Strange problem - please advise. PC crashes after game exit.

[boundless1]

Hi guys,

I've built myself a new gaming machine recently and am having a problem I have never encountered. The pc boots properly, plays games beautifully, but as soon as I exit any graphic intensive game (ie: Bad Company 2) I see my desktop for a few seconds, then the pc completely crashes. As if someone just pulls the power plug.

I have the latest Nvidia drivers installed and am running 2 GTX460s in SLI.

No BSOD just a complete power down. It only happens when I exit games. Games are running great.

I am baffled and its driving me nuts. Also, I cannot reboot immediately with video, I have to wait a while before powering back on.

Is this a temperature issue? And if it is, why wouldn't it happen during gameplay instead of just on the exit?

Here are my specs

Gigabyte G1.Sniper LGA1366
i7 940 Quad core Bloomfield
24GB Ripjaws DDR3 1333
(2) PNY GTX460s in SLI
ThermalTake 850w

 

[boundless1]

Forgot to mention, the CPU and both GPUs are liquid cooled. Dunno if its a cooling issue or not.

 

[ouruserg]

The problem is caused by the graphics reset when you exit the game

Gotta go with PSU - pull a 460 and the problem should go away

ThermalTake may not be delivering 850w tho 650w should be enough

You can test by adding an alternate PSU to power some devices or just stripping your setup to the minimum

 

[boundless1]

Both cards take 2 6pin power plugs. Can I hook a second PSU up and just plug in 1 card to the other PSU without any danger?

 

[TenPc]

PC crashes like that usually occur when the user has been playing for many long hours without a break and the GPU falls over on exit. You may see a slight lag before exiting the game which is an indication that the GPU ram is almost totally spent and not much left to include the desktop on exit. You might get to the desktop but no task bar or icons appear (or take a long time to show).

Make sure the hdd has more than 20% free space as game play uses much of the free space for temporary files.

No, you can't plug in a second PSU.

The GTX460 are not exactly the top of the range and would have limited ram capacity and speed.

Basically, save when ever you can (single user mode) and don't play for more than 4 hours continuous play.

 

[boundless1]

It happens if I leave a game I have been playing for 30 minutes. My HDD has tons of room for temporary files.

Does anyone else agree with ouruserg, that it may be a power problem? I really thought that 850w would be more than enough.

I have tested both cards individually before water cooling anything. Both cards played games well and no problems on exit. But, put them together in SLI along with everything else in my box and they use a ton of power.

 

[boundless1]

I found the source of the problem. Just thought I'd write a follow up message.

The problem were with the EK backplates. I have 2 EK backplates for my gtx460 cards. They serve no purpose other than aesthetics. What was happening was the backplates were heating up with the cards when gaming, then they would rapidly cool when I exited the game. A short was being created by the expanding and contracting backplate.

I just removed both backplates and the problem has been gone ever since.