- Jul 1, 2012
- 6
- 0
- 10,510
Can it?
I've been trying to figure out a mysterious freezing issue I have with 2 identical systems. In only specific 3D games, the computer can completely freeze up. You can't alt tab, you can't ctrl+alt+delete, everything on the screen is perma-frozen and you have to power down. With these problem titles, you can reproduce the freeze indefinitely, although when it happens is random (15 minutes to 4 hours). Other 3D games are often completely unaffected. And when not gaming, the computer never has a problem. It's been like this for about 2 years now.
I originally thought that it was perhaps the graphics card. One of the cards in one of the systems even failed (it froze more often than the other) and the computer stopped booting. Swapping cards allowed it to start up again. Upon buying a different card for it, the freezing continued in the same pattern, even with a lower power using graphics card.
So I'm now wondering if it's possible that the graphics card (or other component) is failing to get stable power during high load (which would explain only certain games) and causing this freezing behavior? I'm on an extreme budget so I'm holding off replacing the PSU 'till I have some evidence that this really is a possibility. Any advice would be much appreciated.
As for system info, nothing overclocked:
Antec BP550 PLUS Rev.1 <-- 550W Power Supply in question
Win7Ultimate 64-bit
AMD Athlon II X4 640
ASRock 870 Extreme3 motherboard
10GB Ram
Graphics Tested:
Radeon HD 5770 [108W]
Radeon R7 250x (HD 7770) [80W]
I've been trying to figure out a mysterious freezing issue I have with 2 identical systems. In only specific 3D games, the computer can completely freeze up. You can't alt tab, you can't ctrl+alt+delete, everything on the screen is perma-frozen and you have to power down. With these problem titles, you can reproduce the freeze indefinitely, although when it happens is random (15 minutes to 4 hours). Other 3D games are often completely unaffected. And when not gaming, the computer never has a problem. It's been like this for about 2 years now.
I originally thought that it was perhaps the graphics card. One of the cards in one of the systems even failed (it froze more often than the other) and the computer stopped booting. Swapping cards allowed it to start up again. Upon buying a different card for it, the freezing continued in the same pattern, even with a lower power using graphics card.
So I'm now wondering if it's possible that the graphics card (or other component) is failing to get stable power during high load (which would explain only certain games) and causing this freezing behavior? I'm on an extreme budget so I'm holding off replacing the PSU 'till I have some evidence that this really is a possibility. Any advice would be much appreciated.
As for system info, nothing overclocked:
Antec BP550 PLUS Rev.1 <-- 550W Power Supply in question
Win7Ultimate 64-bit
AMD Athlon II X4 640
ASRock 870 Extreme3 motherboard
10GB Ram
Graphics Tested:
Radeon HD 5770 [108W]
Radeon R7 250x (HD 7770) [80W]
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