Computer keeps freezing, happens noticeably more while gaming

[b.j.cornelissen]

It all started when I was playing Battlefield 4 one day. Suddenly my primary monitor froze. My second monitor stayed on however, and my music and some game sounds continued as well. After around 15 seconds, my second screen froze and the sound stopped as well. I thought that this must have been a one time crash of the game, but it keeps happening since. So now I start my desktop, and after like 2 hours of gaming it freezes. I restart my desktop and everything is normal again, till I start gaming and soon it freezes again. It also has happened once while I was video editing and another time while I was watching Netflix, but it mostly happens when I'm gaming.

I have looked with MSI afterburner, but overheating or a full RAM memory doesn't seem to be the problem.
I'm not really experienced with the tool, but with the eventmanager the only thing I could find was the sudden powering off by me restarting the desktop.
I never received a blue error screen or something similar so I'm not sure what to do now.

My specs:
MB: ASUS P9X79
CPU: Intel Core i7 4820K
RAM: 2x8GB DDR3 933MHz
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
GPU1: NVIDIA GTX 1070 for monitor 1
GPU2: NVIDIA GTX 650 for monitor 2
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO (1TB)
HDD: Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 (1TB)
Nothing overclocked or things like that

Who has any ideas what could be happening or what I could do to find the cause? Thanks in advance!

Bas Cornelissen

 

[clutchc]

Run CCleaner first and do the Clean and Registry portions both. Once that is done, run a full virus scan followed by a malwarebytes scan. Then eliminate as much stuff in the tray that starts with Windows that you can. Run those things on an as-need basis if you can live w/o them. After all that, you can be fairly certain that it isn't a software conflict causing the issue. Until you know that, there's no sense looking for hardware problems.

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

Sorry for the late reply, I thought it was fixed. It isn't Even after all the scans and cleaning up and while I was only running my games and Firefox and maybe some little program my computer still has frozen/crashed multiple times.

 

[clutchc]

I don't think you mentioned your PSU (make & model), did you?

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

No I didn't, sorry. I have the Be quiet! Power Zone 750W. Never have had a problem with it.

Edit: I've build my PC in 2014

 

[clutchc]

After 4 years, it is possible (tho not likely) that the PSU is losing its voltage regulation. It's a good unit, but it wouldn't hurt to verify. Check the voltage with a meter at the 24 pin header and at the 8-pin CPU header while the system is running. See if the voltages are outside of their tolerances.

Have you checked the memory for errors?

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

It took me way too long to find the time to do this, but I have checked my PSU and all the voltages were nicely within their tolerances.

Wich memory you mean?

 

[clutchc]

It took me way too long to find the time to do this, but I have checked my PSU and all the voltages were nicely within their tolerances.

Wich memory you mean?

The system RAM. Run Memtest on each stick individually for at least one full pass.
Btw, there are some "usual" culprits for system freeze. You might want to check them too. Some you may have already checked.
> Mouse. Bad cable, loose cable, bad connection. Batteries.
> Overheating of the CPU.
> Driver corruption
> Software errors
> Virus

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

Excuse me for not answering for so long.

@Clutch, I've tried Memtest, it came out clear, but with my lazy ass I didn't actually check your list of "usual" culprits. Thanks for posting anyway.

So after spending way too long on dealing with this issue, I got enough of the frequent crashes and decided that it was time for more rigorous approaches: I started removing non critical pieces of hardware and see if the crashes would still occur (if that was the case than of course I put them back in). Removing RAM 1 and 2 didn't help. Removing GPU2 didn't help.

But I now have removed GPU1 (GTX 1070) and my computer hasn't crashed for over a week, so the problem must definitely be with GPU1. In the process of removing the card, I think I saw that the GPU might not have been slotted in perfectly. It might be possible that my 1070 doesn't fit perfectly on my motherboard. There is a small lever at the side of the PSI bridge that 'locks' the card, but this lever possibly can't be raised completely because of the size of the 1070. If that is indeed the case, than of course that would be most likely the explanation for the crashes. I will see if this lever was the problem when I put GPU1 back, something I will probably do tomorrow. I'll post an update once I know more.

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

With my GPU back in the problem is occurring again. While slotting in I made sure it clicked and I checked and the 1070 is still locked in. So now I'm sure the cause of the problem must be related to the GTX 1070. Because of that, I also raised this problem on Nvidia's forum:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1093987/geforce-1000-series/my-computer-keeps-crashing-but-not-when-my-gtx-1070-is-outside-of-the-case/

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

All right, so after a lot of things and even sending in my GTX 1070 for repair, my computer also crashed the same way on my GTX 650... So I'm back here. I'll start going down your list Clutchc:

Mouse. Bad cable, loose cable, bad connection. Batteries.
Overheating of the CPU.
Driver corruption
Software errors
Virus

About the driver corruption, I have done a clean install of some old graphics driver (397.93), but that didn't help.

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

A crash has happened with a diffent mouse plugged in and with a cpu temp of 47 degrees

 

[b.j.cornelissen]

I'm thinking about doing a clean install of windows. Is this a good tutorial?

How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10 the Easy Way

The Windows 10 upgrade process drags old files, settings, and programs from your previous Windows system to your new one.

www.howtogeek.com