None of my games are working

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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So recently (as in, the past 2 weeks), I built my first pc. Here are the specs;

600w Atrix Power supply
Intel 2 core quad 2.83GHz
8gb Ram (2x4gb)
1TB hard drive
Asus P5P43TD Pro mobo
Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Edition GPU
Windows 7 Ultimate

I installed Battlefield 4 and on first impressions worked like a dream... For about 30-50 seconds before crashing and taking me to the BSOD :( Upset, I went to a technician who recommend I reinstall Win7

I did, along with a reinstall in general by formatting the hard disk. Now I no longer get the BSOD. Played BF4 with no frame drop or anything bad and still crashing, only I get about a minutes worth of gameplay in.

Thinking it was my graphics card not being able to handle it I installed Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, this would crash maybe 5 minutes in doing this weird crash to nothing, reboot to blank screen with moving cursor, back to nothing, reboot to blank screen, ect ect. every time it came up with the cursor I could press the windows button, wait for it to do it's silly reboot thing, and it would come up with the desktop screen but it was delayed, so everytime i clicked something, it would only appear done after this reboot happened. Every reboot lasting 5 seconds or so... not sending any signal to the monitor.
As soon as I confirmed shutdown, it would behave normally and shutdown. I could then turn it on as if nothing happened. I could even get task manager up and end the game from there...
I uninstalled all the drivers for my card, reinstalled them and did a GPU stress test, it passing it fine with no BSOD's or crashes. after installing the catalyst drivers again, my games would crash, and then finding out, that every time I opened the AMD catalyst manager it would crash and do that reboot thing it always does....

So now I'm out of options, I've uninstalled the catalyst manager, but now my games won't even start up because unless I have the catalyst thing, non of my drivers are up to date and working.

Thanks for reading, if anyone can help it would be very much appreciated as this has been a massive anti-climatic experience building my first pc.

-Ollie
 

taylor225

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Oct 6, 2013
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sry to say but it appears you have major compatibly issues with your pc...... when i looked up your cpu on pcpartpicker i added to it a build went to mobos and the only 2 mobos compatible with it i find were these http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/motherboard/ your cpu is not compatible with your mobo your cpu is an old cpu so most new mobos do not work with it sry :/
 

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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so I just looked on that site, it doesn't even have my motherboard on there to compare it with... I'm new to that site so I may be completely blind, I could see that when you click on my CPU it only shows 2 mobo's but after having a look at the full list, there was no sign of my motherboard...

Edit: just gone to the ASUS site and looked at my motherboard specs on there:

http://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/P5P43TD_PRO/

it does say that my motherboard supports 2 core quad. I'm no PC expert so I may be missing out on something here, any help or information would be great if I have got this completely wrong.
 

Deus Gladiorum

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taylor225, that's not true at all. The reason you couldn't find his motherboard on PCPartPicker is because it's been discontinued and you will no longer find retailers selling it, at least not the ones supported by PCPartPicker. If his CPU wasn't compatible with his motherboard, it either wouldn't even fit because they'd be of different sockets, or his PC wouldn't even start up. If you want to be extra thorough about confirming this, here's the list of compatible CPUs according to ASUS for that motherboard. According to his description, the OP is using either a Quad Q9550 or a Quad Q9550S, both of which are listed as supported:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5P43TD/#support

The only reason he might have compatibility issues is if he had a BIOS earlier than version 302, but that's practically impossible because version 302 was the earliest BIOS available for that motherboard.

To the OP, reinstall your drivers (make sure you've uninstalled your previous drivers) and then try to play a few games while monitoring your temperatures for both your CPU and your GPU. For your GPU, try to use MSI Afterburner and turn on the built in OSD so you can see what the temps are like in real time. For your CPU, just leave Hardware Monitor on in the background. After a quick gameplay session (preferably before you crash), check the maximum temps.

UPDATE: Also, in case your curious, here's your motherboard on PCPartPicker:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-p5p43td
 

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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I have 2x4GB DDR3 ram the only thing it says on the ram which would provide a little more info is this "IN3T4GNZBII"
 

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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I have tried reinstalling, I will certainly try again and do the tests and let you know. Thanks
 

Deus Gladiorum

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The looks of a RAM kit have very little to do with how it performs. The reason some have a visible circuit board and some don't is because when you buy a more expensive piece of RAM you also get an added chassis to cover it so it looks cool and more compatible with the aesthetics of a gaming build. There's not necessarily anything wrong with the brand. It's cheap, sure, but it has a perfectly fine voltage. Still, there's always a chance you could have a bad piece of RAM, though it's not likely as the symptoms don't sound like faulty RAM.

The quickest way to test this without using memtest86 (which you should use to test your RAM later if it ends up that your CPU and GPU are fine) is to take out one of your RAM sticks and just test your system using only one. If you still experience crashes then place that piece of RAM back into your motherboard and take out the other piece of RAM and test that one.
 

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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I uninstalled then installed all my drives and did 2 tests, a stress test and games test. the stress test gave me this information. peak temperature of 60 degrees and 85% usage or something like that before I closed it because it was taking a really long time and the temperature wasn't going any higher.

