Computer freezes while gaming? How to stop it?

[Cheremy]

Ok so I bought this PC from my mother's company when they were getting new ones. It's a HP 8000 Elite Small Form Factor. Specs are 4GB DDR3, Intel Quad Q9505 2.83 GHz, Intel Q45/Q43 Express Chipset (onboard graphics?) running on Win 7 Pro, all drivers updated. When I bought this PC, the IT guy helped me wiped all the data then installed a fresh copy of Win 7 and cleaned out all the dust. When I got the PC, the only thing I downloaded was League Of Legends. Runs smoothly at 60 fps on lowest setting. Since the first day, my pc has been hanging while playing it. The weird thing is, I can play the game for hours at a time and it doesn't hang, but sometimes it hangs on the first game I play. Hang as in really hang, cursor doesn't move, pc doesn't respond to anything except the cd drive lol. So I thought it might be a virus. I downloaded Avast, bitdefender and Malwarebytes. Did a full scan. Got rid of tons of virus, went to play a game of League Of Legends. Oops, hanged again. So I downloaded CCleaner and Advanced SystemCare, checked for registry errors, repaired them and started another game. But still hangs. I've had this pc for 5 months now. During the first 2 months, hangs typically happen at 7-10minutes into the game, and NEVER happens on the FIRST game of the boot. But as I've played more games and own this pc for a longer period of time, the pc can hang occasionally at weird timings, on the FIRST game of the boot, etc.. Load during gaming is only about 50-70%. Recently, the hangs has occurred more. It can happen twice during a 50 minute game. For example, I start a game. It hangs at 8 minutes into the game. I force shutdown and restart pc, reconnects into the game, 10 minutes later, it hangs again. I thought the hangs were related to League Of Legends only, so I downloaded starcraft 2. During the first 3 days, I played the game for HOURS without hangs or even hangs. But since yesterday, it hanged when I wasn't even playing it. I was at the menu screen after finishing a game, watching a youtube video with nothing else on. And it hanged. Twice. So it doesn't hang WHILE I am in game, which is when the load is heaviest, but when I am in the menu screen it hangs. Today morning, it hanged while I was like 6 minutes into the game. It was the first time my pc hanged while I was in a starcraft 2 game. So anyway, I have come to a conclusion that my pc will only hang when a game is on. Any solutions?


I am 100% sure there is no heat problem. Have tried waiting it out for an hour...

 

[johnnyb105]

Even thos all the dust is out of the system have you checked if all wires are plugged in have you taken the ram out and reseated it how bout the cpu fan is it dirty? it could be overheating and throttling back.

 

[Cheremy]

Ok, I actually opened up the pc, it was quite clean. Anyway, I checked my temperature during gaming. It was sitting at around 50 degrees Celsius. That's pretty low. Shouldn't cause any freezes.

 

[johnnyb105]

I think it getting too hot myself its also a business pc wasn't really meant for gaming do you have enough fans in it is the games your playing online you may have internet lag as well.

 

[Cheremy]

Firstly I don't see how internet lag causes HANGS. Secondly, I ASSURE you, it is NOT a heat problem. 40-50 degrees celcius(checked using RealTemp) should not be causing hangs, right?

 

[johnnyb105]

Hey when I am playing a game online and I have lag with my internet my game hangs so yes there internet lags also you got a small form factor case it could be building heat while your taxing the system I am only trying to help you....

HP 8000 Elite

 

[johnnyb105]

http://www.computershopper.com/desktops/reviews/hp-compaq-8000f-elite-ultra-slim-desktop-pc

 

[johnnyb105]

Wow I just saw the pic of the inside of your pc its using laptop style parts interesting......

 

[Cheremy]

Yeah I know you are trying to help, I appreciate that. Anyway, it's not the game that hangs, it's the whole pc that hangs. I have a constant 18-20 ms ping so no internet lags.

 

[Cheremy]

btw, the pc you linked me to is not mine. This is : http://community.spiceworks.com/product/38216-hewlett-packard-8000-elite-sff

 

[johnnyb105]

You know is it all the games hang or just the pc hangs? do you have any thermal paste ???? I would take the heatsink off apply a new coating after removing the old its probably dried up by now but any case if its just game issues I have uninstalled the games before when they weren't working and reinstalled them not trying to grasp at straws here but trying to cover everything that could be the issue.

