My computer crashes too often in certain games.

theviceroy

Prominent
Feb 5, 2018
3
0
510
Hello there!



So I built my computer a few years back and everything was running smoothly, then about a year ago I purchased an RX 480 to upgrade my GPU. Ever since that moment games will randomly crash to the desktop or the whole computer will crash. It was super often at first then I tried numerous fixes. About a year later here I am getting 2 minutes into a game of PUBG or Fortnite and it will crash, also I remember Golf With Friends was notorious. Sometimes it won't but 7/10 times it will. However, I can play CSGO flawlessly and Skyrim.



I have updated my drivers several times and have searched the web far and wide for a solution, but to no avail. Thus I am here hoping one of you can help me out.


-Thanks!



SPECS

-

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz

PSU: Corsair CX600, 600 Watt

RAM: 8GB

GPU: Radeon ™ RX 480 Graphics

OS: Windows 10 64bit
 
Solution
You may not be able to use a usb 3.0 flash drive OR you may have to use a specific USB port on the motherboard. Check the product page and instructions for updating the bios on your motherboard's product page.
What was your previous GPU card model?

And this is rather important. Did you run the DDU? And did you run it WHILE in SAFE MODE?

If you did NOT run the DDU followed by a CLEAN install of the GPU card drivers, while in safe mode, then I would highly recommend you do so. Running the DDU, Display driver uninstaller by Wagnard tools, is sometimes all it takes when followed by a fresh driver installation, but sometimes you need to go a bit further and do it while in safe mode. Not doing it in safe mode, the DDU cleanse only, not the driver installation, can sometimes result in registry entries, related files and previous settings to not be fully removed as many of them are protected from removal by the OS.

Also, if you've had multiple brands of cards installed, you may need to run the DDU more than once. If for instance, you previously had an Nvidia card installed but have since then installed an AMD card, you may need to run it with the Nvidia option selected, and then go back and run it again for AMD, followed by a fresh install of the latest AMD drivers after the final reboot back into the normal windows environment.

Certainly this isn't always the issue, but often enough it has been. I've seen I don't know how many tens or hundreds of members who swore up and down at me that they had installed the drivers seven ways from Sunday all through a thread, but in the end when they finally took the time to actually perform the necessary steps ended up coming back with sheepish virtual grins on their faces after doing so.

It is ALWAYS worth trying because often it is successful. And if it does not fix the problem, you lose nothing more than a small amount of time and you still gain the fact that you now know the driver environment is clean and unblemished, and is almost certainly not the problem.

Also, I see no mention of your motherboard model or what bios version you are on, but that too is one of the high probability potential issues since that graphics card is much newer than the motherboard and is unlikely to be fully supported if you are on an older or original UEFI BIOS firmware version. I would update to whatever is the newest version that is NOT newer than the end of December 2017. Any version released after that is likely to have buggy microcode due to releases for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. Most all BIOS releases from the beginning of January have been recalled by Intel, but many board partners STILL have those releases available on their websites despite that.

So, if you offer the board model I can tell you what version you SHOULD be on right now. This often fixes a lot of graphics card incompatibilities and random crashing issues as well as other important updates that may have been released at some point since the board's release.

Finally, if none of those fixes the issue it will likely come down to either a faulty board, an OS installation that has been around a while and is itself all fubared, especially if it has been updated to Windows 10 from an earlier version but has never seen a clean install. Or that PSU.

It would be good to know how old that CX unit is and exactly what model number as there are pre-2015, 2015-2017 and post 2017 CX models, and all of them are different, with different internals and different build quality. The older style CX units are WELL known for failures when paired for very long with high load graphics cards that use a six or eight pin supplemental connector due to the increased demand on the PSU that tends to send the cheap capacitors in those units into an early grave.

 

theviceroy

Prominent
Feb 5, 2018
3
0
510


I am currently trying to update my bios, but it doesn't recognize my usb drive whenever I go to update it.