Question PC freezes then restarts mid-game, no BSOD, can't create dump file ?

[MilkOverlord]

Recently my pc has been freezing and restarting without a bsod under load/playing games, when looking at event viewer the only errors I get are
Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation.Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation.
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
with this error showing up occasionally Failed with 0x57 retrieving AppModel Runtime status for package Windows.

nothing is overheating as CPU sits around 50-60 deg under load
and GPU sits around 65-75 degrees

This is happening more frequently as of late
pc is fine idling overnight
I have only just recently used compressed air to clean dust out of the case and around fans
I have fresh installed windows to see if this would fix this issue, but it still restarts
tried reseating ram and changing the dim slots

specs
i7 8700k
gtx 1080 strix
16gb trident z 3200

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Make and model of your PSU and it's age? The PSU is the only thing I'm asking for since the PSU is the heart of the system and due to age + wear and tear, the PSU will loose it's ability to provide power to the entire system.

 

[MilkOverlord]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Make and model of your PSU and it's age? The PSU is the only thing I'm asking for since the PSU is the heart of the system and due to age + wear and tear, the PSU will loose it's ability to provide power to the entire system.

The make is a Thermaltake - Toughpower Grand RGB 750W
got on the 28th of june 2018 so around 2 and a half years

I also have a samsung 960 evo 500gb as storage and a samsung 970 pro 1tb as my boot drive

 

[Karadjgne]

Could be a bunch of things.

Gpu is one, you are reading the processor temp (gpu) but not the whole card temp, and the vrms/vram can easily hit 90°C+ under loads and the gpu read in the 60's.

Could be drivers, you reinstalled windows, which wipes out any/all motherboard chipset drivers (download from motherboard support website) which can be an issue with windows updates.

Could be registry conflicts, use ccleaner (piriform.com) - default settings and YES to save copy first. First clean the pc, then registry, then clean again and registry again.

Have windows or other software run a SMART check on storage, or run CHKDSK /R through a reboot.

 

[MilkOverlord]

Could be a bunch of things.

Gpu is one, you are reading the processor temp (gpu) but not the whole card temp, and the vrms/vram can easily hit 90°C+ under loads and the gpu read in the 60's.

Could be drivers, you reinstalled windows, which wipes out any/all motherboard chipset drivers (download from motherboard support website) which can be an issue with windows updates.

Could be registry conflicts, use ccleaner (piriform.com) - default settings and YES to save copy first. First clean the pc, then registry, then clean again and registry again.

Have windows or other software run a SMART check on storage, or run CHKDSK /R through a reboot.

does hw monitor give the correct temps? plus if the gpu is the issue that is fine then, as im planning on upgrading to a 3080 when I can find one in stock

I reinstalled the chipset drivers now I will try and see if it crashes again

did the registry fixes on cc cleaner

and have done the smart check no errors there

 

[MilkOverlord]

I will marked solved if it doesnt crash again by the end of the week and if it does I will be back

 

[MilkOverlord]

ok so now it doesnt crash the computer but it freezes and wont let me do anything on the computer, I stop hearing all sounds from discord and can only hear game sound, but cant move mouse or anything, this has happened alt tabbed a few times, tried borderless and fullscreen.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes and no. Hwmonitor can give accurate results. The issue there is that there's no telling where and when it will be accurate. HWInfo (use sensors only) is accurate as is Ryzen Master for AMD or Coretemp.

Now that the pc is actually in a healthy situation, it's easier to rule out certain aspects, like drive failures, driver conflicts, orphans and addressing in the registry etc.

Boiling down to a gpu issue. Pictures freezing like that are most common with overheating issues, normally a VRM overheat. If the pictures started artifacting badly first, then froze right after then I'd say vram overheat. Could be a fan isn't spinning as it should under loads, or could be the thermal pad is toast and not getting a good connection, or even the OC or gpu settings shoving too much voltage through.

It's also possibly a driver error, but if you used DDU through safe mode and installed a fresh download driver copy, chances of that are slim.

You can try undervolting or downclocking the card. If that works, you'll know for sure it's a gpu issue.

 

[MilkOverlord]

Yes and no. Hwmonitor can give accurate results. The issue there is that there's no telling where and when it will be accurate. HWInfo (use sensors only) is accurate as is Ryzen Master for AMD or Coretemp.

Now that the pc is actually in a healthy situation, it's easier to rule out certain aspects, like drive failures, driver conflicts, orphans and addressing in the registry etc.

Boiling down to a gpu issue. Pictures freezing like that are most common with overheating issues, normally a VRM overheat. If the pictures started artifacting badly first, then froze right after then I'd say vram overheat. Could be a fan isn't spinning as it should under loads, or could be the thermal pad is toast and not getting a good connection, or even the OC or gpu settings shoving too much voltage through.

It's also possibly a driver error, but if you used DDU through safe mode and installed a fresh download driver copy, chances of that are slim.

You can try undervolting or downclocking the card. If that works, you'll know for sure it's a gpu issue.

there isnt any artifacting when it crashes, I did take it out and gave it a spray with some compressed air to clean it out as there was some dust, I also reseated my cmos battery and I noticed that when I was swapping my ram sticks around I put them in the wrong slots, I put them back into 2 and 4 and it hasnt crashed since

 

[Karadjgne]

So it's fixed. Somehow. That's good. 👍

 

[MilkOverlord]

So it's fixed. Somehow. That's good. 👍

ok its not fixed now it freezes mid game again but doesn't crash, but requires a hard reset, kinda getting fed up with this stupid computer

 

[Karadjgne]

Ugh.
Could try Win key+X, click on Command Prompt (Admin), in then type in SFC /SCANNOW

Barring that being successful, you are starting with a healthy pc, so I can't see add on software/drivers being an issue. Which leaves 3 possibilities I can think of. There's something other than a system file inherently wrong with windows, there's an issue with the bios or its hardware related.

