Game freezing. CTRL+ALT+DEL and ESC resumes the game.

[madsnapper]

OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
CPU: Intel Core i5 6600K @ 3.50GHz
RAM: Kingston HyperX FURY DDR4 8GB (Speccy says: 8,00Gt Single-Channel Unknown @ 1333MHz)
Motherboard: ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (ASUS GeForce® GTX 760 DirectCU II)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Power Supply Unit: MaxCube NIRA 500W

I'm so close to despairing. I've tried everything anyone's suggested and nothing's worked so far. A few odd times I've seriously considered throwing my computer out the window and going to live in the mountains, far from technology. Agh!

Here's my problem:

After a couple minutes of playing Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (pretty much the only game I play) the game FREEZES and I have to press CTRL+ALT+DEL and ESC to unfreeze it. However, this is only a temporary fix as it freezes again after a few odd minutes and continues to do so for the entire duration of my gaming session.

The problem first occurred when I got a new Motherboard, CPU and two sticks of DDR4 RAM (8gb x2). At first I thought it was a fault with my hard drive because it was making a weird snapping sound so I bought a new one (I was running Windows 8.1 before then). I installed Windows 10 on my new hard drive and the problem persisted. I talked to my friend who said he had a similar problem and said it was fixed by doing a clean install of Windows 7. So I did exactly that. And guess what? The problem didn't go away!

So, besides trying out three different operating systems (each one a clean install), I've tried:

• 
  • Installing newest GPU drivers.
  • Installing oldest GPU drivers.
  • Updating BIOS to newest version.
  • Underclocking/overclocking.
  • Increasing GPU voltage.
  • Changing GPU slot.
  • Removing CPU and putting it back in to make sure it's on properly. Also removed the installation tool that came with my motherboard in case it was the culprit.
  • Checked that all the fans are running.
  • Checked that all the cables are on properly.
  • Monitored my temperatures to make sure it's not caused by overheating.
  • Removing the second stick of RAM. I'm still running on just 8GB because I'm too lazy to put the other one back in.
  • Changed RAM settings to XMP in BIOS. Also tried various other BIOS-related fixes.
  • Running the game in different compatibility modes.
  • Changed settings on both my computer and NVIDIA to favor "best performance".
  • Removed Realtek drivers.
  • Didn't install ASMedia USB 3.1 drivers with this Windows 7 install because someone had said that it could cause issues.
  • Silent prayer.
  • Blood sacrifice.

So yeah... that's a big old list. I really feel like I've tried every fix imaginable but nothing seems to be doing it for me. I'm now 99% sure that it's a hardware-related issue (though it could still be one of my motherboard's drivers conflicting) but even so, how am I supposed to identify which part is causing it? Is it my GPU? CPU? Motherboard? RAM? PSU?

Please help! I've been dealing with this problem for two months now and I've thrown a lot of money at these new parts to get a better gaming experience, not a piece of garbage that doesn't even work properly...

Couple more things to clarify:

• 
  • These freezing issues were paired with "Nvidia driver has stopped responding and recovered" when playing World of Warcraft and Dark Souls III. It's just this freezing in Chivalry, though.
  • The GPU is NOT NEW. Everything was running fine with the SAME GRAPHICS CARD with my old mobo, CPU and RAM.

 

[tsnor]

delete and reinstall the game ? Not sure if you kept your old game files when you changed OS.

One thing that CTRL+ALT+DEL and ESC does is reset your video....

Update: the hardware in GPUs does fail. Try 20% UNDERSCLOCK the video card (e.g. with MSI afterburner). If system stabilies suspect your card hardware. Try a different video card if you have one.

Update2: do you have a second PSU you can swap in? MaxCube NIRA 500W. unstable power does weird things, and i can't find a review of this unit....

 

[madsnapper]

I kept none of the old files, every OS I installed was a clean installation through and through.

I don't have a different GPU to try on unfortunately and I don't have any working PSUs lying around either, but I ordered a 750W 80+ Bronze a couple days ago which should arrive sometime next week. Could something like this be caused by an inadequate or bad PSU? It's something I've been suspecting but I'm not savvy enough on computers to know for sure. Everyone says that issues with PSU result in random reboots and blue screens. I had a few odd blue screens when trying WoW, but I haven't had any with Chivalry.

Anyway, I'll give the underclocking one more shot and report back if it solved anything.

EDIT: Also, more on the PSU... it is of a pretty obscure brand, you're right. I was surprised myself when almost nothing came up when I tried googling information on it. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the culprit. In fact... I'm hoping it is.

 

[tsnor]

Do you happen to remember the brand of PSU you ordered? 750W is certainly plenty for your PC, I doubt it hits 300W peak. Some brands are much better than others.

If underclocking your gtx 760 stabilizes the system then it still could be either the GPU or Power supply. AT 170 W, your GPU is by far the biggest power draw in your system, and a 20% underclock drops 35-40% of the power usage of the card.

 

[madsnapper]

Yes, it was this one. Corsair CX750M. I've heard some people say that Corsair's PSUs aren't the best you can get but if it puts out 750W max, it should be good enough for me.

As for the underclocking, well... something pretty weird happened. I first tried underclocking my GPU Core with MSI Afteburner but it didn't go down in the monitor so I figured it wasn't working. So I set everything back to default and tried ASUS GPU Tweak. Again, the graph didn't show the GPU Core drop but then I realized it's probably not meant to as it's only adjusting the maximum it can reach.

