Help Me Figure Out What's Failing On My Computer, Games Crashing, Windows 7 Crashing

[Supercohboy]

Okay, I'm going to try to type everything I can to detail the problems that I'm having but I'll probably have to add several things after the fact via edits to bear with me and if you have a moment to help between game matches or job obligations, please be sure to refresh the page.

3 years ago I built the computer that I currently use. At the time I had:
AMD Phenom II x4 980 3.7GHz Black Edition
ASUS M5A97 motherboard
Corsair TX850 Power Supply, it has that bronze power rating blah blah so I do not think this could be the issue (good ratings, trusted company, more than enough wattage and output)
XFX Radeon HD 6970 graphics card
2x4 Corsair Vengeance RAM sticks (I now have 4x4gb all the same model)
Western Digital 1.0TB hard drive, 32mb cache 7200 RPM

When I powered everything up and installed Windows 7 everything seemed to work fine. Or at least for the first month. By the next month of installation I was running into problems while playing certain games, namely a game called APB:Reloaded. I would be playing when all of a sudden my headphones would make HORRIBLE SCREECHING NOISES and my screen turned into a rave party utilizing several shades of green and purple. Then my computer would crash.

I was able to fix this problem by updating my BIOS and graphics drivers. Yay, I can get back to playing my mediocre third person shooter. Everything was fine for the most part, until I decided to install a second GPU of the same make and model. Crossfire didn't play well with anything and crashed half of my games until my drivers received a new update, but the stability lasted for only a little while. Long story short, we RMA'd one of the cards and that helped but my system has been plagued with general instability throughout its' life. My computer would BSOD in the middle of a game while CTDing when running other games. This most notably happens with some of the more demanding games out there, such as Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider. This BSOD/CTD problem would eventually spread to a couple of other games before suddenly subsiding after a BSOD or Windows Startup Repair routine. After about a year, year and a half I reformatted my hard drive and started with a new install of Windows 7.

I believe it was after the reformat that we tried to install the 2 sticks of 4GB RAM, granting me a total of 18 gigs of awesome. When we installed the new RAM on a new install of Windows, it kept BSODing, wouldn't even make it to boot up Windows. We eventually narrowed the problem down to one particular stick of RAM, but it was one of the old ones? I said **** it and installed all of the RAM back in, just in a different order (new RAM first, then old RAM...I think?), then after Windows Startup Repair did its' magic all of the RAM sticks worked perfectly. We tested it and everything, the voltage was fine and all sticks were functional.

Seems weird that my motherboard wouldn't cooperate with the new RAM while my rig as a whole wasn't very stable, but my dad kept blaming the video cards due to the crashes always happening while playing a 3D game program, but I've never been too sure.
On top of the randomness where my computer would play one game but not the other, was just fine playing one game after I modded it but wouldn't play XCOM with mods without random crashes, I've recently been having new problems.
For the past month my computer has slowly started to crash on previously working games. It got to the point where I could only play 5 different games, then 3, then 1. Now my computer can't play the last previously-working game (War Thunder...bad netcode, really good game engine). I couldn't play a mostly-2D card game known as Infinity Wars. It had some 3D effects, that's it. Then my computer wouldn't let me play Hotline Miami which afaik is all 2D or layered 2D. Now I can't even play flash games and Youtube works intermittently.

I was really upset earlier this week when War Thunder and Youtube stopped working, so I followed my dad's advice and tested things with Crossfire off. It worked for about 5 minutes, then the game I was playing CTD'd (no BSOD though). I tested each card individually and found out that the 2nd was totally dead, and I am now in the process of RMAing it (damn XFX makes great GPUs, you guys should totally trust them!) and may RMA the primary card even though it seems to be functional.
Here's the kicker. I ran FurMark, some stress-test software that's really popular, and it crashed the first time around about 7 minutes in to the burn-in test. I rebooted and tried again. It didn't crash 13 minutes in. I started to play music using Media Monkey and the telltale HORRIBLE SCREECHING NOISES started in after about 4 minutes of playback, then MediaMonkey gave me a bunch of errors. So my media player basically crashed, but FurMark kept chugging along no problem. I tried to play a game again to be sure that the problem didn't somehow fix itself, and on the main menu graphical flickering and horrible SCREECHING started to happen again. I ended the program and restarted, then started to write this topic/question.

I've had these weird screeching/crashing problems for all 3 years that I've owned this computer with a few remissions in between, but for the most part my system has been pretty unstable. I do not know why, all of the parts that I use are compatible with each other. My system has been completely stable every now and then on certain GPU driver patches, but this latest one has totally killed my card's ability to play intensive applications excluding FurMark.

