Game crashes and artefacts

[Nyanja]

Hi guys. I'm having a game crashing issue right now and I really need help.

What happen is when I'm into a game, after a couple of play time (time depends on the game I am playing), some artefacts appear suddenly and the sound freaks out for a short moment and seconds later, the game totally crashes. Then, when I get back to my desktop, there's some kind of artefacts on icons and a little bit everywhere within other applications. I have to reboot my computer to fix it.

So far, I got this issue while playing Team Fortress 2, Dead Island and World of Warcraft. The problem is faster to appear when I play Dead Island.

Computer Spec:
Mainboard : Asus M3A78-CM
BIOS : AMI 2601 06/28/2010
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 3.8GHz Processor
Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 (56 SM5.0 1.53GHz, 1GB, PCIe 2.00 x16)
RAM: 4x Kingston KTC1G-UDIMM 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-23-6-3)

Here is the Windows Event Viewer report from a Dead Island crash:

- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
  <Provider Name="Application Error" /> 
  <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID> 
  <Level>2</Level> 
  <Task>100</Task> 
  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> 
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2011-09-08T00:46:59.000000000Z" /> 
  <EventRecordID>85820</EventRecordID> 
  <Channel>Application</Channel> 
  <Computer>Alex-PC</Computer> 
  <Security /> 
  </System>
- <EventData>
  <Data>DeadIslandGame.exe</Data> 
  <Data>1.0.0.0</Data> 
  <Data>4e6735da</Data> 
  <Data>nvd3dum.dll</Data> 
  <Data>8.17.12.8026</Data> 
  <Data>4e3909fb</Data> 
  <Data>c0000005</Data> 
  <Data>0055c833</Data> 
  <Data>fd0</Data> 
  <Data>01cc6dbe1c277847</Data> 
  <Data>d:\programmes\steam\steamapps\common\dead island\DeadIslandGame.exe</Data> 
  <Data>C:\Windows\system32\nvd3dum.dll</Data> 
  <Data>0e872eb5-d9b4-11e0-9055-002215ba92d7</Data> 
  </EventData>
  </Event>

 

[iam2thecrowe]

what power supply dou you have? it sounds like a power problem or a vid card problem, maybe overheating.

 

[Nyanja]

PSU: Thermaltake TR2 600w
Wouldn't the whole PC shut down if it's a PSU issue?

Otherwise, I'll be swaping my vid card for my friend's. It's the same model and he doesn't have any issue presently.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

a psu not giving enough power/unstable power can cause many different issues. i would just swap the vid card to rule that out first since you have access to one.

 

[Nyanja]

Ok. And how can I verify my PSU then?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

the only test would be to get another PSU, can you borrow one from someone? You should also re-seat your current vid card, sometimes it doesnt make proper connection in the slot.

 

[Nyanja]

Actually that might be power related. The thing is, my PC is plug into a "low quality" power bar which is in return plugged into an extension...

I'll try vid card swapping tonight then I'll isolate my PC on an extension bar alone.

One thing I'd like to add is yesterday I tried running Dead Island and I could "force" the crash by turning FRAPS on while I was playing. It crashed 20 seconds after starting the software. What is the impact FRAPS had and why did it force the game crash?

 

[rolli59]

I have to agree with testing the friends card (artifacting usually means bad card) if all good then it is your card if not PSU.

 

[Nyanja]

I forgot to mention I ran a Prime95 test this weekend and 10 seconds into the test, my PC totally crashed with no bluescreens or error of any sorts.

Would that mean I should be leaning for a PSU problem?

 

[cburke82]

Is your CPU or GPU over clocked at all the prime 95 test fail means something is wrong. So if the card swap works problem solved if not try and borrow a PSU only time I have ever seen artifacts on my desktop was when I was trying to overclock the crap out of my GPU lol.

 

[Nyanja]

I did run Prime95 while my CPU was a tid bit OCed. UnOCed it yesterday. I'll run a prime95 before swaping everything.

My GPU is stock value.

 

[cburke82]

I did run Prime95 while my CPU was a tid bit OCed. UnOCed it yesterday. I'll run a prime95 before swaping everything.

My GPU is stock value.

Ok then a small setting mistake can cause the CPU to be unstable and that could be causing your problems as well. Let us know how it goes