- Jul 27, 2016
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Please bare with me as I try to recount everything in a nutshell. Feel free to ask any questions, and any advice would be great:
About a year and a half ago I built my first PC, and on Windows 8.1 it was running relatively smoothly. When I eventually upgraded to 10 though, I started getting a lot of blue screen crashes (more specifically Clock_Watchdog_Timeout). I downloaded several diagnostic tools such as IPDT to try and find the root of the issue. I noticed that at the base settings in the BIOS, the "CPU Frequency" test failed. After updating the BIOS and drivers, I increased the clock speed. The test then passed. I did several stress tests and everything seemed to be doing better... until a few months later.
When playing games like XCOM 2, sometimes the computer would crash. I didn't think much of this at first because the game was known to be very unstable. However after several patches I was still getting errors. Then a few weeks ago I started playing Arkham Knight (yes, another game known for instability). I swept those crashes under the rug as well. It's only when the crashes started becoming a lot more frequent that a red flag came up. I went back to XCOM 2, and the crashes would happen every 2-3 turns instead of every 30-45 minutes. Up until that point I suspected my graphics card (EVGA R9 290x) was the problem.
Then my editing software started acting up. I do motion graphics and edit videos. Whenever I would render I'd start getting crashes. I'd literally complete projects by starting the render for 35 seconds, then pausing for a few minutes. Oddly enough, on a few occasions my system would crash just when STARTING Windows, as if the startup apps overloaded the CPU.
Last weekend I hit my breaking point. Admittedly I've been using stock fans to cool everything (bad on me), and so heat can absolutely be a factor. To deal with this I've ordered 7 case fans and a CPU cooler. I took the built apart and cleaned the case, and when I get the fans I'll move the hard drives so that they don't block the intake in the front. I also went into the BIOS and reset everything to the defaults. The problem is that when running diagnostics, I'm now once again failing the "CPU frequency" test. I went into Batman, still got a bluescreen, and even later got a redscreen. The interesting thing is that sometimes it seems my CPU isn't even running at 100% when it crashes.
What I'd like to know are the proper steps to help diagnose the problem. As mentioned, within the week I'll tackle cooling, but I don't want to rule anything out. Some online guides say, "check your drivers." I've updated everything I can think of, but how can you even verify that's the problem? Some places mention USB wireless adapters. I do have one plugged into the back of my PC. If someone can point me in the direction of a "explain it to me like I'm 5" guide, I'd be very appreciative. If anything in my story raises a red flag, let me know. My PC is a source of secondary income and entertainment, so I'm willing to do almost anything to find the root of the issue.
Update: I just updated the BIOS, but that didn't solve the issue. I noticed that on default auto settings CPU-Z is telling me my processor is running at 4500 Mhz and 1.300 V which I find odd.
About a year and a half ago I built my first PC, and on Windows 8.1 it was running relatively smoothly. When I eventually upgraded to 10 though, I started getting a lot of blue screen crashes (more specifically Clock_Watchdog_Timeout). I downloaded several diagnostic tools such as IPDT to try and find the root of the issue. I noticed that at the base settings in the BIOS, the "CPU Frequency" test failed. After updating the BIOS and drivers, I increased the clock speed. The test then passed. I did several stress tests and everything seemed to be doing better... until a few months later.
When playing games like XCOM 2, sometimes the computer would crash. I didn't think much of this at first because the game was known to be very unstable. However after several patches I was still getting errors. Then a few weeks ago I started playing Arkham Knight (yes, another game known for instability). I swept those crashes under the rug as well. It's only when the crashes started becoming a lot more frequent that a red flag came up. I went back to XCOM 2, and the crashes would happen every 2-3 turns instead of every 30-45 minutes. Up until that point I suspected my graphics card (EVGA R9 290x) was the problem.
Then my editing software started acting up. I do motion graphics and edit videos. Whenever I would render I'd start getting crashes. I'd literally complete projects by starting the render for 35 seconds, then pausing for a few minutes. Oddly enough, on a few occasions my system would crash just when STARTING Windows, as if the startup apps overloaded the CPU.
Last weekend I hit my breaking point. Admittedly I've been using stock fans to cool everything (bad on me), and so heat can absolutely be a factor. To deal with this I've ordered 7 case fans and a CPU cooler. I took the built apart and cleaned the case, and when I get the fans I'll move the hard drives so that they don't block the intake in the front. I also went into the BIOS and reset everything to the defaults. The problem is that when running diagnostics, I'm now once again failing the "CPU frequency" test. I went into Batman, still got a bluescreen, and even later got a redscreen. The interesting thing is that sometimes it seems my CPU isn't even running at 100% when it crashes.
What I'd like to know are the proper steps to help diagnose the problem. As mentioned, within the week I'll tackle cooling, but I don't want to rule anything out. Some online guides say, "check your drivers." I've updated everything I can think of, but how can you even verify that's the problem? Some places mention USB wireless adapters. I do have one plugged into the back of my PC. If someone can point me in the direction of a "explain it to me like I'm 5" guide, I'd be very appreciative. If anything in my story raises a red flag, let me know. My PC is a source of secondary income and entertainment, so I'm willing to do almost anything to find the root of the issue.
Update: I just updated the BIOS, but that didn't solve the issue. I noticed that on default auto settings CPU-Z is telling me my processor is running at 4500 Mhz and 1.300 V which I find odd.
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