Computer freezes once a day - but only when starting to play a game

[Pliskin]

Hello, I have a problem with my computer and hope it can be resolved here. It is a system I built myself.

When I start up the computer, everything is fine, no freezes. However when I start to play a game, within the first few minutes the game freezes- the game/computer freezes while the sound continues for a few more seconds then it starts to loop and I have to do a hard reset.

After the first freeze and reboot, I can start the same game up again and it will play fine for the rest of the time I am on the computer.

If I were to not play a game, and only to browse the internet or word processing there is no freezing or anything.

--- Things I have tried ---

I thought it could be a sound card issue, so I removed the sound card and now only use the motherboard sound plug, the freeze still happens.

I recently replaced my hard drive because my old one was dying, the freeze still happens. The hard drive is still relatively empty, I only have a few programs and Avast antivirus installed.
Forgot to include: ***Freezes happened with my old hard drive as well as this new one.***

After getting the new hard drive reinstalling windows I downloaded updated drivers for 3D card and other essentials, freeze still happens!

I'm at a loss and think these reboots are doing harm to my computer.

Apologies for the long-winded post.

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.

---

System specs are:
Windows XP
Intel i5-2500k,
4GB of ram
Mobo: ASrock p67 extreme4
3D card: evga 9800GTX+

 

[Bad_Kitty13]

Hi pliskin,

what psu do you have (make/model/wattage) and are you overclocking?
also if these are newer games are you running in compatibility mode with xp?
what games are these?

 

[Pliskin]

Hi pliskin,

what psu do you have (make/model/wattage) and are you overclocking?
also if these are newer games are you running in compatibility mode with xp?
what games are these?

Thanks for the reply:
PSU is: Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus - 600W Power Supply
-I am not overclocking.. the whole thing seems risky to me!

-Games I play are the newer shooters, such as black ops and such. I even played some MMOs, and the same freezes happened. I can play the same game or any different 3D game after initial freeze and it will run fine.

For instance if I were to play WoW, and the game were to freeze - I can reboot and WoW will run fine, as well as any other 3D game after that. It seems to happen with only the first 3D game i play, after that any of them work fine. (If that explanation even makes sense...lol.)

 

[Bad_Kitty13]

it could be the lack of ram i know some of the newer shooters require alot of ram, if you boot the system and start playing does this happen or do you have your computr on for a while and play a game and it crashes then you reboot and it runs fine

you can also try right clicking on the game go to properties then go to the compatibility tab and selecting run in compatibility mode with xp

 

[xerofinite]

it could be the lack of ram i know some of the newer shooters require alot of ram, if you boot the system and start playing does this happen or do you have your computr on for a while and play a game and it crashes then you reboot and it runs fine

you can also try right clicking on the game go to properties then go to the compatibility tab and selecting run in compatibility mode with xp

The first month I played the shooter games without any problems, but as of recently I'm getting a lot of hard freezes. Same 2 sticks of 4 GB RAM each. I had the initial freeze on first game problem too but now it hard freezes every time I try to step into the game, not just the first. I also fail Prime95 stress test within 10 seconds. Memtest hasn't shown any problems so far 2 hrs in, halfway through Pass 2.

Is there any update on how to fix this issue?

 

[kotofeus]

have you actually found an answer to this problem?
I'm having exactly the same issue - I would start my computer in the evening and it would either freeze or freeze with a grey or any other colour lines on the screen. Hard reboot won't help and I have to switch it off and switch it on. It would happen just once and it would work fine for hours after this reboot no matter what. I can play games etc - no problem, but I have to do this one reboot every evening.

Haven't had this issue in the very beginning when we built the system...
Temperatures are all fine and I suppose if they weren't fine I would've had these freezes all the time not just once.
The same goes for all other hardware issues - if it was something wrong with the computer's hardware, these freezes would be happening all the time not just once... that makes me think this might be a software issue...

