System crash while gaming, requires hard reset, only once a day

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

Hi guys,

I have been experiencing a weird issue recently. While playing certain games after the first boot of the day, I get a black screen crash. So I start playing, a couple of minutes later a sudden black screen occurs, no response from the system, no sound, no numlock/capslock toggle light working, in short system turns into a dead mode with power on. Fans are all spinning, everything seems to be running yet a black screen with no response. At this point pushing the reset button resets the pc only into a state like before - everything powered up but no boot, no logon, just fans spinning. Only way to restore the system is power off by holding power button and back on. This way system boots normally. You don't have to first reset and hard reset as hard reset in the first attempt does the work as well.

Here is what makes it weird. This only happens once a day. For example I finish playing, spend the night sleeping, wake up, turn on pc, play a game, a couple of minutes into the game black screen occurs, hard reset, play the same game from where I left and voila, no problems till tomorrow, I can play for hours and hours and nothing happens. (yes continuous gameplay for 8~9 hours at least, no problems.)

The games I experienced this are as follows:
The Witcher 2
DC Universe Online
Metro Last Light
Titanfall

As strange as it is, I don't experience this with other games such as Battlefield 4, Guild Wars 2, Crysis 2 or 3.

Why did I submit that in Graphics forum? Because a red led turns on on mobo that indicates gpu after I reset after the black screen.

Here's my specs:

Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0
AMD FX8350 Stock
Noctua NH U14S
Kingston 4x2GB ddr3 1600 cl9 ram sticks
SAPPHIRE R9 290X BF4 EDITION (REFERENCE) also no oc
CORSAIR CX750M
CORSAIR FORCE GS 128GB ssd
Two other hdds

Edit: forgot to mention that there is no log in the event viewer about this. Just kernel power which gives no information at all.

Accidentally selected a solution, can someone fix it?

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

Are you overclocking the machine at all?

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

For a while I did, though not much. However in search of a solution to this I disabled all OC whatsoever. Currently there is no oc on my system.

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

Ok, good, that was a smart first step.

Do you have any hiberation states enabled on your computer?

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

mrface :

How can I check that? I always disable all power saving options from my bios and windows (turning off screen, hdd, sleep etc.) And currently they are disabled both on windows and bios.

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

Alright,good I know I have had issues in the past with hiberation causing me to have to hard reboot.

Ok so next step: Heave you installed or removed any hardware here recently?

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

mrface :

Nope. I had my case transported to another city so I had to remove cpu, heatsink, gpu, hdds before sending it. I received the case in that city and installed the same parts again. Though, I cannot make any connections to this as this was long ago.

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

Ok, so lets throw that out then.

Next, the games you listed, It seems only the games taht cause problems are on Steam? And the others are on Origin, is that correct?

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

Not exactly. Titanfall is on Origin, Guild Wars 2 has its own client; not steamworks.

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

Didnt see Titanfall, my bad.

Ok. So not a propreitary client issue, maybe?

You said you think it might have something to do with the GPU because of lights on the mobo?

The 290x have dual bios right? Have you tried using the other BIOS for a day or so?

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

mrface :

Frankly, I didn't. The one I use is uber bios and the other one is quiet. The only difference between the two is that quiet bios has fan limit of 40% while the other has 55%. I have just switched to quiet just in case.

And also yes, when the black screen occurs, only way to restart the system is through a hard reset where you have to hold down the power buton and back on. However if you simply press reset button, system shuts down and resets itself, only to get stuck at boot in which GPU fails to load, causing the mobo to switch on the VGA led just next to the PCI-E slot.

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

See what you get tonight with the other BIOS and let us know. It could be an improper load of a driver or something silly like that.

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

mrface :

Switched to quiet bios, still have the issue. I also tried another driver (15.6 to be exact), yet the problem is still there. I've gathered some info though, they might be useful:

■ I can reproduce the issue If I keep the PC shut off for a while. For example today I left the PC off for an hour or so before trying with quiet mode. And then to try with the new driver, I left it off for a couple or more hours. Both resulted in failure.
■ If I don't leave the PC off for a while, the issue cannot be reproduced for hours of intense gaming. (which I find weird)
■ Normally, when I get the black screen if there is a music/sound playing in the background, the sound gets into a loop of miliseconds, which causes a weird sound. However, when I tried with the new driver the sound continued playing (I don't know maybe it was a much longer loop, as the sound itself was chanting from a game and its purpose was to loop). Other symptoms persisted, system was unresponsive, numlock/capslock lights didn't react, also the fans were spinning fullspeed, as if the load was still there or something. (most probably they just keep the speed they have when black screen occurs).

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

Do you have any USB drives or thumb drives; or alternatively, any thing plugged into your USB ports?

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

I do have a wireless adapter for xbox 360 controller and one creative tactic alpha headphone always connected. Other than that just keyboard and mouse. I tried removing as many usb connections as possible, but didn't make any difference.

furkandeger · Jul 7, 2015

mrface :

I might have found the culprit.

Just noticed I always checked system logs but never checked application logs from event viewer. So after taking a look at the logs that were created about the time of the crash, I've found three errors that were logged every time the crash happened.

They all have event code "0" and their source is the same: amdacpusrsvc.exe

Each of them has a different additional info tagged.

Seems like this ACP guy is responsible for managing some stuff related to TrueAudio technology of AMD's. I searched for the errors, there are not many people and I couldn't find a certain fix. However, what I did was to uninstall ACP Application from catalyst install manager and so far there hasn't been a single error log about this or something else.

As for the black screen, this might have fixed it and though I haven't had a black screen so far, I need more time to test and see.

mrface · Jul 7, 2015

This is a good lead. Test it out and lets see what you get. hopefully, you get it fixed.

furkandeger · Jul 8, 2015

mrface :

Unfortunately, this didn't help. The errors disappeared, yet the black screen still happens.

mrface · Jul 8, 2015

So you just upgraded to a newer version of the driver set. 14.12 -> 15.6b right?

Do you have an older card sitting around somewhere that can be used to test if the card you had might be going bad? Or maybe I should ask, did you still see the mobo lights when you had the failure this time?

furkandeger · Jul 8, 2015

mrface :

Not exactly, I was on whatever Windows Update installed for Windows 10, then I switched to 15.6b.

Also I don't have another card, unfortunately.

I recorded a GPU-Z sensors log this time, I didn't see anything out of ordinary, yet here is the log for you to check:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/ueq7uv49s8q6c9n/GPU-Z_Sensor_Log.txt

I must make clear that core clock throttle to 900~800ish mhz is normal as I am still on quiet bios.

mrface · Jul 8, 2015

Do you by chance have "Fast Startup" Enabled in your power options?

furkandeger · Jul 8, 2015

mrface :

I do. Do you think it might have an effect?

mrface · Jul 8, 2015

Try disabling that. I read on a different forum that thi was causing issues similar to what you have been experiencing.

furkandeger · Jul 8, 2015

mrface :

Allright, I will try and report back

furkandeger · Jul 8, 2015

mrface :

I disabled fast startup from windows and I also disabled fast boot from bios, however that still didn't help.

System crash while gaming, requires hard reset, only once a day

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