Computer is freezing/crashing during gaming

Gusterr

Gusterr

Member
Hey guys, the rig I built back in Dec 2010 has been experiencing a very annoying problem lately. I first noticed it while playing Counterstrike GO a week back-- the whole computer would freeze and start looping the last 0.5 seconds of sound. It would run fine for a couple hours but after some stress the thing would freeze. If I turned it immediately back on it would freeze even more quickly.

This led me to believe it was a temperature issue, or a dust issue. So I disassembled and cleaned for dust, which I admittedly had not done in over a year. Then I turned it back on and monitored my temps for a while. Everything seemed normal and everything ran fine for a couple days.

Now it's freezing again. I don't know what to do next. During the most recent freeze, I noticed that my video output failed and my monitor black-screened as though there was no video to show. I think my graphics card is failing.

Here are my specs:

mobo: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R
gfx: Radeon HD 6870 1GB
psu: XFX Black Edition P1-750B-CAG9 750W
ram: CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3
cpu: intel i7 950
 
Make sure your sound and video drivers are updated. Run a diagnostic on the HDD. Try a different video card.
 
johnb35 said:
Make sure your sound and video drivers are updated. Run a diagnostic on the HDD. Try a different video card.
Click to expand...

I updated my drivers and the problem persisted. I don't have another video card to try, unfortunately. I will run a diagnostic on my HDD and report it here.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, nor do I know what I'm looking at, but everything seems fine with my hdd...

ZRML2me.jpg


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The problem is erratic. Some days my computer will let me play Counterstrike for hours before crashing, other days it won't let me play for more than 3 minutes.
 
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hmm there seems to be a pattern emerging on the forum. Loads of people (including me) have been reporting the same issues recently...Monitor the temperature of your components. My PC has been crashing recently during gaming and I've diagnosed it as my CPU overheating. I cleared out loads of dust and it's improved quite a lot. I think it's because of the climbing summer temperatures that so many are having problems
 
Is your computer overclocked at all? Sometimes incorrect voltages to the processor can cause freezes during stress such as a game.
 
mtheory said:
Is your computer overclocked at all? Sometimes incorrect voltages to the processor can cause freezes during stress such as a game.
Click to expand...

No, everything is running at default clock.

By the way, I've made a little headway in diagnosing my problem. I ran the windows RAM test-- no problems there. So I tried swapping out my XFX 6870 for my friend's Sapphire 6870 and ran Skyrim at high settings, smooth as butter, for several hours. I used to be able to do the same thing with my graphics card, but now I have to set Skyrim to "low" and manually crank up the gfx card fan speed while I play. Otherwise I get stuttering and eventually crashing. So the problem is definitely with my graphics card and not my power supply/ram/hdd. I suspect that the poorly ventilated case design, along with my neglect to clean for dust, has created my problem.

What is the next step? I feel like I could resolve the issue myself by removing the card case, cleaning for dust, and re-applying better thermal paste, but that would void the manufacturer warranty. I have already tried using a compressed air cleaner on my gfx card, but I feel like it has made things worse by blowing dust into the card :-/

The manufacturer warranty is for life, so I created a support ticket with XFX (citing fan failure as the problem), but they have not responded yet. The 6870 currently idles upwards of 57* celsius, even when my home AC is on.
 
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