Is it possible that the sound playing from these applications is doing weird stuff to my GPU? FurMark is completely silent and worked fine the 2nd time, on a fresh system restart (not reinstallation of Windows, just restarting the system) but playing music caused the music player to crash. Youtube plays audio as do the other 2D applications I was trying to run, and of course so do the other 3D games.
Is it my motherboard? I think it's my motherboard but this is my first computer and my dad (who's a little behind on the tech...only reason that I bought Radeon, he still trusted them) thinks that I would have other more obvious symptoms. He thinks that if it's the motherboard, my computer wouldn't even be able to boot. My motherboard has always given me problems when windows tries to automatically install USB drivers, and for the longest time unplugging 1 USB device out of a rear port caused all other USB devices to stop working. I would have to play musical chairs, plugging each one in and out until they started to work correctly.
This was fixed with a fresh install of Windows but my USB ports still act funny sometimes.

Is it Windows becoming corrupted? My BIOS? GPU? CPU? Some sort of software? Drivers?

If anyone has any clue as to why my system is doing all of this craziness, please let me know. I miss my games...

P.S. I used Windows' built-in programs to test my Hard Drive and RAM, both tests came out fine. Don't know how to test my CPU/motherboard for problems. I use Windows Defender, no other anti-virus programs.

P.S.S. Results from the initial FurMark test pre-crash indicate that my GPU is running normally. There was a brief moment when the voltage in was halfed for a second, but it went right back up immediately and when I was watching the test happen it didn't have any noticeable effect on anything. Everything including the fan was running normally, it just had less current flowing to it briefly I guess? VDDC Current In was 65.5 amps when compared to the 123-133amps in the previous seconds and the seconds afterwards. It didn't do anything bad, so that's weird.

VDDC Current In was the only thing that fluctuated when it came to power, everything else was extremely stable or changed according to how hard the GPU was working.

On to the weird part. I had everything logging itself during the part where I tested a second time, with no problems. When the sound crashed the GPU remained stable, working hard as ever on rendering that furry donut (heh heh). When I exited the stress test while the music player was still trying to play, my GPU kept flatlining according to the digital sensors. It would then go back up to normal idle levels, then briefly flatline again, etc etc. until I stopped the media player. I think the same thing happened when I tried to run a game and the sound/textures started glitching out like crazy at the main menu. GPU load would hit 0%, clock would go from 880mkhz to 250mhz, memory clock would go from 1375mhz to 150mhz, core temperatures would drop while the fans remained the same, and the voltage would briefly dramatically decrease (due to the card not drawing power during these brief bouts of idleness?).
It would last for a few seconds, that pop back up to max levels for a few seconds, then drop/flatline again, etc etc. Guess this is what was causing the flickering textures. The card would stop rendering, then re-render, stop rendering, etc etc.


I will be testing my system out with a Nvidia GTX 780 this weekend and will report back with the results. I haven't completely ruled out the working GPU yet, so we will see if everything works fine with Nvidia technology.

 

[HillBillyAsian]

honestly, if youve checked your ram, and all sticks work just fine then its not the ram, are you overclocking at all? and ram overclocks? if not then ram is fine, you checked your gpu, gpu 2 is dead but 1 is running just fine i presume, youve done all your updates so that almost rules it out. so really it comes down to 3 things, power supply (could be faulty and not getting enough power to your system), 2. motherboard (sometimes a mobo just doesnt want to work) and 3., cpu. do you possibly have another psu laying around? try that first and see if anything like that happens again. if you can recreate it with another psu, then your first psu should be ok. next would be cpu. try running prime 95 or aida64 for about 20 mins and see if it passes. if it does then cpu should be fine, that would lead to one thing. the mobo. just make sure you double check all your cables to make sure they are properly installed and good luck lol.

 

[HillBillyAsian]

oh and remember to install one ram stick, and check them all one by one to make sure the ram is fine. better safe then sorry.

 

[wss_003]

Sounds like your ram isnt all one kit which can cause trouble too just a thought

 

[pecul1ar]

Electronic parts heat up and cool down, causing thermal expansion/(if region is cold enough, contraction). This mechanical expansion/contractions will cause micro cracks (especially during sudden temp changes)to form over time. Micro cracks on the mobo will show up as.. using your terms "craziness".