Then did a games test with BF4 and watched as the temperature reached 50 degrees before dropping to 48 then crashing and a maximum "load" of 48% (I don't really know what that means but might be important).

the cpu usage went between 34% and 100%, 70-90% being the clear average. then once crashing it took me straight to a nice sight of BSOD :( haha.

does this info help...?

Thanks for helping so far, it was interesting watching the results as I played a game to see what my GPU went through
 

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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Should I try the RAM test next? or is it the graphics card, judging by the results...


Update: my computer is now doing BSOD randomly.... I'm guessing a windows reinstall to fix...?
 

Deus Gladiorum

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OH WAIT! I think I might know what the problem is. I rechecked your original post, and I realized I misread your PSU. I misread your "Atrix" PSU for an "Anteq" PSU. That might not seem like a big deal, but Atrix is a god awful PSU manufacturer. PSUs are ranked (by the community) according to 5 tiers. Tier 5 is the worst, and tier 1 is the best. Guess where the Atrix PSU falls? Yepp, it's tier 5. The thing about a bad PSU is that any number of things can go wrong with it. If it's not supplying sufficient wattage it could just shut down your PC randomly, or if it's not providing sufficient or proper voltage, it could end up causing BSODs (especially when your PC is under load, i.e. during gaming) or it could actually fry your whole system in general!

That thing needs to be replaced. Get a quality PSU. For a build like that, a 430 Corsair CX series PSU will be sufficient, and will operate better than an Atrix. However, just so you know, there's still the chance that this isn't the problem. It could very well be, because I don't truly see anything else that would cause this, but just be warned I could be wrong. Still, a Corsair CX 430 is relatively inexpensive (~$50 USD) and will still be a better performer than your current crap PSU.

I suggest you order a CX430 and see if your issues aren't solved:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0092ML1SC/?tag=pcpapi-20

And you can always return it if it doesn't solve your issues (though I wouldn't recommend returning it since an Atrix is awful anyway).

UPDATE: After you order it, I suggest you still try to troubleshoot the problem anyway in case it ends up not being the PSU. Go ahead and try testing the RAM sticks individually while you're at, and we'll proceed from there if the problem still persists (which it should if my theory about your PSU is right).
 

07713c

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Dec 8, 2013
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I am so sorry Deus, I had forgotten to reply, so sorry. Yes I am hoping to get a Corsair CX430 and thankyou or the advise on which one I should get. That helps me out alot :). I never knew about the tier system it's something I will research at a later date out of interest.

Unfortunately money is hard to get now-a-days so progress on getting the PSU is a lil' on the slow side... But nonetheless I should be able to get my hands on one relatively soon. I really appreciate the help that you have given me and look forward to getting my PC up and running properly :)

As soon as it's in my rig I will let you know what happens but until then I am sorry for the quiet spell that this thread will get.

Slightly off topic, I never knew that the wattage of a PSU mattered little, but it's how the power is used...? is that right what I'm thinking, or am I heading off track with that assumption...?
I don't know very much about PSU's and assumed, the more wattage the better. But I'm obviously wrong here haha.

Thanks again Deus
 

Deus Gladiorum

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Well it's various things that matter in a power supply. However, overall you need to pay attention to two things: Wattage of the power supply and quality of the brand/model. As you increase either the wattage or the level of quality, price goes up accordingly.

First and foremost when deciding on a power supply is to determine how much wattage your rig actually needs. If your rig needs 300 W and you installed a 200 W power supply, that PSU couldn't physically draw enough power from the wall for your rig to even boot. I could've recommended you a Corsair 650 W PSU, but I calculated the components of your rig and the minimum wattage necessary for your build was around 280 Watts (or around 310 Watts when all components are under 100% load) so obviously you can afford to get less than a 650 W PSU and you'll still be fine. You'll typically wants a good 100 W of headroom to account for capacitor degradation over time and upgrades, so the CX 430 is ideal. You save a bit of money, and it gives you a minimum of 120 W for headroom. Safe to say it's fairly future proof in case you add some extra components to your rig in the future or if you make a few small upgrades to something like the GPU or CPU.

However, after determining the wattage what's extremely important is the quality of the power supply. A poor power supply can come with a lot of baggage, especially tier 5 PSUs. A tier 5 PSU is known to be supremely unreliable. You may luck out and get a tier 5 PSU that works decent enough, but they're usually made with parts of such poor quality that there's fluctuations in voltage (which can literally fry your whole rig if the voltage spikes) or low amperage across one of the rails which means some of your components aren't receiving a strong enough current. This is the portion where my technical knowledge starts to drop off (damn my never taking currents in High school physics) but the technical aspect of this isn't really necessary to know that you should stay away from poor quality PSUs. If you're interested in seeing the tier system, you can look here:
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

The CX series from Corsair is a Tier 3 PSU. That's still great reliability, and will be more than sufficient for your needs. Hopefully, this should solve your issue, but like I said, just to be on the safe side check your RAM as well, though it's likely fine.