 

[kotofeus]

thanks.... with all due respect... I haven't built a top end machine to use some "game boosters"...
This is not a solution

 

[ingotjuh]

have you actually found an answer to this problem?
I'm having exactly the same issue - I would start my computer in the evening and it would either freeze or freeze with a grey or any other colour lines on the screen. Hard reboot won't help and I have to switch it off and switch it on. It would happen just once and it would work fine for hours after this reboot no matter what. I can play games etc - no problem, but I have to do this one reboot every evening.

Haven't had this issue in the very beginning when we built the system...
Temperatures are all fine and I suppose if they weren't fine I would've had these freezes all the time not just once.
The same goes for all other hardware issues - if it was something wrong with the computer's hardware, these freezes would be happening all the time not just once... that makes me think this might be a software issue...

Have you found a solution? This problem keeps persisting!

 

[kotofeus]

have you actually found an answer to this problem?
I'm having exactly the same issue - I would start my computer in the evening and it would either freeze or freeze with a grey or any other colour lines on the screen. Hard reboot won't help and I have to switch it off and switch it on. It would happen just once and it would work fine for hours after this reboot no matter what. I can play games etc - no problem, but I have to do this one reboot every evening.

Haven't had this issue in the very beginning when we built the system...
Temperatures are all fine and I suppose if they weren't fine I would've had these freezes all the time not just once.
The same goes for all other hardware issues - if it was something wrong with the computer's hardware, these freezes would be happening all the time not just once... that makes me think this might be a software issue...

Have you found a solution? This problem keeps persisting!

sorry for late reply.
I haven't found a solution, however the part of the problem ware my graphic cards. They were failing and artifacting, so I have replaced two of Saphire Radeon X270 with latest Nvidia.

The problem has disappeared and I was enjoying trouble free gaming for a couple of months.

Now, I have a similar problem again. I have posted a separate topic for that. Basically, my computer would hard reset in the beginning of every evening for a few times and would work without any problems for the rest of the evening. 2-3 or 4-5 resets and no problems after that. Next evening exactly the same.

I don't understand this. If I had it for the entire evening continuously, I'd say there is something wrong with the hardware etc and I would try to change PSU and so on, but this inconsistency is killing me...

 

[ingotjuh]

have you actually found an answer to this problem?
I'm having exactly the same issue - I would start my computer in the evening and it would either freeze or freeze with a grey or any other colour lines on the screen. Hard reboot won't help and I have to switch it off and switch it on. It would happen just once and it would work fine for hours after this reboot no matter what. I can play games etc - no problem, but I have to do this one reboot every evening.

Haven't had this issue in the very beginning when we built the system...
Temperatures are all fine and I suppose if they weren't fine I would've had these freezes all the time not just once.
The same goes for all other hardware issues - if it was something wrong with the computer's hardware, these freezes would be happening all the time not just once... that makes me think this might be a software issue...

Have you found a solution? This problem keeps persisting!

sorry for late reply.
I haven't found a solution, however the part of the problem ware my graphic cards. They were failing and artifacting, so I have replaced two of Saphire Radeon X270 with latest Nvidia.

The problem has disappeared and I was enjoying trouble free gaming for a couple of months.

Now, I have a similar problem again. I have posted a separate topic for that. Basically, my computer would hard reset in the beginning of every evening for a few times and would work without any problems for the rest of the evening. 2-3 or 4-5 resets and no problems after that. Next evening exactly the same.

I don't understand this. If I had it for the entire evening continuously, I'd say there is something wrong with the hardware etc and I would try to change PSU and so on, but this inconsistency is killing me...

I have found a solution! I just fixed this problem last weekend and I've found out that the problem lies with the drivers and/or windows 8.1. What I did was completely reinstall my computer, as well as the drivers. It's important that you do NOT use the default drivers that come with the mobo and gpu. Just go to the site directly and download everything there. If need be, ONLY install the LAN drivers from the disc, and also don't download MSI afterburner for MSI cards

 

[kotofeus]

have you actually found an answer to this problem?
I'm having exactly the same issue - I would start my computer in the evening and it would either freeze or freeze with a grey or any other colour lines on the screen. Hard reboot won't help and I have to switch it off and switch it on. It would happen just once and it would work fine for hours after this reboot no matter what. I can play games etc - no problem, but I have to do this one reboot every evening.

