My games are crashing no matter what I do.

[reedt003]

My old computer began having problems when I was running games on its onboard graphics. It was fine for 2 years, then one day I got a purple screen with vertical white lines accompanied by a loud buzzing from my speakers. It began happening with every game I played; I would get to the main menu, click start and get the same screen. I gave it to a friend who is more tech savvy than I and he replaced everything in it except the hard drive, including installing an old graphics card. After doing a clean install of windows and redownloading the graphics drivers twice, I have the exact same problem as before. What should I do?

 

[Aeacus]

What's your full system specs? Also, is the Win legit and are the games also legit?

 

[reedt003]

What's your full system specs? Also, is the Win legit and are the games also legit?

Sorry to get back to you so late. Both the games and Windows are legit, and as far as my system specs, my computer is sort of an odd mismatch of old parts, but it is currently

CPU: Intel Pentium G860
RAM: 8 GB DDR3
GPU: XFX Double D R7800
PSU: Corsair CX500M

I know it's not the best but I'm not running intensive games. Also, as I mentioned before, the same crashes were happening before I updated any of these parts, and now the only part remaining from my original computer is the hard drive. Could that be the issue?

 

[Aeacus]

Artifacts on the screen are usually a sign of:
1. incompatible GPU drivers
2. dying GPU

You could try using different (older) versions of GPU drivers to see if it helps. Also, testing with 2nd GPU (e.g GTX 1050 Ti) rules out if the GPU is culprit.

While unlikely, it can be possible that your HDD is also culprit. Only way HDD can cause those kinds of crashes is when the game files are corrupt on your drive.

To know the complete picture (e.g if any of your components are underperforming), run the UserBenchmark test tool,
link: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Software

Post the results link here for further validation.

Also, do note that PC components degrade over time and their performance drops, up to the point of total failure.