Computer Randomly Crashing

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Hanyoro

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Jul 13, 2013
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Two weeks ago my MSI GTX 670 failed and I had to return it to MSI. After I contacted MSI they said they did tests on my card and it was definitely faulty. During those 2 weeks without a video card I used the Intel HD 4000 on my motherboard/cpu in place of an actual GPU. While the Intel HD 4000 didn't run games at high settings, it worked and I didn't crash at all while playing games. I just recently got my video card back and I've been having constant issues with my computer crashing during games. This seems to happen completely randomly and I cannot figure out the reason. The only thing I can think of is if MSI sent me another faulty video card as I've had no issues before my GPU went kaput. When my computer crashes the screen goes black, my audio starts going crazy, and I have to do a hard reboot on the system. I checked the event logs in Windows and I am unable to find anything relating to this in the logs (here's a screenshot of the last log before it crashed: http://puu.sh/3CnE1.png). I did a memtest and found nothing, and I also tried to run Furmark for 2 hours and I didn't recieve a crash. These crashes seem to happen completely at random and I cannot pinpoint the cause.

My motherboard, RAM, CPU, and video card all have warranties so I can send them back. I was thinking of sending everything back to make sure but I have no idea what to do...

Extra Information:

Specs from Speccy:

Operating System
Windows 8 Pro 64-bit

CPU
Intel Core i7 3770K @ 3.50GHz 48 °C
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology

RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)

Motherboard
Intel Corporation DZ77BH-55K (CPU 1) 40 °C

Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1920x1200@59Hz)
2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (MSI) 45 °C

Hard Drives
119GB OCZ-AGILITY4 (SSD)
932GB Western Digital WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 (SATA) 47 °C
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EADS-32S2B0 (SATA) 57 °C
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EADS-00R6B0 (SATA) 52 °C
932GB Western Digital WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1 (SATA) 45 °C

Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH14NS40

Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

Power Supply
750 watt Silencer from PC Power and Cooling

Spreadsheet of temperatures from HWINFO from when I started playing Dota 2 all the way up to the crash: http://puu.sh/3Cnby.CSV

Picture of monitor when this issue occurs: http://puu.sh/3Cpfc.jpg
 
Solution
Tradesman1
Might want to remove the drivers for the GPU, then do a fresh install of them and see if that helps - second thought is that Yes, they did send you a faulty card ( I myself don't have much faith in MSI (poor QC and Support - and this would fall into support) - haven't really ever had any problems with their GPUs myself
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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Might want to remove the drivers for the GPU, then do a fresh install of them and see if that helps - second thought is that Yes, they did send you a faulty card ( I myself don't have much faith in MSI (poor QC and Support - and this would fall into support) - haven't really ever had any problems with their GPUs myself
 
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Solution
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Hanyoro

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Jul 13, 2013
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I actually used driver sweeper after manually uninstalling them just to make sure I got the drivers off... Also, I installed the latest drivers if that helps.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Oct 3, 2012
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The last error you have posted makes it look like you are experiencing TDR errors. Basically the graphics driver is not responding to the operating system in a timely fashion and is therefore being reset by Windows. This is likely caused by the graphics hardware not responding to the driver.

On another note, are those idle temps or load temps for your equipment? If those are idle temps, they actually seem a bit high. What sort of ambient temperatures do you experience in the room your computer is running in?

For all the specs you mentioned, you left out the power supply, or else I'm overlooking it! :) Care to shed some light as to what you're running for a power supply?
 
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Hanyoro

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Jul 13, 2013
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Sorry I forgot the power supply, it's a 750 watt Silencer from PC Power and Cooling. These are my current idle temps according to speccy: http://puu.sh/3CoWv.png . I'm using a stock cooler for my CPU so it may be higher than usual. Under load my GPU seems to get 80 degrees at highest.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Some hardware monitoring application can cause instability. When the problem occurs, are you always running monitoring software? Perhaps try other software, or disabling all monitoring software for the duration of troubleshooting, or at least until you can rule that out.

Are you running more than one application that monitors your equipment, such as Afterburner, Trixx, Speccy, GPU-Z, etc.? Only run one monitoring program at a time, unless you are sure there are no conflicts between programs.
 
