PC keeps Crashing

[avieor]

I was playing battlefield 3 for a bit, about an hour or so. Then my pc freezes, and crashes (shuts off completely). After rebooting the system I scanned my pc and defragged my boot drive and checked the cpu temperatures. Everything seemed fine and thinking that everything had been resolved I went to play battlefield 3 again. About 5 minutes later the pc crashed.

This seems to happen whenever I'm playing battlefield 3, but happened once when I was playing Minecraft. ( I wanted to see if it was just bf3 related )


Would anyone happen to have any suggestions? PC specs are in my description.

 

[kajabla]

Check your GPU temps under load.
Check all your connections. Unplug everything that can be unplugged, make sure it's clean and plug it back in.
How old is your PSU/everything else?

 

[avieor]

Check your GPU temps under load.
Check all your connections. Unplug everything that can be unplugged, make sure it's clean and plug it back in.
How old is your PSU/everything else?

My entire system was assembled by myself earlier this year around August or so. It is a Corsair AX850. My description isn't showing, I'll try fix that now.
Thanks for your adivce and I will be back soon.

 

[avieor]

Okay, found GPU temps at idle*32ºC

I opened with The Witcher 2 to fully test my 580 card. Guess what happened? It crashed on me.

So I followed your second step and opened up my pc. Everything seemed fine really. All the cables were fitted tightly but just incase, I unplugged everything.
I also hoovered my fan on the side panel ( I removed it off the case before hoovering). We have dogs and mischievous rabbits running around the house who occasionally shed fur with enters the atmosphere and can be sucked into the fans of the case. This may have been the cause of the problem.

As for my PC, I shall list my full specs now.

 

[avieor]

Below are all the essentials, but here are all the nonlisted components.

Case: Coolermaster HAF X

HDD: 1TB caviar green
64gb Crucial M4

OD: Lite-On Blu-Ray drive

 

[kajabla]

Does it crash the instant you open a game? If not, switch to a temp monitor immediately after opening the game. Try to get a look in and see if it's heating up unusually quickly.

 

[avieor]

Does it crash the instant you open a game? If not, switch to a temp monitor immediately after opening the game. Try to get a look in and see if it's heating up unusually quickly.

It crashes within a minute or so. Anyone, different problem here. Where to start ...

Okay, I tried to think back to when the pc started crashing. It has been crashing since I installed my sound card recently. I decided to remove it and see if it was the source of the problem. It is an Asus Xonar DX card by the way. So I unhooked the card and went to boot up my system.

Guess what my monitor is reading, "DVI - No signal"

This has happened before, but it is becoming a problem. I think I should check my video card warranty.

My monitor is hooked up to the motherboard's dvi port. Sorry for the late reply.

 

[Petrofsky]

Unplug your computer from the wall and let it sit a minute before opening the case. If you didn't do that, this could get ugly.

Your signature [strike]is[/strike] was not showing, but I looked at your profile. If you have a 580, why are you taking video from the mobo?

Get Core Temp with the grapher. You can let it run in the background while you game and look at the graph after you quit (but before it crashes, obviously).

It sounds to me like an assembly problem, like something is loose or shorting, and you moved it when you installed the audio card and when you removed it.

 

[mpain55]

Also, could you post the details of your psu?

 

[avieor]

Unplug your computer from the wall and let it sit a minute before opening the case. If you didn't do that, this could get ugly.

Your signature [strike]is[/strike] was not showing, but I looked at your profile. If you have a 580, why are you taking video from the mobo?

Get Core Temp with the grapher. You can let it run in the background while you game and look at the graph after you quit (but before it crashes, obviously).

It sounds to me like an assembly problem, like something is loose or shorting, and you moved it when you installed the audio card and when you removed it.

I mentioned this a while ago. My 580 card didn't show up after several crashes. Now, I have just plugged the video card into another 16x slot. Everything is working now. I haven't played any games yet, so should I test it to see if it crashes now or?

 

[avieor]

Also, could you post the details of your psu?

http://www.corsair.com/power-supply-units/professional-series-gold-power-supply-units/professional-series-gold-ax850-80-plus-gold-certified-fully-modular-power-supply.html

This is the manufacturer's website of the unit, it should have all the details there.

Anything else?

 

[mpain55]

My steps would be this, first make sure the cpu fan/cooler is working. Next make sure the fan on your video card is working. Next, I would try a different video card if you have one available. If not try to to get an RMA on you're video card as it's likely the cause. If you play a lot of games then you will blow out the video card every few years, at least it's been the case with my experience. A lot of companies will grant you an RMA even if you're past the warranty date, it's worth a try. That psu is highly rated and is unlikely the cause.

Basically I believe it's either a heat issue (fans not working), video card, or psu. But considering the psu you're using, I would rule the psu out.

 

[kajabla]

WAIT ALL
The monitor MUST be hooked up to the DVI port on the GRAPHICS CARD. Otherwise you must have been on integrated graphics. This may be your entire problem.

 

[cpatel1987]

Ya know, if your suspecting a temperature issue when the card tries chugging out a game, then why not just run a GPU stress test? You can use something like Furmark or MSI Kombustor, and also have some sort of temp monitoring program at the same time. Don't necessarily need to test on a game.

I remember owning a gtx 460 where the fans would just shut off completely after some heavy game load. Ran MSI Kombustor, and found out temperatures were floating at 60c idle, and 100c+ on high load! Although whats curious about yours is your idle temps only 32c, indicating fan operation.

 

[avieor]

WAIT ALL
The monitor MUST be hooked up to the DVI port on the GRAPHICS CARD. Otherwise you must have been on integrated graphics. This may be your entire problem.

Exactly, the reason why it was hooked up to the motherboard was because the the gpu was not responding at the time. Now it is after placing it in another 16x slot. You might of missed something or else I did not make it clear enough.

Other than that I have been playing portal 2 for about 45 minutes without any crashes since.

 

[avieor]

Okay, to clear up what I have said I shall now explain what has happened.

About a week ago or more I installed a Xonar DX soundcard. Eversince I have been experiencing crashes. After remembering that this what the last thing I did before I experienced these crashes. I decided to take out the sound card to see if this would solve all my problems. It didn't do much, and then my graphics card began to not respond at all.

This is when I put the dvi cable into the motherboard, so I could access the computer to open this webpage and explain what has been happening.

I then opened up the pc to check for any damage, and to see if it will work on another pci-e 16x slot. The card is responding and I have not experienced any crashes .. yet.



I will comeback if there is a problem, otherwise I think the problem has been resolved.

Sorry for all the confusion and thanks for all your support.

 

[cpatel1987]

Sooo the Xonar card damaged the PCI x16 slot that your graphics card was in? I guess thats possible.

 

[kajabla]

Or it was an unrelated mobo issue that happened at the same time as the sound card. If that's not doing well for you, by the way, feel free to recycle it. You really don't need one. I doubt you'll be able to tell the difference, unless you have some giant headphones that need a strong output signal.