It's an intel, so the bios is doubtful to be the cause, it really hasn't changed much in a couple of generations. Windows is always a possibility, especially after an update messes around with previously stable code, or either the gpu or the ram is buggy. A memory leak could cause your issues and its not uncommon with some games, you have enough ram that it takes a while for the non-released ram to build up, gets you halfway through the game.

Play the game after reboot and time how long it takes to freeze. Then reboot and do it again except a few minutes before you think it'd freeze up, check your ram usage/available ram in task manager or another program that can track ram usage. You shouldn't be anywhere near your max.

If it's none of the above, it's looking like an overheat issue or failing VRM's on the gpu.

 

[MilkOverlord]

Ugh.
Could try Win key+X, click on Command Prompt (Admin), in then type in SFC /SCANNOW

Barring that being successful, you are starting with a healthy pc, so I can't see add on software/drivers being an issue. Which leaves 3 possibilities I can think of. There's something other than a system file inherently wrong with windows, there's an issue with the bios or its hardware related.

It's an intel, so the bios is doubtful to be the cause, it really hasn't changed much in a couple of generations. Windows is always a possibility, especially after an update messes around with previously stable code, or either the gpu or the ram is buggy. A memory leak could cause your issues and its not uncommon with some games, you have enough ram that it takes a while for the non-released ram to build up, gets you halfway through the game.

Play the game after reboot and time how long it takes to freeze. Then reboot and do it again except a few minutes before you think it'd freeze up, check your ram usage/available ram in task manager or another program that can track ram usage. You shouldn't be anywhere near your max.

If it's none of the above, it's looking like an overheat issue or failing VRM's on the gpu.

I have tried the scannow it comes back with no errors,memtest86 showed no errors after running for around an hour and a half, the issue usually happens again around 2-3 minutes after getting back into the game after crash, I am too leaning to the GPU overheating, as I have put my aircon for the room to 18 with the side panel off and the issue hasn't replicated.

Is there anyway to test for a failing vrm?

 

[MilkOverlord]

when it freezes its usually the game or windows depends if im alt tabbed or not that becomes unresponsive, I can move my mouse still, and hear others in discord, but the moment I hit cnt, alt, del is when I lose all control and cant move the mouse, i'm assuming if It was a gpu issue I woudnt be able to move the mouse still

 

[Karadjgne]

When alt-tabbed, the game is still active, even if it's in the background.
The way a memory leak works is take a small file, like the code for a gun. That gets uploaded from storage cache to the ram, say 10Gb spare, where it waits until the cpu demands it be delivered. Call it 5k. Upon delivery, the amount of space that the ram used is supposed to be released, like it never existed. You get the full 10Gb spare again.

With a memory leak, that doesn't happen. After the demand, that 5k is still allotted. So your available ram is 10Gb - 5k. Do that a bunch of times, with a bunch of files, and in a minute you have 9.8Gb free. Play a game that's constantly shipping files and in an hour you got 2.3Gb. Until you get almost 0Gb. Your cache is full, ram gone, windows is stuck for trying to write to pagefile, freezes up.

It's not a defect in the ram, memtest won't pick it up, it's a defect in Windows itself. Only way to catch it is play the game. If the game generally freezes up after @ 20 minutes, check available ram after 1 minute, then again after 15 minutes. You should still have all the ram available that was not alloted after 1 minute.

The only cure for a memory leak is reinstall windows.

 

[MilkOverlord]

is there anyway that it is just this one game causing a memory leak? because I don't have this issue on any other games (that I have found as of yet)

 

[tarogmats]

Hi I've been getting similar issues but I have a 1060, I was wondering did this occur after you updated your drivers by any chance?

I'm thinking about rolling my back a couple versions see if it makes a difference.

 

[MilkOverlord]

Hi I've been getting similar issues but I have a 1060, I was wondering did this occur after you updated your drivers by any chance?

I'm thinking about rolling my back a couple versions see if it makes a difference.

Hey mate, My issue ended up being a faulty power supply.
I replaced mine and haven't had the issue since.

 

[tarogmats]

Hey mate, My issue ended up being a faulty power supply.
I replaced mine and haven't had the issue since.

Ah alright. I'm hoping it's the PSU my end, but I wasn't getting full crashes. Just a freeze that would require a hard restart.

 

[MilkOverlord]

Ah alright. I'm hoping it's the PSU my end, but I wasn't getting full crashes. Just a freeze that would require a hard restart.

For me it depended on what game I played, some games it locked up requiring restart like tarkov then others would just straight shut off then restart.

 

[tarogmats]

For me it depended on what game I played, some games it locked up requiring restart like tarkov then others would just straight shut off then restart.

Hey sorry to come back, it was most likely my PSU as well, got it testeda and it has a fault, but I'm in an iffy bit of a situation. I was just wondering, did your Mobo get damaged by the faulty PSU, or not in your opinion?

 

[MilkOverlord]

Hey sorry to come back, it was most likely my PSU as well, got it testeda and it has a fault, but I'm in an iffy bit of a situation. I was just wondering, did your Mobo get damaged by the faulty PSU, or not in your opinion?

Nope, im still using the same mobo from when the pc was first built (around 4 years ago)