. Thanks for the reply/help and all the links by the way.

i would be interested to know if a new sound card solves it.

I was using the on-board Realtek HD, a while back. Stuttering/chirping went away after I installed Creative Titanium.
Then, after completing all the DLCs...(MZ was last) the stuttering returned. But, only after I beam back to earth. Never
in MZ. Leading me to beleive that there might be an issue with which card the "particular" developers were using when
they wrote the code. There seems to be an inconsistency.

If I were more of a masochist, I'd remove the Titanium and go back to the Realtek to see if it does, indeed prove my point.
Maybe one day...

Win 7, Asus P5KC, C2D E6850, GF 8800 GT Super+ 1 GB
I have a similar problem. Keyboard and mouse do not react. It always happens after a couple minutes of play, while the world around character live their lives.

I Know right? So we cant really say the keyboard isn't working though, because you have to ctrl alt del, which works perfectly, amirite? so the game seems to stop recognizing the keyboards input...


Game stops responding to input. Why does this have its solution tied to the audio? figure this out and we may have a new direction to go.....

And to ftsi, Even if you are a little bit of a masochist, you would be doing yourself and the world a favor by trying that and bringing your results back here.


As always, I would like to see a gamesas employee show up in here and say they are ;looking into it, but im sure they are done with this title...

Assuming Alt-Tab works as it should when the game loses it's keyboard hook (you may need another program running in the background for it to do so), you could try this:

When the game starts ignoring the keyboard input, alt-tab out of and back into the game. I'd imagine this would have a chance to reset the keyboard hook and/or reset any "ignore keyboard input" -variable, and thus work around the problem. The theory is simply based on that they most likely either unhook the keyboard or ignore the input when the game loses focus. When it re-gains focus they either re-hook the keyboard or stop ignoring the input.

If this workaround magically fixes the problem, I would look into finding a focus-stealing program as there is most likely one installed on your system. Some freeware anti-virus solutions do this at random (was it AVG, Avira or Anti-vir?). Any program with a popup ad or message might screw with it (I know MSN doesn't even though it has potential)... in short, disable everything you can, cleanbooting might or might not help - but it's a start. If you do have a focus-stealing program running, it should be easy to detect it though. Leave a program running (like your browser) and make sure it is focused (click on it). Leave it running for the same amount of time as it usually takes for you to lose keyboard input in-game, come back and see if it has lost focus.

... just a theory ...

a step in the right direction.

That would be a very frustrating solution though, to have the game be interrupted every five minutes.

I have a USB sound card that I tried, but it didn't help.

How do I disable the realtek audio device completely? I've disabled it in sound manager.

I have uninstalled and removed the audio device, but the problem persists. I don't think it has anything to do with realtek after all.

bump for news? is this still plaguing anyone? dont forget, this IS a real problem.

Disable SRS in the Realtek HD Audio Manager. That did the trick for me.

How did you do that? Where do I find SRS?

We used to get this quite often in the Oblivion forums. Some sort of codec issue, though I don't know what specifically was the problem. The usual fix was (and is) installing the http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm. Give it a try.

I already have that installed I'm afraid.

I have refrained from pre-ordering New Vegas in case this bug will be there as well (looks like it has been in every gamebryo bethesda game?). I hope they release a PC demo or something.

I posted this a little to soon. It only worked for a day or so. My real problem was my quad-core processor. I had to change a bin file in order to make the game recognize all four cores instead of two. If you have a quad-core I recommend looking up the instructions on how to change the file. I unfortunately don't remember where I got the instructions.

Edit: I made the changes but it still freezes after 5 minutes.