Custom PC Freezes on some games only Please Help!

[zPhilHD]

Hello,
My name is Phil and I have recently built my first almost gaming PC. The issue I am having is that when ever I play any Source game or WoW or Guitar Hero I get a random freeze while in game or on start up. I don't know why this is happening and I find it strange because I would play Battlefield 3 max settings without any problems and will play for hours but when I start source game or any of the above it just crashes. My specs are:

CPU: AMD Phenom ii x6 1090t
GPU: Sapphire HD 7770 OC GHz Edition 1GB
GDDR5
Motherboard: ASUS M4A87 TD EVO
8GB of Ram 2x2GB and 1x4GB
PSU: OCZ 650w
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit fully legitimate copy

If you could help that would be more than great thank you so much

 

[hillmanant]

I would bet on a memory issue with a freeze , especially since your ram is "2x2GB and 1x4GB " I'm assuming your using some leftover ram from an old build since they are not a matching set. Are the ram sticks all the same speed and timings? You could try one stick at a time, shut down, unplug all but one stick and start the suspect program and see if it crashes, do this with each stick and see if any succeed and if any fail, if some succeed and others fail, obviously the failed one's are junk.

 

[zPhilHD]

Thanks for the reply I'll try it out now and see what its like I'll keep you posted

 

[zPhilHD]

I tried each stick of ram as you told me to do and it appears that the 2x2GB sticks were worse than my 1x4GB but the problem still persists. As soon as I opened the game with the 2x2GB of ram the game shut off and I had to force reboot it and then I tried the 1x4GB and it still happens but I can play the game for a longer period of time and by that I mean like 5 mins. I may have forgotten to mention that its not an .exe crash it's the whole computer, it would go black and audio would lopp over and over and I can't do anything, I've tried pressing the Windows button button and Ctrl ALT and Delete but still nothing happens so Im forced to press the reset button on my case. I am really grateful for you guys to take the time and help me and I hope I can fix this problem before I go insane if you need any more information I will be more than happy to tell.
Thank you

 

[hillmanant]

Check your event logs(click start and search"view event logs"), see what the event is logged as, I'll bet its a kernel power error 41, which is a vague event, could be anything from psu to oc issue. Are you OC'd at all? If your OC'd it could be an under voltage to the CPU.

 

[hillmanant]

Try this see if you can pinpoint the crash.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7169-TIAV-5361

Also try starting in safe mode and see if you can get it to crash there, it could be a driver, only essential drivers start in safe mode. If you can still get it to crash in safe mode I would guess hardware.

 

[hillmanant]

Could be the video card not seated correctly or something wrong with it do you have a spare you could try? Check your case see if anyghing is shorted out wire rubbing on a sharp case edge or a screw that got misplaced behind the mobo, make sure the only standoffs behind the mobo are the ones it needs. Even though you did the mem swap process run memtest86 and see if that comes up with anything. Make sure the Mhz on your ram sticks matchs what the MHz is in the bios, check your timings. I noticed you didn't list a HDD is that because you reused a previous one? If so how old is it? Have you defragged it lately? Try running a free reg cleaner like CCleaner.

Sounds like WOW and AMD don't play well together can you try rolling back your driver for you video card to an older date see if that helps, maybe try the driver that came on the disk with the card see if it still freezes.
Look here http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/361632-33-7850-freezing

Sorry for the multiple posts I'm just researching as I go. Kinda out of Ideas.

 

[zPhilHD]

Thanks for your opinion I will have to try them out I forgot to mention my HDD actually sorry its a Toshiba 500GB, I've noticed that on my case there is a HDD LED light? and it blinks all the time I don't know what this means because me and my friend have the exact same case (Zalman Z11 Plus) and his LED isnt blinking at all for him and it has me thinking that it could be a HDD problem maybe? Im not sure. Is there any way for me to check if there are any problems like I would check the ram like Memtest86? in prior to the OC the only piece of hardware that i have oc'd is my graphics card only because it came like taht already oc'd its just one of sapphires line of gpus right here ---> http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1523&lid=1 When I am using the event log am i to leave it opened when playing the game and then when it crashes restart my computer and check the log or what do i do? thanks il keep you notified on what is happening

