Computer crashes while playing skyrim

[Cyrus Cee]

I did a play through of the game about 6 months ago, and I only crashed about every 2-4 hours. Now, I decided to try another playthrough but everytime I start playing, I crash within 30 minutes. When I crash, stripes of some random color appear and I bluescreen after 15 seconds. I've tampered with the settings on Skyrim a bit and I discovered that I crash when playing on maximum res with Ultra settings, and on the lowest res with Low settings.

-I don't have any mods installed
-It does this while my Cpu is/isn't overclocked

System specs:
Radeon HD 6670 2GB Gpu
Sabertooth 990fx Motherboard
AMD FX 8-core processor @3.1Ghz
1-stick 8GB Corsair RAM
2TB Deskstar HDD
650 Watt Antec Psu

 

[cuecuemore]

What are your GPU temps after 15-20 minutes of play?

 

[xSoulMonsterx]

Try updating your GPU drivers.

 

[Guest]

What, if any, error box pops up. What kind of crash is it? A blue screen of death, a crash to desktop w/ msg. box, a CTD w/o box, a freeze, a black screen with sound?

I had a problem where high graphics games were crashing every few hours, then every few minutes. I found out it was a memory stick. I also have Corsair RAM, 2x 8 GB. You should run memtest86 and make sure this is not your problem. http://www.memtest86.com/

As I said before, stripes of some color, usually white or tan, appear on my screen and after 15 seconds, I get a bluescreen. No error box pops up or anything. I tried using the memtest86, am I supposed to use a usb to boot my system? How do I test my memory using the application? It's not very clear..

 

[Guest]

What are your GPU temps after 15-20 minutes of play?

They stay around 41-45C. That's 106-113F.

 

[Cyrus Cee]

Well I've resolved it incase anyone is having the same issue, It turns out that underclocking my graphics card (slightly), made it work without crashing. I've played for 20+ hours without a single crash.

 

[Cyrus Cee]

Well I've resolved it incase anyone is having the same issue, It turns out that underclocking my graphics card (slightly), made it work withour crashing. I've played for 20+ hours without a single one.

That usually indicates a PSU issue. Is it an old unit? 650W should be more than enough for a 6670. According to MSI, it only needs 400W and a 17A +12V rail. If there is another PCI-E power cable or if it is a modular PSU, you might want to try to swapping cables around. Hopefully it is a cable issue, otherwise it is either the PSU itself or the VRM on the GPU. If it is the VRM, it could be a sign that the GPU may be on its last legs.

Well actually, I got the PSU about 5 months ago, and the GPU ~18 months ago. At any rate, I'm upgrading to a GTX-770 in about a month; I have another post about it asking if my PSU of 650W has enough wattage for it when it's overclocked. I hope it isnt the GPU, but I guess it doesn't really matter since its going to be switched out soon anyways.