Question PC crashes after a while of playing

Feb 11, 2020
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So I have had this problem where my PC will randomly crash when playing certain games. The confusing thing is that it usually happens after 1 & 1/2 hours - 2 hours of playing. The computer doesn't even blue screen, it just shows a black screen and I hear the same weird noise in my headphones as if it were a BSOD (constant horrible sound) and then either restarts itself or waits until I manually hard shut down by holding power. This started happening after I installed a new graphics card (RX580 8GB) to replace my Nvidia GTX750ti. This leads me to believe it is an issue with my PSU, motherboard or GPU, (the GPU was bought second hand off of ebay and the PSU is a 500W EVGA PSU that I have used for almost 5 years). Another interesting thing, when I used furmark to put my GPU at 100% usage, my PC was fine, but as soon as I tried to alt tab, it crashed in the same way. I have also had crashes when full/unfullscreening or alt tabbing from games after playing for a while, (but it doesn't only crash because of this, like I said, I usually crash after a while of gaming without alt tabbing or full/unfullscreening).

Here are my specs:
Motherboard: GIGABYTE H81M-S2H
CPU: Intel core i5 4460
GPU: AMD RADEON RX580 8GB
PSU: EVGA 500W Bronze
RAM: 2 8GB stick of DDR3, (16GB total)
Others: 2 1TB optical drives (one of them is approaching 7 years old), 1 250GB SSD (my install drive), 1 21.5 inch monitor

Things I believe are ruled out (I've had the crash even after doing these things):
  • I have run a memory test, with no bad results
  • I had used DDU (I've just now used it again, this time completely deleting AMD and Nvidia folders, it would be a miracle if after this forum post is made, my issue is fixed)
  • Overheating CPU: I recently applied new thermal paste to CPU, max temp is 62 celcius under full load
  • Overheating GPU: Max temp under full load is 80 celsius, and I experience crashes in games with less than 50% usage
Could I have a problem with my second hand graphics card? Or maybe it could be my PSU or motherboard not being able to handle the new GPU? Or maybe my PSU is overheating? If someone can help, I would greatly appreciate it, and hopefully I have given enough information that people have an idea as to the problem.
 
Last edited:

bignastyid

Titan
Moderator
None of the 500w EVGA PSUs are good and the RX 580 can stress them, so a failing PSu is a good possibility. But it could also be a GPU problem(especially if it was a former mining card(lot of this junk on the market(.

Also this " 1 8GB stick of DDR3, 1 8GB stick of DDR4" is not possible. DDR4 is keyed different(won't fit in a DDR4 slot) if you forced it it would damage the port and/or the stick.
 
How did you even get a DDR4 module to work in a DDR3-only compatible motherboard?

That's the first place I would look for the random crashes you experience. I can't find any version of this board supporting both DDR3 and DDR4, also DDR3 and DDR4 are not even compatible with eachother

There were motherboards at one point which supported both, but you would have to use one of the two standards only - not both (or was it back in the DDR2 & DDR3 days, I don't remember)
 
Feb 11, 2020
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How did you even get a DDR4 module to work in a DDR3-only compatible motherboard?

That's the first place I would look for the random crashes you experience. I can't find any version of this board supporting both DDR3 and DDR4, also DDR3 and DDR4 are not even compatible with eachother

There were motherboards at one point which supported both, but you would have to use one of the two standards only - not both (or was it back in the DDR2 & DDR3 days, I don't remember)

Sorry I believe that's wrong haha my mistake
 
Feb 11, 2020
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None of the 500w EVGA PSUs are good and the RX 580 can stress them, so a failing PSu is a good possibility. But it could also be a GPU problem(especially if it was a former mining card(lot of this junk on the market(.

Also this " 1 8GB stick of DDR3, 1 8GB stick of DDR4" is not possible. DDR4 is keyed different(won't fit in a DDR4 slot) if you forced it it would damage the port and/or the stick.
I've been considering my PSU might be at fault or not powerful enough (could a PSU become underpowered over time maybe?), but I'm not giving in to buying a new one just yet, and the card was used for video editing etc.
 

