PC crashes while NOT playing video games

[violintides]

It's very odd. I could be working on a document in my Google drive, or just reading through a PDF, or watching a YouTube video in Chrome, and my PC will hang at random, usually not long after I boot up the PC. However, if I am playing a video game of any kind: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, etc., it will NOT freeze....until I close the game, and less than 5 minutes later, I have to hard reset the PC because it's frozen.

I have run a test of the system files using the Windows System Update Readiness Tool (which is Hotfix KB947821), in DOS I have tried the 'sfc /scannow' and found no issues, I have tried moving my GPU to another slot and downloading the latest drivers. There are no new drivers for my Mobo or CPU. Here are my system specs:

-Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
-Intel i7 3.20GHz
-12GB DDR3 Dual Channel RAM
-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 [4GB RAM]
-64bit Windows 7
-2 480GB SSD hard drives (one has Windows on it and isn't even half full, the other has my video games on it and is about 90% full)

 

[Lutfij]

How do you have 12GB's of ram on your system? I mean how are they loaded out on your ram slots. Mind also sharing a link to the rams used? Are you on the latest BIOS update for your motherboard? You forgot to mention the make and model of your PSU and it's age.

 

[BringerOfTea]

How do you have 12GB's of ram on your system? I mean how are they loaded out on your ram slots. Mind also sharing a link to the rams used? Are you on the latest BIOS update for your motherboard? You forgot to mention the make and model of your PSU and it's age.

3*4gb sticks... system probably came with 1 single 4gb stick and TS thought It wise to mix and mash these together.

and a kit of 2*4gb was bought later as an "upgrade!"

 

[violintides]

1.
The three sticks of RAM came with the MOBO from a friend of mine when my MOBO took a crap. so these are second hand. I don't know the make and model of the RAM but I have run Memory Tests and everything was fine.

2.
My PSU is "Enthusiast Series TX750 CMPSU-750TX"

3.
Yes I am using the latest BIOS update for my MOBO.

 

[violintides]

CPU-Z doesn't tell me what kind of RAM it is and unseating it is very annoying based on placement. That being said, it's in slots 3/4/5 out of 6 slots because when I was testing other slots, I remember that this was the only way the RAM sticks worked.

 

[violintides]

I just want to be clear:

The computer ONLY FREEZES if there is NO VIDEO GAME RUNNING. It NEVER freezes if a game is up, and only started acting up like this in the last few days (I did not do anything in those last few days to warrant this).

I have been on my PC for hours, even left it on overnight, and as long as a video game screen is up, it won't hang.

 

[violintides]

It's still doing it. Played video games all day, exited a game, forgot about this issue because it didn't do it all day (since I had a video game up all day) and then, five minutes after I closed Overwatch, hard freeze.