So with various different games I've tried out (Champions Online, Saints Row IV, Skyrim) my games will sometimes freeze. Its unbelievably random and occasional, and just loves to happen at the most inopportune moments when I least expect it. Usually it's at a time that really wouldn't make sense (i.e, I get through an entire fight full of explosions and effects fine, but as soon as I open and close a menu, such as the Steam Overlay, an inventory screen, or just walk through a door, it freezes.), but it seems to be exclusive to running games. I have to alt-tab/ctrl-alt-delete out of them and end the game task, and it's all quite frustrating.
Some general system specs:
Motherboard: ASUS Z87A
Processors: Intel Core i5 4670K Quad-Core (3.4GHz-3.8GHz)
Power Supply: 850 Watt Corsair RM850
Graphic Card: 2GB NVIDIA GTX 770 (was a PNY 1150hz overclock, now an EVGA default clock.)
Memory: 8GB Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz (2x4GB)
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-Bit Edition
Hard Drive: 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 32MB Cache
Optical Drive: ASUS 24X CD/DVD Burner
What I've tried so far includes:
In addition to this I've also updated my BIOS, reseated my memory sticks into the slots optimal for my mobo, and even did a clean-reinstall of nVidia Drivers (sans any extra things besides PhysX), and haven't gotten a freeze since - of course, keep in mind that these freezes happen like once every 1-2 weeks. Sometimes. Usually. So who knows if anything I even did fixed the problem.
From what I've experienced it seems like the problem's more liable to happen if the computer's been on for an extended period of time. Stress plays a semi-arbitrary role in these freezes - I've noticed that the games it does occur in usually push my card to full boost speed. In TF2 (which almost never gets anywhere above 666MHz, ironically) I've never had a full-out freeze. A lot of hiccups at points, but never a freeze. I think playing multiple games also contributes to it?
I will note that running some games such as Champions and Saints Row does have the GPU working at full-throttle for extended periods of time, with temperatures that were sitting steadily around mid-high 70s. I noticed residue-like marks on the GPU when opening up the computer to clean it out, so one other thing I did was to dial up fan speeds - not sure that really helps, though, because every single source I've heard on the GTX770 says it's safe to run it even hotter, at around 85C. Also if heat were any issue I'd also have expected the super-pretty unigine benchmarks to do something other than continue working.
EDIT: Might as well make some notes about how the computer is acting when it freezes: The processor pretty much drops all working power on the game in question (reverts back to low 800Mhz speed, versus its max 3.8Ghz potential). Memory is held on to. The GPU's activity percentage is displayed as 0%, but clock speed is still up. Despite the image being frozen, the last played sounds continue to play without any unusual distortion or repetition - even looping ambience or effects (say, from a machine gun) continue to loop properly, whereas other noises, such as music, continue to play through.
Help will be greatly appreciated!
Some general system specs:
Motherboard: ASUS Z87A
Processors: Intel Core i5 4670K Quad-Core (3.4GHz-3.8GHz)
Power Supply: 850 Watt Corsair RM850
Graphic Card: 2GB NVIDIA GTX 770 (was a PNY 1150hz overclock, now an EVGA default clock.)
Memory: 8GB Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz (2x4GB)
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-Bit Edition
Hard Drive: 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 32MB Cache
Optical Drive: ASUS 24X CD/DVD Burner
What I've tried so far includes:
■ Downclocking my GPU using EVGA precision (first day of using it, it actually was generating graphical glitches due to an overclock)
■ Disabling EVGA's overlay
■ Not running EVGA precision
■ Updating Nvidia Drivers through Nvidia experience
■ Disabling Nvidia experience update notices
■ Disabling Nvidia experience updating daily
■ Closing out of Nvidia experience
■ Updating onboard sound drivers
■ Disabling surround sound
■ Lowering sound bit-rate and quality
■ Disabling Link Power Management in Intel Rapid Storage Technology
■ Scanned through the event viewer in a futile attempt to find any sort of correlation between errors and freezes.
■ Scanned through task schedules to see if there was any correlation between freezes and other background events.
■ Removing all overclocks on my CPU and GPU
■ Ran several cycles of Memtest to make sure my RAM was OK.
■ Stress testing my CPU with Prime95 for 8 hours each only to find no errors.
■ Stress testing my GPU with Heaven and Valley (both on ultra) overnight for 8 hours straight, just to wake up to the benchmark still running.
■ Scanned through using SeaTools to verify that my Hard Drive is fine.
■ Tried out running games using only the iGPU on my motherboard, with no freeze incidence over a 2 day period.
■ RMA'ed my card (in this case the problem repeated probably 2 weeks after I got the replacement, and only after I had left my computer on overnight).
In addition to this I've also updated my BIOS, reseated my memory sticks into the slots optimal for my mobo, and even did a clean-reinstall of nVidia Drivers (sans any extra things besides PhysX), and haven't gotten a freeze since - of course, keep in mind that these freezes happen like once every 1-2 weeks. Sometimes. Usually. So who knows if anything I even did fixed the problem.
From what I've experienced it seems like the problem's more liable to happen if the computer's been on for an extended period of time. Stress plays a semi-arbitrary role in these freezes - I've noticed that the games it does occur in usually push my card to full boost speed. In TF2 (which almost never gets anywhere above 666MHz, ironically) I've never had a full-out freeze. A lot of hiccups at points, but never a freeze. I think playing multiple games also contributes to it?
I will note that running some games such as Champions and Saints Row does have the GPU working at full-throttle for extended periods of time, with temperatures that were sitting steadily around mid-high 70s. I noticed residue-like marks on the GPU when opening up the computer to clean it out, so one other thing I did was to dial up fan speeds - not sure that really helps, though, because every single source I've heard on the GTX770 says it's safe to run it even hotter, at around 85C. Also if heat were any issue I'd also have expected the super-pretty unigine benchmarks to do something other than continue working.
EDIT: Might as well make some notes about how the computer is acting when it freezes: The processor pretty much drops all working power on the game in question (reverts back to low 800Mhz speed, versus its max 3.8Ghz potential). Memory is held on to. The GPU's activity percentage is displayed as 0%, but clock speed is still up. Despite the image being frozen, the last played sounds continue to play without any unusual distortion or repetition - even looping ambience or effects (say, from a machine gun) continue to loop properly, whereas other noises, such as music, continue to play through.
Help will be greatly appreciated!
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