JeckeL

Distinguished
Jul 19, 2009
743
26
19,165
After a crash/restart make note of the time of day, then when you're booted back up check event viewer, look under windows logs > system, if the last thing you see at that timestamp is (IIRC) Kernel - Power, event ID 41, system shut down unexpectedly etc etc etc, then it's almost certainly the PSU
 
Feb 11, 2020
9
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After a crash/restart make note of the time of day, then when you're booted back up check event viewer, look under windows logs > system, if the last thing you see at that timestamp is (IIRC) Kernel - Power, event ID 41, system shut down unexpectedly etc etc etc, then it's almost certainly the PSU
I literally just crashed right now, and I see a critical log saying "kernel power" as you said. Are you almost certain its my PSU not being able to cope/being faulty?

EDIT: Its ID is 41 as you said too
 

bryanc723

Distinguished
Jan 1, 2015
237
23
18,615
Thinking you have this figured as a PSU issue. A temporary fix you can do is underclock your gpu and/or cpu so they don't draw as much power. Performance will suffer until you are able to get a new PSU, but it should get you by.
 
Feb 11, 2020
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Thinking you have this figured as a PSU issue. A temporary fix you can do is underclock your gpu and/or cpu so they don't draw as much power. Performance will suffer until you are able to get a new PSU, but it should get you by.
Thinking you have this figured as a PSU issue. A temporary fix you can do is underclock your gpu and/or cpu so they don't draw as much power. Performance will suffer until you are able to get a new PSU, but it should get you by.
I have just been playing with -40% power usage, no crash, but as soon as I close the game down, my pc crashed in the same way. I'm now so confused as to what the problem is.
 
Feb 11, 2020
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UPDATE: Did a clean install of windows 10 from a USB and the problem is still happening, when I run whocrashed, this is my result:

On Sun 16/02/2020 12:36:12 your computer crashed or a problem was reported
crash dump file: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP
This was probably caused by the following module: Unknown (0x0000000000000003)
Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFD80A1BC84010, 0xFFFFF802418C0328, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000001, 0x3)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error.
Google query: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
 
Feb 11, 2020
9
0
10
So I have had this problem where my PC will randomly crash when playing certain games. The confusing thing is that it usually happens after 1 & 1/2 hours - 2 hours of playing. The computer doesn't even blue screen, it just shows a black screen and I hear the same weird noise in my headphones as if it were a BSOD (constant horrible sound) and then either restarts itself or waits until I manually hard shut down by holding power. This started happening after I installed a new graphics card (RX580 8GB) to replace my Nvidia GTX750ti. This leads me to believe it is an issue with my PSU, motherboard or GPU, (the GPU was bought second hand off of ebay and the PSU is a 500W EVGA PSU that I have used for almost 5 years). Another interesting thing, when I used furmark to put my GPU at 100% usage, my PC was fine, but as soon as I tried to alt tab, it crashed in the same way. I have also had crashes when full/unfullscreening or alt tabbing from games after playing for a while, (but it doesn't only crash because of this, like I said, I usually crash after a while of gaming without alt tabbing or full/unfullscreening).

Here are my specs:
Motherboard: GIGABYTE H81M-S2H
CPU: Intel core i5 4460
GPU: AMD RADEON RX580 8GB
PSU: EVGA 500W Bronze
RAM: 2 8GB stick of DDR3, (16GB total)
Others: 2 1TB optical drives (one of them is approaching 7 years old), 1 250GB SSD (my install drive), 1 21.5 inch monitor

Things I believe are ruled out (I've had the crash even after doing these things):
  • I have run a memory test, with no bad results
  • I had used DDU
  • Overheating CPU: I recently applied new thermal paste to CPU, max temp is 62 celcius under full load
  • Overheating GPU: Max temp under full load is 80 celsius, and I experience crashes in games with less than 50% usage
  • I have now done a clean install of Windows 10, and it is still happening
Here is a crash log from today:

On Sun 16/02/2020 12:36:12 your computer crashed or a problem was reported
crash dump file: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP
This was probably caused by the following module: Unknown (0x0000000000000003)
Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFD80A1BC84010, 0xFFFFF802418C0328, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000001, 0x3)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error.
Google query: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

Could I have a problem with my second hand graphics card? Or maybe it could be my PSU or motherboard not being able to handle the new GPU? Or maybe my PSU is overheating? If someone can help, I would greatly appreciate it, and hopefully I have given enough information that people have an idea as to the problem.