Complete lock up while gaming

[eswift]

I'm running W7 64 bit on a computer with

E8400 3.0 duo pentium
Gigabyte GA P31 S3g
4gb of ram
ASUS EAH 6850 gcard

A few days ago the computer just started locking up when I'm playing games. Almost any game. GW2, WoW, Borderlands 2. It's fine with video playback and anything else.

I've ran stress tests on the gcard with Furmark, it's fine.
I'm monitoring the heat of the 2 cores, and the gcard. All are well withing a safe range, 64 max on the gcard, low sixties on the processors. It is definitely not a heat issue. I've used crystaldisk to check my HD, it's fine.

Using CPUID I've monitored the power being supplied to the card and the processors, it looks good.

All my drivers are up to date, that's mobo, gcard, sound drivers, and network drivers. I also tried the current ati beta drivers, as well as some older ones.

I took the machine apart, cleaned it all out, reseated the gcard and ram.

I'm not getting any errors from the games or my graphics card. The games just completely lock up, and then the rest of the computer does. Sometimes it comes back in a 3 or more minutes, sometimes it doesn't. They all lock up pretty quickly, 3 - 7 minutes of launching.

I'm at a complete loss. I've done lots of googling and have tried everything that I've seen suggested in various forums, but to no avail. If anyone can suggest something I'd be appreciative.

 

[mubin]

Most of the time its faulty gpu. Do you get any display driver stopped and recover massage? Also looping sound?

First try with latest driver from AMD. If not working then try check it to another pc or your friends' pc to check the gpu.

If you get the same result RMA it.

 

[eswift]

Most of the time its faulty gpu. Do you get any display driver stopped and recover massage? Also looping sound?

First try with latest driver from AMD. If not working then try check it to another pc or your friends' pc to check the gpu.

If you get the same result RMA it.

Yea, as I said I stress tested the gcard, extensively. Further, it's not having to recover, or redraw the screen as is usually the case if the card is having problems. It's not throwing any errors at all. I'll track down another card and try it, but I'm severely doubting the graphics card. There are none of the tell tale signs.

Sound is looping, which is just indicative of the system freezing, the sound will always loop with a frozen system, regardless of what's causing it.

 

[mubin]

Gpu stress test does not freeze always. I have had the same exact problem with my gpu and solved the problem by RMA it.

But you can troubleshoot it for a try. Follow the link.
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/TroubleshootingGameIssues.aspx

But the best way is to check the gpu to another pc.