I'll try to itemize some points:
- Horrible screeching sounds >> This happens when the sound file is corrupt, trying to play some non-audio files, or when the program is crashing. I wont be worried about the sounds, cause I think in your case its just the results of crashing.
- You have a good way about troubleshooting: elimination process, separate the good from the bad. Though in memory or anything that can be plugged in another slot/cable. sometimes a seemingly bad part will run on another slot/cable and just on that specific slot/cable. I blame microcracks/imperfections in the manufacturing process of the part.
- Misalignment can crop up during the course of the PC's uptime, which should cause hard crashes. Take care of your slots, don't overtighten screws cause it might overpress/bend pci cards or wear down the slots themselves. Take note of how the video cable might affect alignment of the video cards.
- Usb's have this 'self healing' fuses that trips when heated. Over time, these fuses degrade as well so it might trip prematurely.
- One thing you haven't tested is the hard drive.. try to do an extensive, all-nighter test of it using freeware hd utils out there.
- High powered items (overclocking, new tech vidcards) will stress your psu and pc parts. They will be more prone to damage over time because of this and thus, craziness.

Personally, I call it 'sickness' or 'attitude changes', as if the pc was alive and was just growing up, lol. Like the sickness of a dvd drive opening only when you press thrice, or you have to tap on the cover, or it closes automagically without you pressing anything. A recent 'sickness' my rig developed was my built-in audio was somehow playing the background music louder than the vocal/spoken parts. I might have damaged the mobo's amplifier somehow, so I will have to remember next time to set the Windows volume to just ~85% and rely on the external speaker's volume controls. But at first I blamed the speakers, then drivers..

 

[Supercohboy]

No overclocking, ill double-double check the ram as suggested. Will test cpu and see if the PSU in my brother's computer has enough wattage to support my system. If it does I'll test running my computer through it.
EDIT: Updated with the log results. I didnt copy-paste them because the formatting is horrible, so I tried to describe what was logged instead. It's in a notepad document, so I can always post it up on here if anyone wants to look.
Thanks so much for all of the helpful replies, I really appreciate it! This computer has driven me mad so it's great to get some technical support regarding the weirdness I've experienced.

 

[pecul1ar]

Did more digging (actually, I just googel'ed the usual "PC-PART-HERE PROBLEMS ISSUES" keywords) and the mobo seems to be quite problematic, RE: not because of 'craziness'.

Google results: Asus M5A97
https://www.google.com/search?q=ASUS+M5A97+problems+issues&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
A post here at uncle Tom's, with an AData memory, and other workarounds...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/320888-30-asus-m5a97-boot

note on the memory brand fix: thats very much possible, most mobo manufacturers list tested memories that work best on their products. I've had extensive experience on laptop memory being sooooo picky. Check the mobo website or their user's manual for a recommended list of memory manufacturers.

 

[Supercohboy]

Thought I'd update the thread. The power supply was somehow what caused a good chunk of my problems, but after replacing it I've been having a new problem. I will be playing audio through my headset and speakers at once, then I will try to play a game. While playing the game audio randomly cuts out and I have to restart the game to get audio back up. Last time I did it there were graphical glitches all over the place, though, so I think it's the PSU and mobo. I will probably be replacing the mobo soon.

Thanks for the help guys, but after some hardware-replacement troubleshooting we figured out it wasn't 100% the mobo. Plugged in an Nvidia GPU, still had random crashes. Replaced the power supply, all but the above audio problems have dissapeared.

Thanks again, you guys are an awesome community!

 

[Supercohboy]

(deleted dupe)

 

[Joxman2k]

Hi I know this is about a year later, but I had been working on a computer with similar issues. One thing you may check is that the RAM needs to be in the proper slots, read your manual. Oftentimes they will need to be paired in a certain config. I did this incorrectly believing my client when he said they were all the same type and size, so I didn't check. Also by changing any hardware It is a good idea to remove the CMOS battery for a minute. Recheck your BIOS settings too. Sometimes reseating ALL of your hardware connections to the mobo will be helpful. The problem with my clients comp was the CPU was not thermally seated with the heatsink correctly, because of incorrect tension on the heatsink screws. I put new, better, thermal paste and reseated the heatsink. This was a hard problem to diagnose and correct. Also his PSU was a little underpowered for peak gaming spikes. We replaced the PSU as a matter of safety.

My clients symptoms were random freezing to the point of a hard boot, also squelching of his headphones randomly. This mostly happened while gaming, but sometimes just editing a text flie. I believe that his problems were a matter of random memory leaks, brought on by a combination of overheated hardware, powerspikes and dips. We couldn't recreate the computing conditions so that helped eliminate software, OS, and drivers. It's been about three weeks and everything is still fine.

I hope this might be helpful to someone.