Games Freezeing at random times.

[Mxgm]

Hey guys having a bizarre problem I won't wall of text you so I will break it down to a few one liners but first of my system build.

Windows 7
Core i7 920
XFX ATI 4890 Catalyst 9.9
3 Sata Hard drives 500GB, 160GB and 250 GB
EVGA X58 SLI LE
OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600
Corsair 750 watt


Games freezing at random part no matter the game with the exception of Race Driver Grid at Maximum settings.

Crysis and Mass effect are the games that freeze up.

The way that they freeze up are hard freezes and I have to restart No way to toggle back to the desktop.
When they freeze you see a picture and still hear the sound for a while then it stops or stammers.

You would think it is the graphics card over heating but. All tests including using ATI tool and Video Card Stability test after 5 hours drive the temperatures from Minimum 56 C to 76 C on load with no lock ups.

Prime 95 was also run for 20 hours no lock ups.

Memory test was run with no errors.

Ran error checking on my hard drive no errors.

And as I have said before Race Driver grid works perfectly at 1920 x 1080 with 8 X AA played for 2 hours.

The other games freeze randomly varying from 1 minute to 10 minutes with no certain trigger to them just random even when just standing still.

I am hoping this is a driver Issue and Will be trying some DNA drivers, but hoping you guys have some more insight.

Thanks.

 

[hunter315]

You manually set your ram timings and voltages right? Uninstall catalyst 9.9 and install 9.8 to check and make sure it isnt a driver issue, it shouldnt be but there is always a chance.

 

[Mxgm]

Actually I left my RAM default at 1066 although they are supposed to be hitting 1600 out of the box but it seems the board down clocked them ? I will try the 9.8 catalyst though.

 

[hunter315]

Set your ram timings and voltages, often times lockups are caused by incorrect ram timings, you should always set their timings and voltage. I really hope you got the triple channel kit of OCZ platinums since you didnt specify, if you didnt get the 1.65 volt kit you will have a hell of a time getting them stable without blowing out the processor.

 

[Mxgm]

I got these and I have an antec spot cool on them for extra cooling.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NFZ5PQ/ref=oss_T9_product

And to be honest I really do not know how to go about setting ram timings that has always escaped me.

 

[hunter315]

Okay good, those wont be a problem to get stable. Enter bios, you may have to enable a tweaker of some sort to get to the ram settings. Set them to 1600MHz, 7-7-7-24 and it should fix your crashing.

 

[Mxgm]

Ok will do. WIll report back when I have a chance and thanks for the help.

 

[Mxgm]

Ok I tried it all adjusted the ram timeings, used different drivers the card still never crosses 76 C but still freezes up in Mass Effect and Crysis. Still works fine with GRID.

The real nail in the coffin however is when I put the 4890 in another PC which had a 4870 in it before with the exact same catalyst drivers Mass effect still freezes randomly. Guess I have to RMA this card..

 

[Mxgm]

I just got back from uninstalling the 4870 i was testing in my system reinstalled catalyst 9.9, then i went to Catalyst command console and I upped my fan speed by 5%.......All games work perfectly now. I have no Idea what prompted this change but I welcome it.