Computer freezes while gaming

xaqery

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Jan 21, 2016
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I've looked around for answers online and there are just too many variables that can go wrong for me to find the right answer for my problem, so I am posting straight here.

What happens is the game randomly just freezes sometimes and the computer is completely unresponsive. Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, Win don't do anything. FPS counter is frozen. Caps lock and scroll lock on the keyboard won't light up when pressed, etc. I have to hold the power button to power off and then reboot. This happened on FFXIII first, but then it also happened on Mass Effect as well. It seems it can happen on any game demanding enough.

I haven't had any issues at all other than while gaming, and it can happen minutes or hours into a gaming session. I got a new graphics card about two months ago and this issue started a few weeks ago. (I had a Radeon HD 5450. Now I have a GT 740.) The Radeon was not a gaming card at all (max TDP of 19W) while the 740 has a max TDP of 64W.

I monitored temps and usage while gaming and while not. At no load the CPU was about 60 deg and GPU was about 30 deg. And while gaming temps went up to 80 for the CPU and 50 for the GPU. I figured this was the problem so I took my PC apart and did a thorough dust cleaning. My CPU temps dropped to ~30-50 rather than ~60-80 and the GPU temps didn't really change. This did not solve my problem at all though. My PC still freezes at seemingly the same frequency.

I do have a bit of a CPU bottleneck, so the CPU runs at around 100% usage while gaming according to Windows 7 task manager, but I am not sure what usage the GPU is at or how to monitor it.

I also monitored that I was using around 2.5/3GB of RAM on average while gaming, while my video card was only using ~200MB/2GB. This is a kind of unrelated question but does anyone know why this is? I didn't notice any significant increase in GPU RAM while loading a game but I did see it in the normal RAM. I was playing Mass Effect while monitoring so maybe it has to do with the programming since it is an older game? Do games need to be optimized for video cards to use their dedicated ram? I don't know, if anyone has an answer I am curious.

At this point I am pretty sure that the issue is the power supply (not enough power), however I do not want to buy a new one unless I really need to.

If the PSU isn't supplying enough power, is there a way I can underclock the GPU or make it perform under the necessary wattage threshold so I wouldn't have to buy a better PSU and just settle for worse game performance?



Specs:

Originally a prebuilt HP Pavilion a6460t, I have upgraded HDD, GPU, and wireless card in it.

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E4600 @ 2.4 GHz
RAM: 2x1GB + 2x512MB (3GB) DDR2? (not sure if ddr2 or ddr1??)
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GT 740
Mobo: IPIBL-LB (Benicia)
PSU: 300W
HDD: 500GB Seagate + 250GB Western Digital (OS on WD)
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit SP1

I am going to try gaming on linux and see if I get the same kind of freezing.
Thanks in advance for any input.
 
Solution
The power supply is the problem. Not because of "not enough power" but because it's likely junk which is delivering an unstable voltage or unsafe ripple causing system errors. What PSU is it exactly? Quality matters, not wattage. Theoretically every power supply can deliver infinite current.

rahulkamble9

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Nov 12, 2015
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Freezing,lagging these are all problems are due to CPU and RAM your CPU is old for even those games also your GPU isn't a great choice. Don't get me wrong but Seriously? a GT 740!! HD series can even handle next gen games, again you judged a card on its TDP!

It isn't power supply or PC would keep rebooting now and then, appearance of blue screen

You need more Ram, OH YES YOU HAVE 64bit OS so increase in RAM is necessary.
 

xaqery

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Jan 21, 2016
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I wasn't judging a card by its TDP. I just included that info because it is relevant if the psu wasn't supplying enough power.

And the GPU was a pretty good choice for my situation. I was looking for a cheap upgrade without buying a whole new system (I plan on doing that in a couple years). I got the card for $50, and any better of a card would just be bottlenecked by the CPU and wouldn't improve performance at all.

I don't see why low ram would make the computer entirely freeze and lock up unless there was a memory overflow, which there wasn't. I was monitoring the ram usage the whole time up to freezing and it went up to about 2.5/3GB. This is also only a recent problem, so unless the memory is failing altogether, I don't think that is it.
 
The power supply is the problem. Not because of "not enough power" but because it's likely junk which is delivering an unstable voltage or unsafe ripple causing system errors. What PSU is it exactly? Quality matters, not wattage. Theoretically every power supply can deliver infinite current.
 
Solution