Even basic games crashing or crashing system.

[pcphantom]

Okay, so I've got a gaming rig I built about a year ago and I'm just floored at the problems I've been having.
A part of me thinks these errors may be related to a crappy graphics driver that's been released, but I can't be sure.

So 99% of the games on my system use "Steam".

I've found that when I load a great number of my games, probably more than half of the 250 or so titles I own on Steam, that the game either crashes back to my desktop like in star wars battlefront 2 or crashes windows alltogether like it does with sonic generations. These games are not advanced games considering my system and many of them I have already played before on my system. For example, Sonid Generations that crashes my system I spent 70 minutes playing that game a couple months ago and now cannot get past the continue game selection (yes, I tried new game too).

This being what it is, here's what I've tried:

I've updated all my directx drivers all the way back to DX9.
I've run video stress tests on my vram and directx tests to make sure my video card was working. (I have a crazy 3dmark score).
I've run ram tests to make sure my ram doesn't have any errors.
I've checked my system temp to make sure I'm not running hot (usually around 56c, never gone past 60's)
I am running the most current graphics drivers from AMD
I've run more intense games on thier max settings to make sure my system wasn't crashing under some strange stress load.
I've run more legacy games to make sure my system was running older directx okay.
I even ran a registry cleaner and checked to make sure I didn't have anything stupid installed somehow.
I ran a power supply test to make sure I wasn't getting some crazy voltage or something.
I even turned off intel overdrive on my processor.
I did update the firmware on my SSD because it was causing other problems, but that is not where the games are installed.
I ran HDD Diagnostics on the hard drive that my games are installed on.

Here's what I'm running, my system is run at stock voltage and not over clocked.

Intel 3930K @ stock 3.2
Asus Rampage IV Extreme
XFX Radeon 6990 @ stock
32gb Patriot Viper DDR3 Quad Channel (8x4gb)
My C: drive is a OCZ Agility 3 240gb
I keep my games on D: which is a WD Raptor 600gb SATA 3
My PSU's a 1200 watt OCZ
I run dual monitors @ 1920x1080

 

[soundguruman]

Junk the motherboard. Recommend you use intel or Gigabyte and avoid Asus products.
Stop loading "free" software into your computer.
"registry cleaner" is totally unnecessary, and a scam. You don't need ANY "free" software from the internet to make your computer run right.
But once you have loaded this junk, it may never delete, and it may be necessary to wipe the drive and start over.

 

[pcphantom]

Not exactly sure how to reply to that other than it seemed as more of unnecessary criticism than any attempt at being helpful...

"Junk the motherboard." from the highest rated flagship motherboard from the largest maker of gaming motherboards in the world sounds more like a bad personal opinion than anything helpful, but who knows, maybe there are people out there that will throw a $450 motherboard in the garbage and buy a $250 board to replace it based on someone not liking their selection in manufacturers.

As a fair comparison, especially at the time I built this computer Intel didn't even have a true “gaming” motherboard for the socket 2011. Gigabyte, which I think is a horrible company and I've gone through RMA's on the same board with them so often I eventually gave up because I paid more to ship them the boards over and over again than the board was worth. Given that, they didn't have anything that could remotely compare at the time either. The GA-X79-UD7 which is Gigabyte's flagship X79 board did not come out until after I purchased my R4E and to be honest, that board still doesn't match up. I've used Republic of Gamers boards for the majority of my personal computers since Republic of Gamers was first created and they have proven to be the best boards with almost no comparison. With the exception of the Intel Skulltrail series I really liked, but Intel has apparently chosen not to release those regularly.

As for the comment about free software, you might want to check the verbage before being so critical. I used "a registry cleaner" not some junkware program called registry cleaner. I actually just check to make sure my file registries are correct, I have no invalid dll file registries due to drivers being uninstalled and reinstalled during updates (happens a lot with video driver updates that "change" files from previous versions). I’ve been doing this for the past 18 years, I don’t install stupid programs from popups or for that matter anything on my computer I don’t explicitly know the publisher and trust.

My computer, as all my computers, runs flawlessly other than this odd game crashing issue which I am believing more and more is an ATI driver issue than anything. The only problem is with the way ATI’s Catalyst installs you can’t simply “rollback” the graphics driver and get a real rollback since you’d just be resetting the driver itself and not any of the software that controls it. I was really hoping to avoid removing my entire catalyst suite and looking for the version before it to test it out, which is likely what I will do.

 

[soundguruman]

You are describing a typical asus motherboard failure.
You are welcome to spend all the time you like trying to make it work,
OR you replace it and USE it.