Computer Crashing Problems

[Rocksteady0]

Hey first time posting on this forum and I'm not sure if this is the correct place to be posting the problem I am having. Anyway what's happening is my computer will occasionally crash while gaming to a black screen and a buzzing noise. It'll happen in games with high or low requirements and it doesn't matter if I've been playing for 3 hours or 10 minutes. I think it happens more often if I'm running itunes and playing music while gaming.

I purchased my pc from cyberpowerpc.com in August and had a similar problem except the computer would crash to a random bright color and they thought it was my graphics card so they mailed me a new one and the problem went away.

System Specs:
Intel® Core™ i7-2600K 3.40 GHz
GeForce GTX 570
1000w cooler master psu
4gb RAM
GigaByte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3

Any help with this problem would be much appreciated and I will happily add requested information to help solve it.

 

[americanbrian]

It sounds like a thermal problem again, unsure if it's the GFX card or the CPU.

Run prime95 with a temperature monitoring program like speedfan to test the CPU,

I can't think of GFX stress tests off the top of my head, but a quick google should give you some options.

 

[americanbrian]

Is the case ventilation any good? you have a case chock full of power parts, pumping heat out like a volcano. Good ventilation can help a lot.

 

[Rocksteady0]

Is the case ventilation any good? you have a case chock full of power parts, pumping heat out like a volcano. Good ventilation can help a lot.

I can't do the stress testing atm, and I can't say I know a whole lot about computers and what's considered "good ventilation", but the problem has happened with the side of the case off so i wouldn't think that's the problem.

 

[Rocksteady0]

I ran Prime95 and the highest a core would get to was 50C and it would sit around 46C. For GFX I ran 3DMark 11 and at the end of the tests my GPU temp was at 68C. 3DMark took up the whole screen so I wasn't able to see SpeedFan during the test. Is there a way to view SpeedFan while 3DMark is running?

 

[jdenova007]

Do you have to do a hard shutdown(holding the power button) or can you get back to the desktop without restarting....?

Run 'memtest' for a few loops and see if it returns any errors.. Could be bad memory or just bad software(OS).... does it crash while NOT gaming... ever..?

Is anything overclocked?

 

[Rocksteady0]

Do you have to do a hard shutdown(holding the power button) or can you get back to the desktop without restarting....?

Run 'memtest' for a few loops and see if it returns any errors.. Could be bad memory or just bad software(OS).... does it crash while NOT gaming... ever..?

Is anything overclocked?

90% of the time i have to hold the power button to restart the computer, but on a rare occasion the monitor will turn black, then after 3 seconds the game will resume right where it was. Also Cyberpower did overclock my pc and looking back idk why i had them do that. It only crashes when gaming and never any other time.

Also how long will memtest take?

Edit: About the overclocking, is there a way I can just reset all that stuff? I don't know anything about that kind of thing.

 

[americanbrian]

sounds like the gfx card if it only happens in games. Yes you should be able to undo the OC. For the CPU go into the bios and just select Auto or Default settings options. It is just a multiplier change really that needs done, not sure about if they changed RAM timings too. Either way default will get you running both at stock speeds.

However, the GPU you can use the Nvidia control panel (advanced or similar tab...sorry running a radeon and can't remember exactly off the top of my head) It should have a restore factory clocks setting too. Click it and it should set you back to stock settings.

I have a 4850 that will bug out if I don't run the fan at 100% all the time. I am certain it is the memory on the card. The GPU has some of the best thermal compound and runs very cool, the ram has NO heat dissapation mechanism other than the gentle breeze from case/gpu cooling fans. I think a lot of cards these days are pushing the GFX memory too close to the limit in terms of clocks etc, and only the best brands have decent cooling for the mem chips. No sensors to check the temps of the ram either so a lot of people I think are getting this type of problem. I know several on these forums I have had this chat with and it crops up more and more recently.

Sometimes the oven bake trick works, but I don't recommend that as a first resort. It is exclusively for totally unusable cards as a last resort.

 

[Rocksteady0]

Best answer selected by rocksteady0.