pc crashes while gaming

[robin_morsink]

When I play Skyrim Special Edition, my desktop seemingly randomly crashes, the screen gets stuck, and the sound either continous to play or gets stuck on a loud noise. The computer becomes completely unresponsive. Sometimes it takes only a few minutes before it crashes, and sometimes it works fine for over an hour.

I've already reset my computer (Windows 10 Settings > Recovery > Refresh Windows). I have not tried an actual reinstall. I suspect it has something to do with the hardware, but I don't know how to find out what the cause is exactly.

How can I find out the exact reason why it crashes and then how should I solve it?

 

[Lutfij]

With troubleshooting threads, it's customary to include your full system specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS: Windows 10

It's possible that your OS might be corrupt. See if a repair install turns thing around for you. Also check to see if your BIOS on your motherboard is up to date.

 

[robin_morsink]

Hi Lutfij, thanks for your reply. Here's the list of hardware of my desktop:

CPU: AMD FX-8350
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme4
Ram: 2/4 slots used, DDR3, 8GB in total
SSD/HDD:
- SSD C:\ drive (OS and programs): Samsung SSD 840 Series (120GB)
- HDD D:\ drive (data): ST1000DM003-1CH162 (1TB) - This is where the game is installed on
GPU: ATI AMD Radeon R9 200 / HD 7900 Series
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

I'm not sure about the PSU and chassis, but I can try to find their exact model numbers if needed.

I've tried to get the OS fixed by refreshing it, I'll give it another try from a bootable USB.
I'm not sure how to check for BIOS updates. Speccy reports that the BIOS date is 17/01/2013.

 

[ElectrO_90]

It is quite an old machine, but generally the PSU starts to fail.

Use CPU-Z to see the motherboard you have and please try and find PSU information.