I started up Chivalry first without the underclocking and got one freeze 2 minutes in to the game. Then I enabled the underclocking and, whilst my FPS dropped to around 60 to 70 (I'm used to stable 120 in the game I'm playing), I didn't get any more freezes for at least one entire game (like 10 minutes). I then turned off the underclocking but it didn't fix my framerates even after restarting the game. I remember this happening with Windows 10 too when I tried the underclocking solutions: it messed up my framerates. Maybe I need to restart the entire computer for them to return to the norm of 120, I don't know.

But the point is that while I was running at significantly lower frames, whether as a result of the underclocking or something else, I was getting also no freezes. Granted, I didn't play for very long but usually they happen very frequently. I really don't know what to make of all that.

 

[madsnapper]

Yeah, something definitely went wrong somewhere somehow. I'm currently running FurMark and my Core Clock won't go past 535.6 MHz and my Memory Clock is stuck at 405.5 MHz. Even I know that these numbers are abysmally low. Temperature won't even budge past 50C. Screenshot here.

I'll try restarting to see if it clears the underclocks (even though I already set everything to default). And yeah, I know this probably isn't related to the topic at hand but I thought it was weird enough that I should point it out.

 

[madsnapper]

Clocks went back to normal after restarting my computer, FurMark running as intended now. Seems that I was just being a bit dumb.

Welp, that just goes to show you my inexperience with computers...

EDIT: Framerates are also back to 120 and freezes have returned. So it does seem like underclocking helped a bit... at the cost of much, much worse performance.

 

[tsnor]

Yes, underclocking will very much hurt framerate. BUT who care if frame rate falls from over 100 to around 60 (" 60 to 70 (I'm used to stable 120" ) unless you have a special monitor, your monitor is looking 60 times a second and displaying what it has, it doesn't care if you do 1000 FPS in your card, it's only painting 60 fps.

The goal of the underclock was to help debug your hangs. With the PSU on order (and it is a good enough PSU) suggest you
1. Run underclocked until you get the PSU swap done. That lets you play with fewer hangs.
2. Return to full clocks after the PSW swap. If the hangs go away with PSU swap, super - you're done.
2. If the hangs don't go away with the PSU swap, and you don't want to leave it underclocked, you can try to make it work with higher voltage (risk of burning out card seems low given card cannot run full speed so is not worth much) or you can swap in a new video card.

Final thought -- some video cards have long warranties. ASUS has good support. Contact ASUS and explain the card runs ok with large underclock but system hangs when you put it back to stock speed. See what they say.

Good Luck.

 

[madsnapper]

UPDATE: I went into my BIOS settings and changed my CPU to run on only 1 Core. At the cost of an optimal performance, I was able to play for a whole 53 minutes without any freezes of this nature. There was one at the 53 minute mark, however, and there seemed to be other issues as well. On two occasions my game began stuttering like it has never done before and even CTRL+ALT+DEL didn't put a stop to it, which hints that this was actually my computer stuttering and not the game (my mouse was stuttering even in the CTRL+ALT+DEL screen; something it's never done before). Both times this went on for about a minute before it stopped. If I didn't know any better I would say that it was caused by me taking an in-game screenshot (F12) as it happened instantly after I did that, but later it happened again without doing anything.

At one point my screen also flashed black for a second, which was passing strange (this happened way more frequently on Windows 10 and I assumed it was a compatibility issue but now it seems to have happened on Windows 7 as well where I never had problems with this game before).

UPDATE 2: Wow. Just a few seconds after posting this reply my computer's screen went black and came back up after 5 seconds with the message "Nvidia driver stopped responding and has recovered". Until now all of my problems only came up when I was doing something that required intensive usage of my GPU or CPU, so that's... really strange. Maybe my GPU is failing.

EDIT: Forgot to thank you for your help and quick replies even though the problem isn't solved yet. It's much appreciated. I suspect it'll take a while to track down the culprit though... whether it's GPU, CPU, PSU or my main board...

 

[madsnapper]

I don't want to jinx myself so I'm going to say that I've managed to at least TEMPORARILY fix the problem by doing what you suggested and underclocking my card.

I set "GPU Boost Clock" by -66 (to 1006 MHz) and added +5 to "Max GPU Voltage" for good measure (though I know for a fact that it was the former that "fixed" it, not the latter). This was all done with ASUS GPU Tweak which is the software that came with my card. I'm sure you can apply the same underclocks in MSI Afterburner but for whatever reason MSI Afterburner never worked properly for me. This one does though, which is probably why it was paired with my card.

I just finished a 3-hour gaming session (longest I've played anything in months) without any errors or freezes. With stable 120 FPS too!

I'll report back again when I get my new PSU to let you know if the remainder of my problems was solved as well.

 

[tsnor]

Neat. The -66 is about at 6% underclock, so would not hit your framerate much -- thus teh 120 fps numbers. The +5 on voltage might have helped. Very glad it is stable.

Be interesting to see if new PSU lets you return to full speed. A bad power supply has more 'jitter' where the voltage goes up and down than a good one, so it might be making the 760 fail at extremes. ...Or the card may jsut be failing or marginal.

Aside, gpu-z has a function where it displays your 'gpu quality'. To launch it run gpu-z and then click teh flag in teh upper right.vYou get a menu that includes 'read asic quality'. (The gpu is an example of an asic). Compare the percent you get with others on the internet.