 

[hillmanant]

Thanks for your opinion I will have to try them out I forgot to mention my HDD actually sorry its a Toshiba 500GB, I've noticed that on my case there is a HDD LED light? and it blinks all the time I don't know what this means because me and my friend have the exact same case (Zalman Z11 Plus) and his LED isnt blinking at all for him and it has me thinking that it could be a HDD problem maybe? Im not sure. Is there any way for me to check if there are any problems like I would check the ram like Memtest86? in prior to the OC the only piece of hardware that i have oc'd is my graphics card only because it came like taht already oc'd its just one of sapphires line of gpus right here ---> http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&pid=1523&lid=1 When I am using the event log am i to leave it opened when playing the game and then when it crashes restart my computer and check the log or what do i do? thanks il keep you notified on what is happening

Sorry not event log, Event Viewer open it after you reboot after a crash, then expand the Critical and Error fields to see which events happened in the last hour, again sorry for the mis-post.

The HDD light on your friends PC is probably not connected right, he probably has the wires backwards as an LED doesn't work with reverse polarity, the point of a HDD light is so you know your HDD is being accessed, it blinks whenever your HDD is reading or writing, this is normal.

You could try Hitachi Drive Fitness Test to test your HDD, sometimes it doesn't recognize Toshiba drives though, if you start it and don't see your drive in the testable drives it won't work. You can get it here, download the CD image, burn it, then boot to it, make sure your boot order is right in the bios, to boot the DVD drive first.

 

[zPhilHD]

Great stuff thanks Il be having my weekend full of computer tech-i-ness. I'll let you know what the story is on this build and what the event viewer is saying and hitachi driver thing

 

[zPhilHD]

Hey I have a question here, I have no clue on how to get to the critical error part of the event viewer what do i do when i open the event viewer to get to that part?

 

[hillmanant]

Hey I have a question here, I have no clue on how to get to the critical error part of the event viewer what do i do when i open the event viewer to get to that part?

when you open event viewer you'll see something like this, click to expand the two catagories and see what the events are.

 

[zPhilHD]

Yeah it is a kernal power 41 what does that mean? Is that the source of my problem? If so is there a way to fix it?

 

[hillmanant]

Yeah it is a kernal power 41 what does that mean? Is that the source of my problem? If so is there a way to fix it?

As I said before Event 41 is very vague. Event 41 could be anything from PSU to RAM.

Lets start with RAM your mixed sticks make me wonder. They may all work separatly but together is a different story. What are the suggested speed/MHz of all the sticks and timings like 9-9-9-24. Make sure all the sticks are exactly the same and they are set correctly in BIOS, set them to manual(not auto) and set the speed and timing to exact RAM specs.

 

[zPhilHD]

Even Better news (sarcasm) I turned my computer on earlier and kept getting a clicking noise. The bios start up took longer than usual (usually about 5 seconds or less now it takes about 1minute if lucky then the window logo comes on then restarts itself and then I noticed the hdd light goes from bright red to nothing I have noticed that whenever I played the games I've had problems with it would do the same this is really annoying and I can't take it any longer after spending about 600 euro on this machine and then about 70 or more on games to find out that they don't play is reall really really frustrating. Now I was thinking that it's not my psuits not my ram it's my hard drive. If you could reply to me or anybody at hat as soon as possible hat would be brilliant I just want this pc to work without ease thank you for your time

 

[hillmanant]

A clicking can be a read arm in your hard disk slapping meaning it's junk.

I think you need to start over completely. If something is wrong with your hard drive that would have no effect on how fast your BIOS would load, if your bios is loading slow its a hardware issue.

I would tear it down and follow this guide to a "T" listen that all the beep codes are right as you go along.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

I think there may be something wrong with your MoBo.

 

[zPhilHD]

I looked upmy problem and all the answers i have found are saying that my hard drive is broke im going to get a new one today and see if the games will work il keep you posted on this

 

[zPhilHD]

i forgot to say its not such my bios its the screen before windows loads you know the one with the motherboards name? well that used to take 5 seconds now it would take a minute then load then restart itself so ilbuy a new hard drive and try that and see what happens il tell you how it goes