Series of Issues, no idea what's causing them.

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Richotfen

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
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1,510
Hi there.

My PC is about two years old now and I've had several issues with it before but most of them were fixed by the company that I ordered the PC from. However my warranty ran out recently and I'm unable to get parts replaced anymore unless I buy them myself. I can buy a new part assuming it's within the £100 to £280 range. However, my problem is, is that I don't know what in the hell is going on or what is causing it.

It all started back in July when I played Witcher 3, a demanding but very good and well optimised game nonetheless. My PC can push it out at 60FPS if I play on the lowest settings and at 1366x780, and I didn't have a problem with it as I could still play it. I've had the game since May of 2016, but I only started getting issues in July.

The first issue that I noticed was a Blue Screen of Death after I left it idle for about 20 minutes. Before you ask, my GPU was not overheating because my temperature always stays around 68'C to 75'C when I play Witcher 3. I don't exactly remember what the error code was because I restarted straight away. I steered away from Witcher 3 as I was afraid of any further BSoDs. I came back to the game recently (about a week ago) but I couldn't help but notice the constant stuttering that happened which led to crashes and freezes.
I tried to fix this by updating my drivers, defragmenting my HDD, etc. However none of these things helped. At some point I even had a BSoD after I forcefully exited Witcher 3 - this time I had the 'DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION' error. This led to me contacting the people who built my PC and their advice was to get a new Graphics Card, which strikes me as odd because my graphics card is only two years old. But I went along with it anyway, I had planned to get a new GTX 1060 to replace my old GTX 660.

Before I continued through with my plan, I went onto Tomshardware and a kind person helped me out with my system and suggested many other solutions that could help my problem, and he thought my GPU could not possibly be dying as they can last extremely long and rarely ever die. When none of the solutions helped, his last advice was to find a local PC repair shop and get a second opinion on what I should do next. And I did that. But no issues were found by the people who tested my PC.

They stress-tested my GPU with furmark for about two hours and found no issues whatsoever with it, even though all of my issues sound like they're related to the GPU. So right now, I'm very confused, angry and just feel desperate as I just can't understand what is happening to my PC!

Now I get random crashes, stuttering, freezes in random games. My PC is generally slow despite being a quite good system (in my opinion.) and is acting up randomly. I get random freezes on desktop whenever I browse the internet, sometimes things just get stuck for around 5-7 seconds. And I even had an issue where no videos would play on any website, which I fixed by restarting my PC. Not to mention, it took around three minutes for my PC to boot EVEN with Windows 10's "fast boot" option.

This is really my last resort if I want to find out what's wrong, and so I hope you people can help me find out what is wrong and if I can help it. I'm genuinely desperate.


PC SPECS:

POWER SUPPLY: Corsair RM1000 Gold (1000WATT)
MOTHERBOARD: GigaByte Z97-HD3
RAM: 2x4GB (8GB) 1600MHz Kingston HyperX Fury Blue
GPU: Nvidia GTX 660 - palit version
CPU: Intel i7 4790k 4.00GHz
HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
CASE: Cooler Master Elite 310
CPU COOLER: Cooler Master Seidon 120M Liquid Cooling System
_____________________________________________________

THINGS I'VE DONE SO FAR:

Uninstall Display Drivers (using DDU) and reinstall them.
Update Chipsets
I TRIED to update my BIOS but it wouldn't let me.
Disable HDMI Playback Devices
 
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little_me

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May 9, 2015
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possible problems, even if unlikely:
-Most common cause are driver issues.
-Nvidia drivers are supposedly one of the prime culprits, but you've already done all the uninstalling/reinstalling on them.
-Hdmi playback through GPU is another popular issue but you have alreadty done this.

-sata drivers, the problem described is quite old (oct 2015) and fix should be done by this time already.
In any case, verifying that you have latest sata/chipset drivers is not a bad idea. (except you've done that already)
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/dpc_watchdog_violation-blue-screen-in-windows-10

-partially broken sata interface on either HDD or CD/DVD drive.
I had it on DVD drive and it caused long boot times and weird delays all the time. Supposedly due to system losing and refinding the drive multiple times/second. Easy to test by unplugging sata cables from the dvd drive for a while.
This also tends to make most cd's/dvd's unreadable.

-Bios update might fix some issues, You should be able to do it from either windows. (provided you have the necessary software.)
http://www.gigabyte.eu/webpage/20/HowToReflashBIOS.html
-You might need to download the bios file from website yourself (Pay attention to motherboard revision, they seem to have 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1) before using @bios (bios updater from windows) or update it from bios/uefi (you would need to have it on usb)
-IF your BIOS version is F9, this is likely not a problem.

Sadly, that is all I can think of.
 
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Richotfen

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
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1,510


Thank you for the suggestions, I'll try them in the morning! :)

I'm not really sure why I couldn't update my BIOS, it was something to do with finding compatible software. Windows just didn't let me do it, and the autoexec.exe said something about incompatability.

I forgot to mention that the error I keep getting on Event Logs is the 'Display Drivers stopped responding' thing.

