Computer freezing with alarm sound during games

[pop2012]

Every time I try to play a newer game(Skyrim, Saints Row 3) my computer screen goes black after a few minutes. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes and other times it takes 2 minutes. The screen cuts off and the sound continues. After a few seconds the sound cuts out, an alarm sounds, and I have to restart the computer. Everything I have read points to this being a heating issue, but I can't replicate the problem with things like Furmark. The highest temperature I've seen with that is 70 and it runs fine. It is very well cooled by fans, so I doubt that the card is overheating.

I have a radeon hd 6850 graphics card which should be fine to play these games on high(not highest) settings. The problem occurs even on settings lower than the recommended ones for my pc. Any ideas on what might be the problem?

 

[jemm]

Is it 70C? It seems a bit high. What is your colling system and case?

 

[pop2012]

The case is a GIGABYTE GZ-KF03B Black SGCC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. It was pretty cheap. I just installed a SickleFlow 120mm case fan on the side by the gpu. I'm also using a 90mm fan for exhaust near the cpu in the rear of the case.

The card hits 70C under stress testing benchmarks, but crashes have never occurred during tests like Kombustor or Furmark.

 

[mcnumpty23]

do you have any software such as gigabyte easytune running--this caused me a similar problem as the default

settings in it kept setting off alarms because my fans were only running at 700rpm because they are 200mm

and 230mm they dont need to spin fast-- and it was set to trip the alarm if the fans went below 1000rpm

took me a while to figure out it was causing the siren noise as i only use headphones i didnt know about the

siren till i put the cans on

 

[pop2012]

I am unfamiliar with easytune. My motherboard came with ASRock OC Tuner, but I do not use the program.

 

[mcnumpty23]

easytune is for gigabyte motherboards--never used an asrock motherboard--does any software that monitors

the fan speeds and or temperatures get loaded when the pc starts ?

70c doesnt seem too high under stress testing with furmark--if furmark doesnt crash it i would be a bit

surprised if a game did

are you overclocking your cpu?

 

[pop2012]

MSI afterburner adjusts my fan speeds and monitors temperatures. I don't overclock my cpu.

I can't see why heat would be the issue, but the alarm sounding during stressful games makes me think that something is overheating.

 

[mcnumpty23]

does the alarm sound during furmark? thats much more stressfull than the games--thats why i asked about the cpu

hows the cpu temps during games?

maybe run prime95 to see if its a cpu related alarm

 

[pop2012]

The highest temperature prime95 got my cpu to was 63C.

 

[mcnumpty23]

doesnt msi afterburner have an alarm in it?

try running the game without afterburner running

 

[pop2012]

The same thing happens without afterburner.

 

[mcnumpty23]

got me puzzled--if you cant recreate it with furmark and prime95--nothing else really stresses the cpu and gpu

like they do

you could run memtest though i wouldnt associate an alarm with ram problems but its one other thing to rule out

 

[pop2012]

Memtest ran through with no error.

 

[pop2012]

Since the last post, I have installed a new exhaust fan and replaced my intake fan. I don't think heat is the problem like I originally believed.