Computer keeps crashing while gaming

[jonjsilves]

Recently, I upgraded my video card to a GTX 970, and I am worried that it is causing some instability with my computer. Whenever I fire up some medium-to-high resource games, there have been some occurrences where my computer completely shuts itself down and reboots.

Is there something i can do to test the stability of my PC?

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

Seems like a PSU issue. What model and wattage? It may not have enough power for the new video card.

 

[Mr5oh]

What power supply do you have ?

Does it crash with Prime95, or just when the video card is involved?

 

[Zuhayr378]

Yeah, agree with the others above, in the case here, it is most likely a wattage issue, and the power supply probably not delivering enough wattage to supply the card. The 970 needs a 450 watt Power supply at the least, but a 500 to 600 watt one is definitely recommended.

 

[jonjsilves]

I have a 700 Wattage PSU, so that isn't the issue.

I have no clue what is causing the crash. It happens randomly when I am playing some of my video games.

 

[jonjsilves]

Of note, this is my PSU: http://www.esaitech.com/750w-hx-series-atx-eps12v-ps-2-cmpsu-750hx.html?pk_campaign=ga-pla&gclid=CjwKEAjwtr6sBRDv7uzB492H9XISJADj6aqb5mLuPYVCckkSpJ21TvDBxDr9_uJEoRxVKqe65EFS5xoCiofw_wcB

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

PSU looks decent. Have you checked the CPU temps? Could be some possible overheating issues.

 

[jonjsilves]

PSU looks decent. Have you checked the CPU temps? Could be some possible overheating issues.

I can run it in silent mode with the fan pumping to see if that stops the problem from happening. Is there a way to stress-test my cpu to see how hot it runs?

Also, of note: The 970 BARELY fits in my case, horizontally. It's almost pushing up against the wall that blocks off my hard drive.

 

[Zuhayr378]

PSU looks decent. Have you checked the CPU temps? Could be some possible overheating issues.

I can run it in silent mode with the fan pumping to see if that stops the problem from happening. Is there a way to stress-test my cpu to see how hot it runs?

Also, of note: The 970 BARELY fits in my case, horizontally. It's almost pushing up against the wall that blocks off my hard drive.

Speaking of 970, which 970 is this??? If it were the reference cooler it'd make sense that it would overheat BECAUSE the cooler sucks in some of it's air from (in fact, most) from the absolute side of the card.
If not, then it is another problem (then again, it can still be it or the CPU getting hot, but the other question can come first).

 

[jonjsilves]

PSU looks decent. Have you checked the CPU temps? Could be some possible overheating issues.

I can run it in silent mode with the fan pumping to see if that stops the problem from happening. Is there a way to stress-test my cpu to see how hot it runs?

Also, of note: The 970 BARELY fits in my case, horizontally. It's almost pushing up against the wall that blocks off my hard drive.

Speaking of 970, which 970 is this??? If it were the reference cooler it'd make sense that it would overheat BECAUSE the cooler sucks in some of it's air from (in fact, most) from the absolute side of the card.
If not, then it is another problem (then again, it can still be it or the CPU getting hot, but the other question can come first).

It is this 970: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127850

 

[Zuhayr378]

PSU looks decent. Have you checked the CPU temps? Could be some possible overheating issues.

I can run it in silent mode with the fan pumping to see if that stops the problem from happening. Is there a way to stress-test my cpu to see how hot it runs?

Also, of note: The 970 BARELY fits in my case, horizontally. It's almost pushing up against the wall that blocks off my hard drive.

Speaking of 970, which 970 is this??? If it were the reference cooler it'd make sense that it would overheat BECAUSE the cooler sucks in some of it's air from (in fact, most) from the absolute side of the card.
If not, then it is another problem (then again, it can still be it or the CPU getting hot, but the other question can come first).

It is this 970: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127850

In that case, you're fine with the GPU (for the most part). Maybe just check how temperatures are on the GPU and CPU? Or maybe you've overclocked one of them to an unstable point (a lot more likely for it to be the CPU in this situation)?

 

[jonjsilves]

I don't ever recall overclocking either one at any point. Is there anyway to just reset my devices to normal settings just in case I have?

 

[Zuhayr378]

I don't ever recall overclocking either one at any point. Is there anyway to just reset my devices to normal settings just in case I have?

You can always download overclocking software to mess about with the clock speeds, but while you COULD do that, you haven't even touched it in the first place as it seems. Get MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision X. For beginners, I recommend MSI Afterburner for it's easier interface: http://gaming.msi.com/features/afterburner
Reset to default settings, check your temperatures, and your fan speeds there.

For the CPU, you can check the BIOS by usually hitting DELETE rapidly before the Windows Logo shows up on start-up. You should be able to find information on your CPU there. But that's pointless right now, and should be taken to last resort.