Edit: This is the only information I found on what the version of my MOBO is:
b2fb95eca43bc08208a64ae9c3d68ed9.png

f6df51a1135e52cd078f53c175ad430d.png
 
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little_me

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May 9, 2015
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Well, Bios is version F6 which is a bit on older side. The board revision number is usually printed on the board itself, it might not be visible through software. Since you have F6 and if you have never updated the BIOS, your board is likely 2.0 or 2.1 (they start from F6)
The @Bios software should be able to do it from windows.
Link to it's download can be found either in the utilities section on Gigabyte site for your motherboard or through the image link on:
http://www.gigabyte.eu/webpage/20/HowToReflashBIOS.html
Just remember to take the 2nd download and not the one for X79 chipset (you have Z97 afterall)
The tool should be able to download the bios right off the internet but.. I have usually just downloaded the BIOS file myself and loaded it that way.

However, if the event logs keep getting errors about "display driver stopped responding" it is quite likely something related to that.
Problems in display driver installation could do it. You have redone that multiple times though.
Have you checked the disk for corruption though? "sfc /scannow" also doing general "chkdsk /f c:" wont hurt if you have not done so recently.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929833
 
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Richotfen

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
16
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I haven't checked the disk for corruption no, I've only checked the health of it using HD Tune Pro. I'm doing the 'sfc /scannow' thing right now, I'll let you know once I'm done. Also is it not dangerous to ehm 'flash' my BIOS? I've never actually done something like that, so I feel rather paranoid.

Edit:
23583ac258da65661810a85b574e05e5.png


Chkdsk Results:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.


A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
Cleaning up instance tags for file 0x40295.
852736 file records processed. File verification completed.
9804 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed.
Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
1069164 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
CHKDSK is compacting the security descriptor stream
Cleaning up 7567 unused security descriptors.
108215 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.

Windows has made corrections to the file system.
No further action is required.

976196607 KB total disk space.
499189868 KB in 415566 files.
243728 KB in 108218 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
952035 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
475810976 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
244049151 total allocation units on disk.
118952744 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 03 0d 00 99 fd 07 00 73 05 0e 00 00 00 00 00 ........s.......
89 05 00 00 ae 57 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .....W..........

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.
Click to expand...
Update: Just got this error when playing the new Battlefront
69bb23ab50feaa175e2cf8c8d6183c5b.png


Error from Event Viewer:
67ce6dae0756d9ee95c9a6a0e8c31315.png
 
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little_me

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May 9, 2015
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Well, Bios updating used to be more risky before they added 2nd and/or 3rd copy of bios on same chip in case the flashing goes bad.
If it works, don't fix it applies to BIOS updates quite well though.

In your case, the change log for bios updates seems to consist of better 5th gen (they are not common) CPU support and support for NVMe SSD's
The only reason to update might be the "fix memory compatability" but.. since your system worked before, it likely wont fix it.

Since there seemingly is no system file corruption and no real problems on chkdsk either, I doubt that the BIOS update would help.

The crash points towards GPU driver and/or GPU itself. Since you have gone through DDU and reinstall of driver multiple times, pretty much only possibilities would be to fall back to driver version before crashes to see if that works or... GPU.
Yes, it is not that old and should last for a long time but... besides being able to crosstest it on another computer for a week or two, you are pretty much out of luck as far as making sure the GPU is good for sure.
 
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Richotfen

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
16
0
1,510


So I'm guessing my best course of action would be to crosstest the GPU, and if the other PC that's using the GPU gets the same errors, I should replace it?
 
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little_me

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May 9, 2015
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Yes, that is my take on it.

If the GPU works fine on other computer though... then the situation gets more tricky since it would mean something else on the computer is broken.
It could be memory but with memory, it is extremely unlikely that you would get only errors about GPU and nothing else.
It could be PSU, failing to deliver enough power to GPU at certain points. (unlikely since 660 isn't exactly power hungry card)
Your PSU might be either tier 3
RM Channel Well Technology (450w - 650w, 1000w)
or tier 1 but then it should have the x in the end.
RM1000x Channel Well Technology
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

It could also be motherboard or just that pci-e slot.
Slot could be tested by putting the card on another pci-e slot.

But honestly, at this point I am pretty much out of ideas.
 
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Richotfen

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
16
0
1,510

Sorry for the really late response. I had a friend test my GPU on two other PCs he had lying around and he encountered none of the issues that were present for me. He gave me the GPU back and I thought the issue had resolved itself for a while until now, where I'm constantly getting errors about display drivers crashing whenever I try to play something like Battlefront.

 
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little_me

Splendid
May 9, 2015
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Well, thorough testing takes time and with that, we could assume that the GPU is fine. The possible other options for broken stuff are:
PSU (quite unlikely)
RAM (quite unlikely since I doubt you would get only GPU errors then)
Motherboard, at the moment, the most likely culprit, right after infamous "It's windows, wipe and reinstall" option.

You did not mention if you tried the card on different pci-E slot though.

But as I said earlier, that didn't really give any new solutions to try.
 
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