PC Crashes When Running High-Intensity Games

[buzzsaw17]

So I built my computer back in december, in about march I started noticing issues when running games. I will be playing a game such as BF3, DOTA 2 etc, and one of two things will happen. it either: freezes on the frame that the game was last on, and the audio goes all haywire, and requires me to reset my pc and reboot. OR, the entire system just blacks out and then a few seconds later it fires back up on its own.

Now, I only have a brief understanding of PC's and their components, so bear with me here.

Here's my system specs

Windows 7 64-bit
Intel i7-2600K 3.4GHz
G.SKILL Ripjaws 16GB 4x4 RAM
EVGA Superclocked GTX 560
ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1)
Seagate barracuda 1TB
OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB SSD
corsair HX850 850w

One thing that I tried yesterday was I put a new PSU in, a RAIDMAX RX-1000w, to see if that would solve the problem, after about 1 hour of playing BF3 it crashed again with the new PSU in.

If there are any adjustments that may need to be made that might be causing this, feel free to bring them up, as I had limited help building my pc and may not have changed the settings

Any help or advice you guys could give me would be much appreciated, if you need more info or specs please ask.

I'm hoping to get this resolved with your help,
thanks
Buzzsaw17

 

[ohhgourami]

Did you OC anything? What case are you using? Is there enough airflow? Sounds like something is getting too hot.

 

[maui67]

Try running MemTest on your RAM. I had a similar issue a couple of months ago and it turned out I had a stick of RAM go bad. You may have to take out 2 of your sticks and test in pairs until you find the bad stick, if that is the problem.

The other thing you might check is if the gpu is overheating.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

My guess is that it's a heat issue. I'm wondering if your heatsink is making good contact with the CPU for one or your machine is just heating up too much all around.

 

[spat55]

You do have a superclocked GPU, and that is used loads on games, maybe that is going bad, or like the other guy said the RAM might be bad, but i think the gpu is to blame

 

[buzzsaw17]

Did you OC anything? What case are you using? Is there enough airflow? Sounds like something is getting too hot.

I don't have anything overclocked, Im using the AZZA 1000 Solano, it has like 5-6 fans in it, so that should be fine case here




MAUI67

Try running MemTest on your RAM. I had a similar issue a couple of months ago and it turned out I had a stick of RAM go bad. You may have to take out 2 of your sticks and test in pairs until you find the bad stick, if that is the problem.

The other thing you might check is if the gpu is overheating.

Ill test the RAM asap, hopefully within the next few hours, I don't think its my GPU it usually hovers around 56 C while running a game with the fan at 80%.

I'll post some screenshots of all my temps shortly.

Th3pwn3r

My guess is that it's a heat issue. I'm wondering if your heatsink is making good contact with the CPU for one or your machine is just heating up too much all around.

I'll check that tonight too, if I can find my thermal paste, lol. I wouldn't think there would be bad contact since I had my cpu installed at a pc shop.

 

[Son-Of-A-QA]

im no expert but what heat-sink do you have?

 

[buzzsaw17]

im no expert but what heat-sink do you have?

I have the stock one that came with my i7-2600k. cause according to my research the stock ones actually last longer than the aftermarket ones... but im no expert.

I don't know if this helps any, but here are my temps before running BF3, and while running BF3


before BF3

During BF3

These are all about average temps for me


keep in mind i am running only 4gb of ram right now trying to cycle them through to test them

 

[Son-Of-A-QA]

you should get at lest 2 more gigs of ram and a better cooler i recommended : ZALMAN CNPS9700 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019)
its made of pure copper to help trap the heat and cool the cpu and the case too

 

[buzzsaw17]

you should get at lest 2 more gigs of ram and a better cooler i recommended : ZALMAN CNPS9700 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019)
its made of pure copper to help trap the heat and cool the cpu and the case too

So you're saying that I should have a total of 18gb of RAM? ok, and I'll look into getting a better heatsink.



One thing that I did come across while rearranging the new PSU, was that the guy who helped me build my computer, had me use the molex adaptors for my GPU instead of using the standard cable.... i dont know why he had me do that, but I noticed that the molex cable with adaptors goes from a 6 pin connector from the psu, to 4 molex which connect to 2x 6 pin connectors on my GPU,

While the standard cable does from 8pin from psu, to 2x 6pin on my gpu, after I replaced the molex adaptor with the regular cable I havent noticed any problems yet, but I havent had time to put it through some very serious testing.

does anyone know if that cable would make that big of a difference?