Memtest crashed I think? what does it mean?

[Leadfoot77]

Hi, I recently built a new computer:

AMD Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition (3.2Ghz) with coolermaster hyper 212 plus
Asus M5a88-v evo
2x 4GB GSKILL Ripjaw DDR3 PC-12800 1600Mhz (f3-12800cl9d-8gbrl)
COrsair tx650 power supply

The computer has had some random freezes and resets (computer seems to just totally power off and start back up from BIOS again) while playing games (99% of time spent on this PC is gaming so the fact that it happens only in games may not actually be significant).

What I Have done so far:
* Made sure video/sound drivers were up to date
* Available chipset driver is from nearly 2 years ago - I may have already updated it when I set the machine up - bought the mother board a few months ago - did not update it
* Have NOT updated the BIOS - that may be a next step
* Ran AMD OVerdrive stability test - no problems - voltages were stable, CPU core temps max'd at 47 degrees
* Ran 3dMark test - came back normal
* Ran PC Mark test -came back normal
* I put memtest onto a USB stick and ran that, I let it run for two hours, 1 pass and half-way through the 2nd pass, went to bed. When I woke up, my computer was at the windows login screen - according to everything I've read memtest is supposed to run indefnitely, which must mean that it crashed - possibly similar to what happens while playing games.

My question is, what does this memtest result mean? Does it mean the problem is with my memory? I did run it again for a few hours while I was watching TV near by - it successfully executed 3 passes before I stopped it. So I do not know how to interpret this memtest "crash".

I did find this note on their site (http://www.memtest86.com/tech.html):

Memtest86 can not diagnose many types of PC failures. For example a faulty CPU that causes Windows to crash will most likely just cause Memtest86 to crash in the same way.

However, if it's a faulty CPU I'm surprised none of my other tests resulted in an error.

Anyways, looking for some advice here... what is the most efficient next step? I could run memtest on the individual sticks of RAM - assuming that the original result indicates an issue with the memory. I could run the AMD stability test again, maybe for a longer period of time (I think I let it run for an hour last time).

Should I go ahead and look into updating my BIOS?

I have read about potentially needing to modify the voltage settings for the memory but I'm hesitant to mess with that without having some conclusive evidence that this is the problem. If anyone knows anything about my specific setup let me know.

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[Leadfoot77]

Bumping... I had stopped playing PC games for a while but have gotten back into Skyrim recently and this is occurring... usually once or twice per sitting - I tend to play for an average of 2-3 hours tops. It just freezes and I have to hard power the system off.

I used CPU-Z and EVGA Precision to monitor gpu/cpu temps and everything was fine (cpu max 47C and gpu max 75C).

Still not sure how to interpret my previous memtest result - I didn't see it crash I just woke up and the system was at the windows prompt... any advice on what to do next?