my PC is crashing and I don't know why!! please help me

[angry_Phil97]

hello everyone and thanks for taking a look at my question . my PC frequenty crashes while play games (all kind of games -> even minecraft when I play it a few hours!!)
if it crashes my monitor turns black and there is a loud buzzing sound coming from my headphones\stereo installation (it's probably a loop from the last played sound) .
the PC itself keeps running while the fans are going as hard as possible until I turn the pc of by cutting off the power (there is no other way) . my PC can play all games easily (I play bioshock infinite on ultra in 60fps ) and sometimes I can play a whole afternoon and sometimes only 10 minutes before it crashes .

specs:
-motherboard : gigabyte-970A-UD3
- CPU : AMD FX - 8120 black edition (8 cores) -> with default cooler
- GPU : AMD radeon sapphire HD 7870
- power : corsair TX650
- hard drive : samsung blue caviar 1TB
- RAm : 2 corsair vengeances (4GB each)
- OS: windows 7 ultimate

PS: the case itself has 1 cooler
the recommended setting from games are the highest settings
at first my OS was windows 8 but because that might have been the reason I changed it to windows 7 (but that didn't work out so well )


if anyone could help me I would be sooooo grateful , I spent all my money on my pc a half year ago and it still doesn't work properly.




update: I don't think it's heat related because it just crashed after playing far cry 1 (really bad graphics!!!) for 2 minutes . my PC didn't even had time to catch some heat . this is just crazy

 

[serge44]

You're going to have to try and see a lot of things. One of the first things I'd like to rule out is heat. Since it only happens when playing games for a while, something might be getting too hot.

Download Open Hardware Monitor and Prime95. Run Prime95 for a good while and check your temps. If your CPU is going over 70º/80º then jackpot. Also see if your NB / SB are overheating, quite unlikely since they both have passive coolers on that MoBo, but just pay attention to them. If they're not that bad, then move on to test the video card.

Download Kombustor or any other stressing tool for the GPU and same thing. Check temps. You can post here if you like.

Let me know how they test out and if that's not the problem, we can move on to explore something else.

 

[angry_Phil97]

You're going to have to try and see a lot of things. One of the first things I'd like to rule out is heat. Since it only happens when playing games for a while, something might be getting too hot.

Download Open Hardware Monitor and Prime95. Run Prime95 for a good while and check your temps. If your CPU is going over 70º/80º then jackpot. Also see if your NB / SB are overheating, quite unlikely since they both have passive coolers on that MoBo, but just pay attention to them. If they're not that bad, then move on to test the video card.

Download Kombustor or any other stressing tool for the GPU and same thing. Check temps. You can post here if you like.

Let me know how they test out and if that's not the problem, we can move on to explore something else.

thanks or these suggestions serge!! but since I'm not really good at this stuff I have some little questions :
-what are my NB and SB ? (I probably just don't know the abbreviations)
- how long should I stress my GPU and CPU (and others) . only a few minutes or an hour ?

 

[serge44]

You're going to have to try and see a lot of things. One of the first things I'd like to rule out is heat. Since it only happens when playing games for a while, something might be getting too hot.

Download Open Hardware Monitor and Prime95. Run Prime95 for a good while and check your temps. If your CPU is going over 70º/80º then jackpot. Also see if your NB / SB are overheating, quite unlikely since they both have passive coolers on that MoBo, but just pay attention to them. If they're not that bad, then move on to test the video card.

Download Kombustor or any other stressing tool for the GPU and same thing. Check temps. You can post here if you like.

Let me know how they test out and if that's not the problem, we can move on to explore something else.

thanks or these suggestions serge!! but since I'm not really good at this stuff I have some little questions :
-what are my NB and SB ? (I probably just don't know the abbreviations)
- how long should I stress my GPU and CPU (and others) . only a few minutes or an hour ?

NB stands for North Bridge, and SB stands for South Bridge. To make it simple, they're a couple of chip interfaces that live in your motherboard and help coordinate the communication between your processor, your RAM, and some other parts of your PC. They don't normally overheat, when overclocking it's most likely that your CPU will be the one overheating first, and most good motherboards have heatsinks over (at least one of) them to help them cool of. They don't normally are an issue but if you're getting this kind of problem it's worth to give them a look.

Regarding how long you should run Prime95, if there's a heat issue you should see it climb very quickly. First thing to look at is at the temps at Idle on Open Hardware Monitor, meaning before running Prime and doing basically nothing else. This should give us a base point. Then run Prime and select a test called In-Place Large FFTs, as this one heats the CPU the most. Within the first few minutes you should see it climb until it crashes. All this time check the temperatures. If it is indeed a heating issue you'll be able to see it in OHM. However, if when it crashes your temps aren't too high (below 70ºC), then it means something else (and that's exactly what we're trying to see).

If it's indeed a heating issue that's a relatively easy fix, you'll have to check the cooler to see if the fan is working properly, if it isn't, then time to shop for a new cooler. If it is working, remove the cooler, clean the thermal paste and apply a new layer and place again. That should do it.

 

[angry_Phil97]

You're going to have to try and see a lot of things. One of the first things I'd like to rule out is heat. Since it only happens when playing games for a while, something might be getting too hot.

Download Open Hardware Monitor and Prime95. Run Prime95 for a good while and check your temps. If your CPU is going over 70º/80º then jackpot. Also see if your NB / SB are overheating, quite unlikely since they both have passive coolers on that MoBo, but just pay attention to them. If they're not that bad, then move on to test the video card.

