Random freezing, and tired of rebooting!

[Au_equus]

Current setup:
i5 2500k@4.5ghz
asus p8p67 m-pro
8gb 1600MHz DDR3 cl8 g.skill
antec truepower 750w
CM Hyper 212+
CF XFX BE 1GB HD 6950@840/1325
64gb crucial RealSSD C300 (boot drive)
1tb seagate barracuda sata3 7200rpm 32mb cache
asus vh242 monitor 1920x1080
win 7 home premium 64-bit

Problems:
Random freezes during some games (Crysis and Civ V), but others are not affected (Crysis 2, SCII, Shogun 2, Metro2033) or maybe I haven't played them enough, and WEI (doesn't mean much, I know) fails in the end during the hard drive analysis. Are these problems related? To further complicate things , I recently upgraded my ram (1333, cl9 to 1600, cl8) and the frequency of the freezing increased while playing crysis.

 

[genghiskron]

The XFX 6950 1gb cards seem to have numerous complaints of crashing in games. Of course that doesnt mean its the source of the problem, but it certainly could be:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150523&cm_re=6950-_-14-150-523-_-Product

 

[Wamphryi]

Make sure you have downloaded the DirectX update from MS.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

The games that are crashing seem to be older games like Crysis but not later games like Crysis 2. Win 7 does not come with DirectX 9 capability and DirectX must be updated to add this backwards compatibility.

 

[Au_equus]

The XFX 6950 1gb cards seem to have numerous complaints of crashing in games. Of course that doesnt mean its the source of the problem, but it certainly could be:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150523&cm_re=6950-_-14-150-523-_-Product

That's the main reason I got the zddc version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150527

I figured these would have to undergo testing while geing OC'd and getting the stamp from xfx to carry the 2x warranty, plus they came with a rebate from tigerdirect

 

[Au_equus]

Make sure you have downloaded the DirectX update from MS.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

The games that are crashing seem to be older games like Crysis but not later games like Crysis 2. Win 7 does not come with DirectX 9 capability and DirectX must be updated to add this backwards compatibility.

Thanks, will do that after work. any ideas about the WEI fail? ran it successfully once after upgrading from CF 5770s, but had trouble finishing since then.

 

[Wamphryi]

As far as the WEI is concerned it is possible that your SSD requires a Firmware Update. SSD technology is relatively new and sometimes does not play well with certain SATA controllers depending on brand and the type of controller being used by the SSD manufacturer. If you have PC crashes where the mouse continues to operate but the rest of system simply will not respond there is likely an issue with the Firmware on the SSD.

Another possibility is that the drivers from your previous GPU configuration are causing issues with your upgraded setup. This can occur even with Win 7. Try these steps.

1) Uninstall all drivers related to the GPU and reinstall the latest drivers.
2) Update Direct X as suggested.
3) Make sure your SSD has the latest Firmware
4) Make sure there are no reported issues with the SSD controller and the drivers you are using to run your SATA controllers.
5) Make sure that Win 7 is completely updated through Windows Update.

If these steps do not eliminate the problem you may be looking at a re-installation of Win 7. If this is the case then make sure you follow all the steps I outlined as you reinstall. Make sure the SSD Firmware is up to date before any re-installation.