Gaming desktop screwed up, please help

[Imm0rt41]

Ok, so, here's the story. My desktop is screwed up. Not entirely sure how, but here's a list of things that keep happening, after that I'll list solutions I've tried and my specs:

1. I will be playing a game or video, and the video and audio will go into static, the machine will crash and restart, loading up to the bad shutdown screen http://www.greenhughes.com/files/installvbguest1.png

2. It will begin to load up the Operating System (this is the most common symptom) and will freeze during the windows icon animation, then crash and restart http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs40/i/2009/007/7/0/Windows_7_Boot_Gif_by_saiseihogo.jpg (it freezes about halfway through the animation)

3. Video games will randomly drop bits of audio, such as music might cut out, player sounds will stop working, environment will cut out, and then randomly it'll come back

4. The video in games will freeze entirely, along with audio, and then it either might crash the computer or unfreeze about a minute later

5. Parts of the 'things' in video games will load weirdly, such as the text on the main menu is just blocks, or random objects are appearing where they shouldn't (I'm playing Metro 2033 in this case, which I haven't been able to get past the first minute due to these problems)

5. Windows will freeze up for no real reason, and will unfreeze when they feel like it. This often usually won't let me bring up ctrl+alt+delete until it unfreezes, same for video games



What I've tried:

1. Defragging. It was already defragged

2. System Restore. Nothing changed

3. Formatting. Windows stopped freezing as much, but the other symptoms stayed the same. Also it seemed to not register the new OS installation multiple times (I used a bootable flash drive due to lack of CD Rom) and until it actually loaded up it would keep showing multiple Windows 7 partitions to choose from, even though there was only one (I checked)

4. Removing video card and running off integrated gpu (its a bit worse than my card). This solved nothing, and only made video games run worse obviously



Specs:

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Quad-Core 3.2GHz

HDD: 750(698)GB Western Digital

GPUCard: ATI Radeon HD 4670 IceQ 1GB DDR3
GPUIntegrated: ATI Radeon HD 4250

RAM: 2x4GB Patriot G Sector 5

Mobo: ASUS M4A88T-V EVO

DirectX 11



Can someone please help me out with this or tell me what I can do to get more info that might help? Thanks

 

[mbreslin1954]

Are you overclocking anything, such as the CPU, RAM, or the video card? How old is the hard drive?

I don't understand what you mean when you write:
"it seemed to not register the new OS installation multiple times (I used a bootable flash drive due to lack of CD Rom) and until it actually loaded up it would keep showing multiple Windows 7 partitions to choose from, even though there was only one (I checked) "

What do you mean "register the OS"? It either installs or it doesn't. Or are you referring to the initial boot screen after Windows has been installed on the hard drive, where it asks you to select from two or more installations of Windows? If that's what's happening, then it seems like you have not really removed the original or old disk partitions.

When you boot up from the Windows 7 boot disk on the USB drive, you should have deleted any and all partitions on the hard drive, then just clicked "Next", and Windows 7 will create whatever partitions it wants (typically two) and install itself. If the Windows install disc is asking you to choose partitions on the hard drive then it seems that maybe not all HDD partitions are really gone.

 

[Imm0rt41]

I highly doubt anything is being overclocked, I've never worked on doing that before. These problems also started happening out of nowhere, nothing was changed, they just began happening about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Hard drive is about 2 years old I think, maybe a bit less.

By that I mean that after it said it finished installing, the computer restarted at a point when it should, and it showed a screen that had Windows 7 listed multiple times. It only stayed for about 2 seconds each time it came up though so I couldn't read it, I just assumed it was thinking that there were multiple partitions or something like that. And by registering, I meant that it would restart at the end of the installation, and then try to install again instead of booting up

 

[Outlander_04]

Start > run > dxdiag

if that shows no errors .
are you connecting sound via HDMI?


have you tried a BIOS update and/or reset

 

[ARICH5]

um the 4670 is a dx10 card...not dx11

 

[dmcclelland1]

A friend of mine had similar symptoms on his PC and it was his power supply being on the fritz, slowly things got worse over time. Eventually his power supply took out his video card with it before he could do anything about it. In my experience somewhat random seeming failures can be due to the power supply failing as it can be short on power to each device at a certain time. I would check my voltages on the power supply, or if you have an extra one with a similar max wattage I might swap it in to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Imm0rt41]

Start > run > dxdiag

if that shows no errors .
are you connecting sound via HDMI?


have you tried a BIOS update and/or reset

No errors in dxdiag, and I was connecting via HDMI, but I switched to my optical output thinking that might have been a part of the sound problem

I haven't tried a BIOS update. Will anything be lost or messed up if I try that?

 

[Imm0rt41]

A friend of mine had similar symptoms on his PC and it was his power supply being on the fritz, slowly things got worse over time. Eventually his power supply took out his video card with it before he could do anything about it. In my experience somewhat random seeming failures can be due to the power supply failing as it can be short on power to each device at a certain time. I would check my voltages on the power supply, or if you have an extra one with a similar max wattage I might swap it in to see if it makes a difference.

Someone else I know suggested that to be the problem, but I didn't see how that would affect the other issues like windows freezing and sound failing in games and the loadup freezing and crashing. I'll try a power supply switch though next

 

[Outlander_04]

No errors in dxdiag, and I was connecting via HDMI, but I switched to my optical output thinking that might have been a part of the sound problem

I haven't tried a BIOS update. Will anything be lost or messed up if I try that?

I would say the graphics card is toast

The HDMI runs through a chip on the card
And its possible the graphics card BIOS is corrupted , which will probably be causing the windows boot issues


Clean out all the drivers , try the sound through the back panel connectors [ not optical]

and try the onboard graphics again

 

[Imm0rt41]

I would say the graphics card is toast

The HDMI runs through a chip on the card
And its possible the graphics card BIOS is corrupted , which will probably be causing the windows boot issues


Clean out all the drivers , try the sound through the back panel connectors [ not optical]

and try the onboard graphics again

Ok, I'll check that out

 

[Imm0rt41]

Tried that (except connecting through the back panel connectors), and it didn't work. Also I'm not sure how to go about resetting/updating the BIOS. And the reason I didn't try the back panel connectors is because I use a Plasma flatscreen TV (not monitor) for my....well monitor, and it doesn't have the proper connections in the back, and then an older version surround sound system for the sound, one which still doesn't have the proper connections

Through all this stuff that I've tried, none of the symptoms have changed. The only thing which I haven't seen has been the video and audio going into static, but I haven't run it for long enough to see if that came up again