Haven't had this issue in the very beginning when we built the system...
Temperatures are all fine and I suppose if they weren't fine I would've had these freezes all the time not just once.
The same goes for all other hardware issues - if it was something wrong with the computer's hardware, these freezes would be happening all the time not just once... that makes me think this might be a software issue...

Have you found a solution? This problem keeps persisting!

sorry for late reply.
I haven't found a solution, however the part of the problem ware my graphic cards. They were failing and artifacting, so I have replaced two of Saphire Radeon X270 with latest Nvidia.

The problem has disappeared and I was enjoying trouble free gaming for a couple of months.

Now, I have a similar problem again. I have posted a separate topic for that. Basically, my computer would hard reset in the beginning of every evening for a few times and would work without any problems for the rest of the evening. 2-3 or 4-5 resets and no problems after that. Next evening exactly the same.

I don't understand this. If I had it for the entire evening continuously, I'd say there is something wrong with the hardware etc and I would try to change PSU and so on, but this inconsistency is killing me...

I have found a solution! I just fixed this problem last weekend and I've found out that the problem lies with the drivers and/or windows 8.1. What I did was completely reinstall my computer, as well as the drivers. It's important that you do NOT use the default drivers that come with the mobo and gpu. Just go to the site directly and download everything there. If need be, ONLY install the LAN drivers from the disc, and also don't download MSI afterburner for MSI cards

Thank you very much for your reply and I'm glad you've managed to resolve this!

I'm using Windows 7, but your information may help. My problems may have started with the last Windows update. I will have to check to see if all required updates were automatically installed as sometimes Windows fails to install some of them and this may affect performance, however I just don't get the concept of my computer switching just a few times in the beginning of the evening and then working fine... why and how does this work...? (rhetorical question)

I'll see if I can force Windows to install most of the drivers and install some of them manually.

My GFX card is Nvidia now and I'm using the drivers downloaded from their website. All other major drivers should be up to date as well. I remember updating BIOS too...

I vaguely remember that my ASUS mobo driver was trying to update itself via EZ Asus controller program, but could not connect to the server... perhaps I need to look at this first and update it manually...

Thanks again - this will keep me busy for a while now

 

[kotofeus]

have you actually found an answer to this problem?
I'm having exactly the same issue - I would start my computer in the evening and it would either freeze or freeze with a grey or any other colour lines on the screen. Hard reboot won't help and I have to switch it off and switch it on. It would happen just once and it would work fine for hours after this reboot no matter what. I can play games etc - no problem, but I have to do this one reboot every evening.

Haven't had this issue in the very beginning when we built the system...
Temperatures are all fine and I suppose if they weren't fine I would've had these freezes all the time not just once.
The same goes for all other hardware issues - if it was something wrong with the computer's hardware, these freezes would be happening all the time not just once... that makes me think this might be a software issue...

Have you found a solution? This problem keeps persisting!

sorry for late reply.
I haven't found a solution, however the part of the problem ware my graphic cards. They were failing and artifacting, so I have replaced two of Saphire Radeon X270 with latest Nvidia.

The problem has disappeared and I was enjoying trouble free gaming for a couple of months.

Now, I have a similar problem again. I have posted a separate topic for that. Basically, my computer would hard reset in the beginning of every evening for a few times and would work without any problems for the rest of the evening. 2-3 or 4-5 resets and no problems after that. Next evening exactly the same.

I don't understand this. If I had it for the entire evening continuously, I'd say there is something wrong with the hardware etc and I would try to change PSU and so on, but this inconsistency is killing me...