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Hanyoro

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Other than the HWINFO spreadsheet I put on the OP I have NOT run monitoring software while this problem happens.
 
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Hanyoro

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I do not have another Power Supply to test this with, what is the chance that this issue is dealing with my power supply? I'll give taking the hard drives out a shot in a moment.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Oct 3, 2012
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It *could* be a power supply issue. No guarantees about it, but if your video card were receiving insufficient amperage, that would certainly cause weird issues. Dropping some 12 volt devices from the build for now could perhaps help to lessen the occurrence of the symptoms.

Any chance you are skilled in the usage of, and have a voltmeter you could test the 12 volt line with? Otherwise, you could try something like Hardware Monitor and see if it will read your 12 volt line and tell you if it's too far out of spec:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Hmm, sorry if I misunderstand your wording, but you don't need to take the hard drives out, just unplug them temporarily. I'm not trying to put you to oodles of busywork but rather perform a quick test to see if you can reproduce the symptoms with a lighter 12 volt load on the system.
 
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Hanyoro

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Jul 13, 2013
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I don't have a voltmeter and never used one, is there one you could link to me to buy? Also here is what HWMonitor says: http://puu.sh/3CpMv.png
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Actually, if Hardware Monitor is giving you a fairly reasonable looking reading, which it appears to be, I wouldn't worry too much about doing a voltmeter test. I'm not really wanting to recommend somebody who doesn't know what they're doing be poking their power leads with meter probes.

Can you perhaps keep Hardware Monitor open while you run a load test on the GPU to see if your 12 volt line is sagging under load? You can use something like FurMark to put a load on the GPU and see what your 12 volt line dips down to, or if the system even remains stable under the load. Also, keep an eye on what your graphics card's temperature does. If you experience the problem while running FurMark, does it happen consistently at the same temperature?

FurMark:

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/
 
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Hanyoro

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Jul 13, 2013
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I've actually ran Furmark for an hour before and didn't experience the issue. this issue seems to only happen when I am playing a game, particularly Dota. What should I be looking for on HW Monitor? If the voltage goes under 12 where it says +12v?
 
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Hanyoro

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Jul 13, 2013
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I'm going to try reformatting tomorrow and using another SSD I have... I have no idea what to do at this point, I'm hoping this is just some odd driver issue and reformatting will fix it.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Well, sounds like you're already on the right track. Most electrical systems have a 10% cushion, so I would suspect you would be seeing under 11 volts on the 12 volt line before you experienced any major issues with the voltage sagging.

If you're formatting and reinstalling anyway, you might try with a regular hard drive, in case you're running into a firmware issue with your SSD.
 
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Hanyoro

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Well I have another SSD laying around thats why I want to use it. I don't believe this is an issue with my SSD because I've had it since I built this computer in September and I never had ANY issues until my GPU started giving me problems.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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I'm sorry for your frustrations, but sometimes this is the way it goes. I have sent boards in for RMA service to receive the same faulty board back, and that's with companies of good reputation. Be persistent though and you'll be enjoying your computer, not wishing you'd never heard of the company that sold the card to you. :) If it makes you feel any better, I'm awaiting an RMA on a graphics card myself.
 
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Hanyoro

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Thanks for all the help man! I wouldn't be so frustrated if they just sent me back a working part the first time I did the RMA process. Someone suggested to me that I push to get a new video card so this doesn't happen again.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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Jun 5, 2013
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Since second time might just hint, that why don't they give you a better card that will really work instead of sending you another dud - surprisingly, with the better brands this often gets a positive result, doubt if it will fly w/ MSI, but it's worth a try
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Well, I hardly doubt any company sees great value in sending out defective equipment. That has bad PR written all over it. When doing RMA testing, they test what they can in a practical fashion, but can't exactly test every situation under the sun. If it passes their validation testing, the card is generally good to send back to customers in the RMA channel, even though the test conditions may not always be indicative of usage conditions. If the card fails validation, it likely goes for refurbishing.

I would consider MSI a good company to deal with and their products seem as reliable as the next. In the past they actually cut me a check for the full purchase price of their product when they could not RMA it under warranty. Unfortunately you have to give the people working on RMA claims time to do their job, and that sometimes requires a lot of patience.
 
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