Computer Freezing when playing games

No_one6275

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Jan 24, 2014
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Hello, I'm having a problem with my new build. When playing games (Tested on BF3, and FurMark GPU stress test) after a minute at most the computer goes to a blank screen, either black or blue with vertical stripes. At this point I am unable to ctrl-alt-del or alt-tab to get to a different screen, so I need to hard reset my computer. Also of note when I am on skype at the time I can still talk even when the screen is frozen.

Computer Specs:

Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 AMD970 950 AM3+ R
PSU: Cosair CX500M 500W R
GPU: Radeon XFX R9 270X 2GD5 R
CPU: AMD|6-CORE FX-6300 3.5G 8M R
RAM: 8gb MEM 4Gx2
HDD: SSD 64G and HDD 1T

When I do the stress test the computer crashed around when my GPU reaches between 65-70c. For what it's worth I also looked up my CPU temperature when stress testing and it's normal, so that's not the issue.

Thank you for your time, and any help would be appreciated.

Edit: I should also note this is my first computer build, so it's entirely possible I did something stupid in the build.
 

Boopig

Distinguished
Jan 2, 2014
128
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18,715
Hello No_one.

I had a similar problem with my computer, when playing games or rendering videos randomly I'd get stripes on my screen typically grey and black vertical stripes and my computer would crash and reboot. The error message was bluescreen 0x0000000.

But judging by us both having recently made a new build with similar specs I would highly suggest reinstalling your graphics card drivers, this fixed my issue so I would confidently say it would fix yours.
 

No_one6275

Honorable
Jan 24, 2014
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I uninstalled, then reinstalled my drivers, but it didn't work.
 

No_one6275

Honorable
Jan 24, 2014
3
0
10,510


No such message pops up, and the computer doesn't really crash it freezes requiring me to press the power button to restart it, which is probably why there is no message.

For what it is worth I managed to find the crash dump files when the error occurred, and here's the information I got out of it.

Bug check code: 0x00000117
Caused by driver: VIDEOPRT.SYS
Caused by address: VIDEOPRT.SYS+29548a0
Crash address: watchdog.sys+a577

There's a bit more information therein but that seemed to be the most pressing.
 

Boopig

Distinguished
Jan 2, 2014
128
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18,715


Hmm, this is definitely a graphics card issue, whether its the card itself, a hardware issue or the driver I can't really tell considering that re-installing the driver didn't work.

I did notice however that you said "When I do the stress test the computer crashed around when my GPU reaches between 65-70c" So I need to ask some questions.


  • Do you have a good airflow going through your Pc? Its not just a bunch of fans blowing around you need to tidy up the cables (if you haven't done so) and make as much space as possible to get the hot air out.
    have you powered up your computer with the side taken off? Do this to check if your fans are working.
    Have you tried re-installing your games?
    Have you made sure everything is plugged into you graphics card is in properly?

If none of these work and everything is in order I would point towards an hardware issue, I'll keep looking for a solution :)