I have found a solution! I just fixed this problem last weekend and I've found out that the problem lies with the drivers and/or windows 8.1. What I did was completely reinstall my computer, as well as the drivers. It's important that you do NOT use the default drivers that come with the mobo and gpu. Just go to the site directly and download everything there. If need be, ONLY install the LAN drivers from the disc, and also don't download MSI afterburner for MSI cards

Thank you for your interest in this.
I have managed to resolve the issue.

I have started playing with the overclock settings (my CPU was overclocked and GPU wasn’t).
I’ve started the automatic overclocking procedure and my computer went into “blue screen of death” as it normally does when you reach the maximum possible overclocking rate.
After computer switched off, I have restarted it, dropped overclock via bios to the standard non overclocked rate. Computer worked for a while and I have had another reset and there was a bios message saying “power supply surges detected during the previous power on asus anti-surge was triggered”. I have investigated this issue and read some forums about that. The reasons for the issue may be as follows:
- Failing PSU or not enough power. Checked that – I have Corsair RM750W Series. Not the cheapest on the market and should be adequate for my current load.
- Failing or unstable power supply in the power socket / wiring problems. Checked that – I have plugged computer to another power socket and had the same issue again. Don’t have any problems with the wiring at home really. So I don’t think it’s that.
- Another thing that some people were referring to was the new graphic cards. Most of the people with the same problem as mine would start having issues after installing a brand new, latest graphic card. There was a post from one of the users about that where he was explaining how those new graphics cards can affect the “asus anti-surge” trigger. Basically, it looks like those graphic cards voltage can rise and drop very fast and the anti surge system is simply too sensitive and can be triggered by some of the cards.

So I have switched off the anti surge system in BIOS and my computer is working fine for a couple of days now.

 

[kotofeus]

ok, I've done the following 3 things in one go and my computer is now working fine with no switch offs for a while:

- there was a brand new NVIDIA driver (came out less than 1 month after the most recent update) - got it updated
- opened my rig and took out my GFX card. It wasn't fixed in place with a screw, so I've put it back in the slot and fixed it with a proper screw
- I have plugged the power cables off from the GFX card and plugged the second set of power cables instead (I used to have two graphic cards and now have only one but still have to sets of power cables that can be used to power up the card)

after I did all that... my computer is working fine. Not entirely sure what did the trick but I hope it may help some one...

 

[BakFu-]

ok, I've done the following 3 things in one go and my computer is now working fine with no switch offs for a while:

- there was a brand new NVIDIA driver (came out less than 1 month after the most recent update) - got it updated
- opened my rig and took out my GFX card. It wasn't fixed in place with a screw, so I've put it back in the slot and fixed it with a proper screw
- I have plugged the power cables off from the GFX card and plugged the second set of power cables instead (I used to have two graphic cards and now have only one but still have to sets of power cables that can be used to power up the card)

after I did all that... my computer is working fine. Not entirely sure what did the trick but I hope it may help some one...

Hi,

I have been experiencing the same issue since i built my computer 2 weeks ago. I was wondering if turning off the surge protection fixed the problem or if it was entirely gpu related? Because I have pretty much tested every part of my PC. I have even exchanged my graphics card and the same thing persists. I am on the verge of exchanging a motherboard as it is the only part that I have not tried to replace along with the cpu.

 

[nitrium]

My PC has started doing this too for the last two months or so. It will GUARANTEED lock-up once per day (can be anything, including basic web browsing, but gaming triggers it faster). Hit the reset button and, after reboot, everything works fine and is 100% stable for the rest of the day. Just resetting the PC manually after startup does not help; it seems like you HAVE to let it crash to get a stable system. I think it might have started after an AMD GPU driver update, but really I have no idea - certainly going back to older drivers hasn't helped. Have tried just about everything. Tempted to reinstall Windows, but that's just more work.
System is an i5 760, Sapphire R9 390, Gigabyte P55A UD3R mobo, 16GB G.Skill 1866MHz RAM. All of it is stock at the moment (the Gigabyte mobo BIOS automatically reverts to stock if you reset from a crash).