Download a few things. First download Hardware Monitor from CPUID to check over everything (temperature, voltage, fan speeds, etc.) from here: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Next for the temperatures you can download Realtemp (or Coretemp, I prefer Real though) for the CPU and GPU Temp for the GPU: http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/ and http://www.gputemp.com/
You can use these softwares to monitor temperatures at the real time and have them sit by your icon tray so you can see for yourself if temperatures go crazy high.

To stress your CPU use Intel Burn Test. People say Prime 95, but I myself see that as going to the point of putting your CPU to the max where it can pretty much harm it. Burn Test is fine and you should check your CPU's temperatures from a few runs from there: http://intelburntest.en.lo4d.com/

Do all these things for the main temperature part as of now. Hopefully, you can see something going on there. As always, good luck!

 

[jonjsilves]

Intel Burn Test results.

Standard :
Time (s) Speed (GFlops) Result
11.224 79.6424 3.526496e-002
10.385 86.0784 3.526496e-002
11.505 79.6424 3.526496e-002
11.449 78.0738 3.526496e-002
10.831 82.5337 3.526496e-002

 

[Zuhayr378]

Intel Burn Test results.

Standard :
Time (s) Speed (GFlops) Result
11.224 79.6424 3.526496e-002
10.385 86.0784 3.526496e-002
11.505 79.6424 3.526496e-002
11.449 78.0738 3.526496e-002
10.831 82.5337 3.526496e-002

Ok, yeah, but did you see your computer crash at any moment while it was running? Also, what kind of temperatures was the CPU having within the test?

 

[jonjsilves]

The computer did not crash at any point, only experienced some lag, and the temps spiked from an average of 38-40C to about 48-55C during the test, and settled down to 42-45C after the test ran.

 

[Zuhayr378]

The computer did not crash at any point, only experienced some lag, and the temps spiked from an average of 38-40C to about 48-55C during the test, and settled down to 42-45C after the test ran.

Those are some good test results to be honest with you. It seems like the CPU isn't the problem...
But you stated that you had a 700-watt power supply. Can you identify what model it is?

 

[jonjsilves]

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hx-series-hx750-power-supply-750-watt-80-plus-gold-certified-modular-psu

 

[Zuhayr378]

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hx-series-hx750-power-supply-750-watt-80-plus-gold-certified-modular-psu

Whoops, my bad...you already said that before. Now I'm really confused to what the problem it is.

Do this now. I did this before and it worked for when my computer had an error with dump files.

Try redoing the instance of playing games and waiting for your computer to crash and shut down. Take note of the exact time it shut down. Then AFTER it shuts down, go into windows, and once you get to the desktop, hit the shortcut "windows button+r"

Something called Run will come up and most likely on the bottom left of the screen.
Type in "eventvwr" (without the quotation marks)
Even viewer will pop up.
On the left pane there will be a section called windows logs UNDER "Event Viewer (local)"
Click on it, and then click/double click "System"

To make the process faster, go on "filter current log" on the right pane and check warnings, erros, and criticals.

Here you will see the many events that your computer ran through, What you are looking for is "error" and "warning" before and after a big X for critical.
With the time you noted for shut down, look for a CRITICAL at that time, usually looking like this:
"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."
Then see what errors came before the shut-down CRITICAL statement. Additionally you can look for WARNINGS but usually these are things that the computer just puts there as an extra note and doesn't see as to crucially affecting it.

Some times this method is useful for the purpose where you don't know why your system shut down and even though it is usually for software, the errors can be related to hardware for sure.


P.S. Sometimes you can get Warnings through the event viewer that says things like:
"Whatever driver was detected. This filter has not been certified by Microsoft and may cause system instability."

Look for those kinds of warnings as well.

 

[jonjsilves]

I'm also going to test to see how hot it runs when I launch some of the games that have caused a crash. Temps are currently running between 44 and 50 degrees across my 4 cores, though I'm not doing anything different from my usual day-to-day.

Thanks for that write-up/

 

[jonjsilves]

Have not been able to re-create the issue yet, but I did reset my BIOS to optimized defaults, as well as resetting anything that I may have tinkered with in Afterburner years ago.

 

[Zuhayr378]

Have not been able to re-create the issue yet, but I did reset my BIOS to optimized defaults, as well as resetting anything that I may have tinkered with in Afterburner years ago.

It's fine, and we should have told you that earlier, but it's good you have it done now. I'll wait here, don't worry, just hopefully you get your problem fixed. Good luck!

 

[jonjsilves]

After I told you I hadn't changed the BIOS in recent member, I recalled tinkering with the settings back when I built the PC in 2012. I don't remember what I changed, so I just used the reset option that was available to me.