 

[Cheremy]

I'm pretty sure it's the PC that hangs. Why are you so sure that it's a heat issue? Like I said I've used RealTemp to check my temperature and it says my temperature is healthy...

 

[johnnyb105]

I just found out an interesting thing about Realtemp. First, I was always impressed by realtemps ability to update while running IBT where other temperature monitors could not get enough cycles to update their temperature display,

So I was getting lots of these kernel-power events when stressing my system (with prime95 or IBT):

Processor 2 was throttled by an entity other than the kernel power manager.
IA32_CLOCK_MODULATION MSR = 0x2.
Elapsed time since last event logged = 0s.
Log interval = 1000 events.

I turned off any hardware TT1 and TT2 throttling in the BIOS, and tried other things off and on but it was always there.

I finally decided it must be an application doing this and suspected it might be realtemp. Sure enough, I ran the stress test without realtemp and these events disappeared. So apparently throttles the CPU so it can update (or whatever). It doesn't make much difference in the performance, but it is good info to know,


I always ask questions about heat one your system has how many fans? Proper airflow is a must either push/ pull to maintain cool temps.. Its just one thing to get out of the way before digging deeper cpu cooler the heatsinks a lot of folks put to much or too little thermal paste on only a pea size drop is needed for the heatsink on the cpu too much overheating too little overheating... Power supplys not enough after upgrades will take a system down poor power supply or just enough from most oem wont be enough for upgrades such as gpu cards or even higher end cpus its just questions to help eliminate some problems as for your case I am still thinking on it.

 

[Cheremy]

Lol... I have no idea what you said for the first half of your post. I am not an expert... You said something about RealTemp stressing your cpu ? Well, I've only just downloaded RealTemp, and so far my cpu load hasn't went above 60 yet. I only used it to check the temperature because you said it might be heat issues that causes the freezes. So anyway, it has been shown that temperature never goes above 50 degrees. As for fans, I can see one front intake and one back exhaust. But there isn't really heat issues at all! In fact, I'm playing with my air conditioner on at 16 degrees, but my pc just hanged 5 minutes ago while playing StarCraft 2! Just restarted my pc...

 

[johnnyb105]

Did you add a gpu to the system or are you using the igpu that came with it and let tell you a short story way back when.... I sold a pc to bro in law I played non stop onlne surf ect ect chat ect ect and never had a issue... My bro played that starcraft game the first one he would try the pc about a hour in the pc would hang or reboot!!!! we changed everything in the system mind you the pc never had a issue when I had it. I mean everything from memory vid card power supply hard drive everything but the board the chip and the heatsink..


Come to find out the heatsink was factory oem that's back in the old Athlon days he ordered a new heatsink with a copper core installed it and boom he could play for hours then .. See I used the pc back then to surf read and chat while he used it for games there for it needed better cooler for cooling the system you got a business machine and it may need better cooling al tho your temps say there fine theres a issue there that's not letting you play games or what ever.... All the time and hours trying to figure out years ago what my bro in law pc wouldn't play starcraft was simple it needed a better heat sink cooler because the system I built wasn't meant for what he was doing with it.

 

[Cheremy]

I am using the onboard gpu lol. But that is ENOUGH to run league of legends/ starcraft 2 on lowest setting. So about the heatsink, how to I check it?

 

[johnnyb105]

Btw I use cooler masters hyper 212 and evo 212 cooler and artic silver thermal paste these are really big heatsinks that wont fit your board also I use cpuid and gpuid for temps on the system and as well on the gpu as for the problems your having I don't know what else I can tell you wish someone else could add to this and shed some more light and maybe resolve the problem for you good luck to you.

 

[Cheremy]

All right, thanks for your help.

 

[johnnyb105]

Your welcome wish I could of figured it out I know it sucks when your system isn't working and its disappointing as well good luck to you hope you figure it out or someone here can help you with it.