Download Kombustor or any other stressing tool for the GPU and same thing. Check temps. You can post here if you like.

Let me know how they test out and if that's not the problem, we can move on to explore something else.

ok serge, I did what you told me to do

when I run open hardware monitor on idle i get the following results:
- GPU temp. : 38°C
-CPU temp : 44°C (it was very hot yesterday so that might have caused a bit of a difference tho my PC temp . )

when I run the stress test on prime95 for 5 min. my processor has a temp. of 75°C and it was stil increasing really slow. my CPU fan was rotating at 6500 RPM -> sidenote : My OHM was open when Iplayed planetside 2 (on pretty high definition 40fps) and afterwards it said that the max. temp. of my cpu was 77°C

then I used MSI kombustor to stress mu GPU and after 5 minutes the temp. was 75°C (the test ran on 81fps and it was the openGL 2 test)

during the tests my PC never crashed .

 

[serge44]

I did some checking and found out that the highest recommended temp for your processor is 61ºC:
http://products.amd.com/pages/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=771&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=

That means that reaching 75º on prime after only 5 minutes (I wonder how high would it go after 1 or 2 hours), you're already 14º over the maximum recommended temperature. After 1 or 2 hours I wouldn't be surprised if it reached 85º or more. Although not 100% sure, this could be the cause of your problem. You're not overclocking, are you?

A stock cooler should keep the CPU cool enough if you're not overclocking, so this could be a) A faulty CPU cooler, or b) an installation problem. Did you install it yourself?

A good fixing start would be to remove the cooler, clean the leftover thermal paste from both the cooler and the CPU with alcohol (clean the CPU very carefully, remove it first, handle with care, clean with a cotton swab that's not overdamp. Patience.). Also clean the cooler (both the passive and the fan) for dust. Then reapply thermal paste and reinstall cooler. There should be some YouTube guides around.

If that doesn't help, think of getting an aftermarket cooler. There are many options available; air cooling is still the most widely used but water cooling has gained a lot of terrain since the launch of closed-water loops, which are easy to install and require no maintenance. Here at Tom's there's a lot of info for you to look around: http://www.tomshardware.com/t/cooling/ Whatever you buy, make sure it's compatible with your FX CPU.

Last of all, you mention your GPU temp after kombustor. It's high, although GPUs usually run hotter than CPUs. Since you're going to be opening the case and doing some cleaning up, take the time to clean your video card's fan and cooler with some compressed air.

Considering that both the CPU and the GPU are running hot I would also check that your case has proper airflow. Do you live in a very hot area? You mention that your case already had one fan, where is it placed? Is it pulling cool air in or pushing warm air out? It wouldn't hurt to get 1 or 2 more fans to increase the airflow, if your case allows it. Fans in the front and side should be pulling cool air in, and fans in the rear and top should be pushing hot air out. The most important ones are the rear and front.

 

[angry_Phil97]

I did some checking and found out that the highest recommended temp for your processor is 61ºC:
http://products.amd.com/pages/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=771&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=

That means that reaching 75º on prime after only 5 minutes (I wonder how high would it go after 1 or 2 hours), you're already 14º over the maximum recommended temperature. After 1 or 2 hours I wouldn't be surprised if it reached 85º or more. Although not 100% sure, this could be the cause of your problem. You're not overclocking, are you?

A stock cooler should keep the CPU cool enough if you're not overclocking, so this could be a) A faulty CPU cooler, or b) an installation problem. Did you install it yourself?

A good fixing start would be to remove the cooler, clean the leftover thermal paste from both the cooler and the CPU with alcohol (clean the CPU very carefully, remove it first, handle with care, clean with a cotton swab that's not overdamp. Patience.). Also clean the cooler (both the passive and the fan) for dust. Then reapply thermal paste and reinstall cooler. There should be some YouTube guides around.

If that doesn't help, think of getting an aftermarket cooler. There are many options available; air cooling is still the most widely used but water cooling has gained a lot of terrain since the launch of closed-water loops, which are easy to install and require no maintenance. Here at Tom's there's a lot of info for you to look around: http://www.tomshardware.com/t/cooling/ Whatever you buy, make sure it's compatible with your FX CPU.

Last of all, you mention your GPU temp after kombustor. It's high, although GPUs usually run hotter than CPUs. Since you're going to be opening the case and doing some cleaning up, take the time to clean your video card's fan and cooler with some compressed air.

Considering that both the CPU and the GPU are running hot I would also check that your case has proper airflow. Do you live in a very hot area? You mention that your case already had one fan, where is it placed? Is it pulling cool air in or pushing warm air out? It wouldn't hurt to get 1 or 2 more fans to increase the airflow, if your case allows it. Fans in the front and side should be pulling cool air in, and fans in the rear and top should be pushing hot air out. The most important ones are the rear and front.

I already put a new layer of thermal paste on a while ago because my power supply's fan was on the wrong side and the old thermal paste was crumbled because of the heat . and I'm planning to buy a new CPU cooler of my PC works again , because this one is like an airplane (too loud!!!)

but if heat was the problem my PC couldn't crash when I'm only downloading something or if I play far cry 1 for 2 minutes , but it does ...

PS : I'm not overclocking or anythong like that . I think it's too dangerous if you don't know enough about it like me