Question Games Freeze / Crash

[xCroceL]

Hello there !

Starting with my hardware:

OS: Windows 10 Pro
CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X
GPU: MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G
PSU: Corsair 750W, CX750
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR4 32GB 3000MHz (2x 16GB)
SSD: 970 Evo Plus M.2 1TB
Mainboard: Prime X570-P

The build is around 1,5 years old except the graphics card which is now 4 years old.
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Since a few months I'm having problems with most games, previously I thought the games are just bad console ports (RE Village, Days Gone), but this week I played some games which worked fine a year ago and the same issue occured.
Issue: The game randomly freezes, the video completly stops and audio keeps going, then I have to force quit the game with task manager.

Only one game gave me a crash report with the message "Unreal Engine is exiting due to D3D device being lost".
Things I have noticed is, when the game freezes I saw in task manager that in the graphics card section the part "3D" spikes to 100% and then drops to 0, this is the moment the game freezes.

In Windows Event it gives out the message the display driver "nvlddmkm" didnt react and was recovered.
+ I dont know if it matters, I get regulary 2 error messages aswell: both are Kernel-EventTracing errors.
- 0xC0000022
- 0xC0000001
But those don't directly show up when the freeze happens, just fyi.
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Now to the things I've tried:

I tried nearly all drivers for my graphics card from 2018 to 2021.
Update all of my hardware drivers (BIOS aswell)
Memtest64 ran for 30 loops without errors
DDU for clean uninstall of driver
Complete wipe of ssd and fresh install of windows.
Ran AIDA64, CPU performed well.
Ran Heaven Benchmark 4.0, Directx 9 is running good with average 300FPS, but as soon as I select Directx 11 it immediatly crashes (like before 3D Spikes to 100% and back to 0%)
Tried a little with MSI Afterburner

• Both GPU and Memory underclocked = no crash (tested 6 hours)
• GPU base clock and memory underclocked = crash after 15min gaming
• Memory base clock and gpu -50MHz = no crash (tested just 1 hour)

Temps never went above 74°
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Personal Conclusion:
I sadly just think my graphics card is giving up,
but maybe someone here in the community has another suggestion which I could try.
Since the current gpu prices a way to high I would like to have it atleast a little longer. (Although I hope it may keep working fine with underclocking for a while)

If you need any further information like any log files from certain software please dont hesitate to ask !

Thanks in advance and I wish you a great weekend !

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

You can try setting windows power setting to high performance, keeping the gpu at normal settings, (no overclock), disabling anti- virus software, and verifying the game files in steam library.

 

[xCroceL]

You can try setting windows power setting to high performance, keeping the gpu at normal settings, (no overclock), disabling anti- virus software, and verifying the game files in steam library.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try everything at once (disabling Win Defender aswell) except the steam files part since I currently play games in the Epic Games Launcher.
If it works I will turn down each option one by one, if it still crashes with all those I'll be right back ^^.

EDIT: Well It worked for 1h and 40mins without crashes and without underclocking, but sometimes it worked well for 4 hours, so I'll give it some more testing tomorrow evening (CET). Thanks alot !

I'll keep everyone updated.

 

[xCroceL]

Update: It sadly just crashed again, after being just 5 minutes in the game menue.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Do you have an older gpu sitting around to see if it is your gpu causing the problem? Did you get any entries under computer management under critical events with information of the problem? Since underclocking your memory worked with the gpu, try testing one stick of ram at a time while gaming and see if one causes the problem or if it happens with either one. You have done just about every trouble shooting item I can think of.

 

[xCroceL]

If I only underclock only the memory then crashes still occur, sorry for wording it weirdly in my post.
Only when I underlock my GPU about 50MHz no crashes occur, if I underclock just 30MHz it still crashes.

But I'll try an older gpu that I have (not sure if it works at all) from a friend this following week.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

So you can play with no problems if you just underclock 50mhz, on what memory or core clock?

 

[xCroceL]

Current Clock - This is currently the whole "setup" with MSI Afterburner