PC crash problem, only occurs when playing games

FranzVrolijk

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Feb 20, 2013
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First of all, sorry if I'm doing this all wrong, this is my first post.

Anyway, I have a big problem with my homebuilt PC. I have had it since May 2012. It has recently started crashing every time I try to play a game. Without any warning, the screen goes black, my fans turn up a LOT (I am pretty sure this problem has nothing with temperature to do, got watercooling, and I manually adjust my GPU fan when I play games), but the audio (E.G spotify and such) still keeps on going. It keeps going for half a minute or so, and then it all shuts down. To restart my computer I have to hold the power button for a few seconds, then turn it back on. I do not get a bluescreen, but BOTH of my monitors shuts off, and say that they are getting no signal.
I have searched around, and many people suggest to do a memory test with "Memtest86+", although I'm having some problems running this, as I am on Windows 7 64bit.

My specs are:
CPU: AMD FX-8150 8-core @ 3.6GHz
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 7870
PSU: Cooler Master 750W ( I can find the full name IF NEEDED)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB sticks (16GB, 1600MHz)

I have one SSD with windows and some random programs, and a 2TB HDD with everything else.
I also do have closed watercooling to my CPU, which is why I doubt that temperature is the problem.
 

hillmanant

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Mar 28, 2011
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Hello Franz :hello:

When you say "my fans turn up a LOT" this suggest it is a heat issue try Coretemp to monitor your cpu temperature, maybe the heat sink isn't seated properly. Your temps should be something like this.

The only time it crashs is when starting a game? Is it one game in particular? Is there any updates/patch's for the game?

Is this thing OC'd at all? could be an unstable OC. Try resetting CMOS to stock clocks and start the program to see if it crash's.

Memtest86 is here, it doesn't mater what windows you have as it runs prior to windows, you have to download it, burn it, then run on startup, before windows loads, make sure the boot order is right for this.

Even if memtest pass' one of your RAM sticks could be bad try the RAM Switch procedure. Try one stick of RAM in varying slots, start the game with just one stick see if it crash's, if so try the other, if the program runs with any stick singularly you have a bad stick of ram. Keep trying each stick to see if you get the crash to pinpoint which one it is.


Just my 2 cents do with it what you will. :sol: