Hi all,
SEE BOTTOM FOR FIX
Overview
I've been incredibly frustrated with an issue I can't seem to fix. After a short duration of playing almost any game, it will crashes out. This started occurring about a year ago after 3 years~ of the PC running everything fine. Sorry if this post seems long and frustrated, I just really miss being able to play games.
The symptoms:
The screen will turn a random colour, usually a dark green, as it crashes,
Sometimes the audio gets caught in a loop,
Usually the PC (or at least its display) will lock up for 30s-60s before I can close the game via task manager,
Sometimes the screens go black and I have to restart the PC,
Minecraft has only ever crashed once and it was not a crash that locked up my computer,
Half-Life and Factorio do not crash,
For some games, the crash occurs as soon as the world loads - for others, it's after an indistinct period of time,
For CSGO, the game will still be audible and running smoothly in the background (I can hear footsteps and gunfire), but I can not see the game,
For CSS, the game will run for about 30 minutes before crashing,
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 crashes really quickly,
This occurs for Steam and non-Steam games,
Occasionally I will notice that some windows applications will go transparent before fixing themselves and their top-bar will go to the default windows theme for that duration. This happened with the Battle.net launcher.
GPU
I have no frame rate or performance issues. 2D games don't seem to crash. My GPU runs at a temp <70 degrees usually.
In HWMonitor's logs, 'utilization limit' is usually 'true', but does not correspond with crashes.
Sometimes 'reliable voltage limit' being 'true' will proceed a crash. This is something I'd love to know more about, as I believe the mobo is in charge of keep SLI power under check. The PSU connections to the GPU seem to be configured correctly (by the manual and from looking online).
I have tried plugging in each of my monitors individually.
I have tried swapping its PCI bus.
PSU
Besides what my components are drawing, I have no way of checking my PSU's health or output.
I've made sure to plug my PC into different household power sockets.
OS/Storage
I have wiped my hard drive and M.2 SSD clean and tried a fresh Windows and Linux install, both had the same issues.
I have also tried unplugging all USB peripherals.
VRAM
Games rarely produce an error message that gives specifics, except for one which said I was running out of VRAM. I have 4GB of memory in my card and HWMonitor does not say I am fully utilising it during a crash. To fix this I tried increasing the paging limit and overclocking virtual memory.
Memory
I have 16GB of memory, it's not fully utilised before a crash, I have tried switching their slots or booting with only a single stick.
CPU
The CPU will max out at a temp of 75C and pulls 90W. The utilization differs depending on the game but does not seem to correlate with crashes.
Drivers
All drivers are up to date - latest drivers were also used in the fresh OS installs. I have also ran just Steam and the games in a fresh environment which leads me to believe it's a components issue.
Solution?
I believe I need to swap out a component, I just have no clue which component that would be. I don't have much money so if I were to swap something that doesn't fix the issue that would suck. Anyways, it would be great to fix this issue without having to spend money.
It took me this long to be very serious about the issue because life's been crazy and haven't had all that much time at home or to get stuck into this.
Specs
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K CPU @4.00GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ti 4GB
MoBo: ASUS Maximus VIII HERO
Memory: CRUCIAL 2x8GB @ 2133MHz
Cooler: Corsair H100i watercooler
PSU: Corsair AX860 Platinum (860W)
HDD: Western Digital Black 2TB
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO M.2 250GB
Case: Corsair Graphite 780T
FIX
Turns out it was some fault with the GPU. Replacing it fixed the issue. Cheers!
I have run into a new issue though, as described in the 'best solution' comment. Help on that would be lovely too <3
SEE BOTTOM FOR FIX
Overview
I've been incredibly frustrated with an issue I can't seem to fix. After a short duration of playing almost any game, it will crashes out. This started occurring about a year ago after 3 years~ of the PC running everything fine. Sorry if this post seems long and frustrated, I just really miss being able to play games.
The symptoms:
The screen will turn a random colour, usually a dark green, as it crashes,
Sometimes the audio gets caught in a loop,
Usually the PC (or at least its display) will lock up for 30s-60s before I can close the game via task manager,
Sometimes the screens go black and I have to restart the PC,
Minecraft has only ever crashed once and it was not a crash that locked up my computer,
Half-Life and Factorio do not crash,
For some games, the crash occurs as soon as the world loads - for others, it's after an indistinct period of time,
For CSGO, the game will still be audible and running smoothly in the background (I can hear footsteps and gunfire), but I can not see the game,
For CSS, the game will run for about 30 minutes before crashing,
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 crashes really quickly,
This occurs for Steam and non-Steam games,
Occasionally I will notice that some windows applications will go transparent before fixing themselves and their top-bar will go to the default windows theme for that duration. This happened with the Battle.net launcher.
GPU
I have no frame rate or performance issues. 2D games don't seem to crash. My GPU runs at a temp <70 degrees usually.
In HWMonitor's logs, 'utilization limit' is usually 'true', but does not correspond with crashes.
Sometimes 'reliable voltage limit' being 'true' will proceed a crash. This is something I'd love to know more about, as I believe the mobo is in charge of keep SLI power under check. The PSU connections to the GPU seem to be configured correctly (by the manual and from looking online).
I have tried plugging in each of my monitors individually.
I have tried swapping its PCI bus.
PSU
Besides what my components are drawing, I have no way of checking my PSU's health or output.
I've made sure to plug my PC into different household power sockets.
OS/Storage
I have wiped my hard drive and M.2 SSD clean and tried a fresh Windows and Linux install, both had the same issues.
I have also tried unplugging all USB peripherals.
VRAM
Games rarely produce an error message that gives specifics, except for one which said I was running out of VRAM. I have 4GB of memory in my card and HWMonitor does not say I am fully utilising it during a crash. To fix this I tried increasing the paging limit and overclocking virtual memory.
Memory
I have 16GB of memory, it's not fully utilised before a crash, I have tried switching their slots or booting with only a single stick.
CPU
The CPU will max out at a temp of 75C and pulls 90W. The utilization differs depending on the game but does not seem to correlate with crashes.
Drivers
All drivers are up to date - latest drivers were also used in the fresh OS installs. I have also ran just Steam and the games in a fresh environment which leads me to believe it's a components issue.
Solution?
I believe I need to swap out a component, I just have no clue which component that would be. I don't have much money so if I were to swap something that doesn't fix the issue that would suck. Anyways, it would be great to fix this issue without having to spend money.
It took me this long to be very serious about the issue because life's been crazy and haven't had all that much time at home or to get stuck into this.
Specs
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K CPU @4.00GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ti 4GB
MoBo: ASUS Maximus VIII HERO
Memory: CRUCIAL 2x8GB @ 2133MHz
Cooler: Corsair H100i watercooler
PSU: Corsair AX860 Platinum (860W)
HDD: Western Digital Black 2TB
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO M.2 250GB
Case: Corsair Graphite 780T
FIX
Turns out it was some fault with the GPU. Replacing it fixed the issue. Cheers!
I have run into a new issue though, as described in the 'best solution' comment. Help on that would be lovely too <3
Last edited:
So it was the GPU!
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