Radeon HD 7800 keeps crashing in Windows 7

[MrDK]

I've diagnosed this problem to concluding that my video card only crashes in Windows 7 64 bit edition. In 32 bit, it ran smoothly without any problems, but in 64 bit, any game I play, there's occasional crashes, including blue screen of death now and again.

My specs:
Intel Core i3 2120 3.30 GHz
AsRock z77 Extreme3
Corsair 4 GB Ram x 2 DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 7800 (2 GB)
SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3

 

[lunyone]

Almost sounds like you have RAM problem, because 64 bit version would address both sticks and the 32bit version can only address 1 stick (~3.0-3.5 gb's of RAM). Have you tried 1 stick of RAM with the 64 bit version? Also have you tried stress testing the RAM first, in order to verify both sticks are good (Memtest86)?

 

[MrDK]

I will try memtest and get back to you.

 

[MrDK]

I used memtest, and it seems both ram cards are good. I tried them each, both in the slots that they occupy. It seems it has something to do with how it's accessing memory over 4 GB, from what I can see. I'm going to do some test runs with just one of the sticks and see how that works out.

 

[MrDK]

Okay. After some testing with just one ram stick (4 gb), it looks like my games don't crash. It might be the motherboard's compacity to hold up to 8 GB or it may be because 520 is not enough power. Although AsROCk Extreme3 is an overclocking mobo, I never used its features and kept it at stock settings. Which means I need at least 600 watts probably to handle more memory. That's my assumption.

 

[lunyone]

That PSU should have plenty of power for your system. Either you have a faulty Mobo slot (which I would try the other 2 slots for Dual Channel support) or your PSU is having problems supporting your setup (which it shouldn't have any issues "normally").

I would try the other 2 RAM slots before trying anything else.
Then I would try a complete format and fresh install of the OS, just to rule out any other driver/software issue(s).
Lastly I would try another quality PSU (Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, PCP&C, or XFX). I'm not sure if you have a 7850/7870 GPU, but a quality 430w PSU would be fine for the 7850 (only needs 1 x PCI-e power connector) or a 500w PSU w/2 x 6 pin PCI-e power connectors. If you have a buddy that had a PSU you could borrow for testing, would be another option.

 

[MrDK]

Yeah it has dual channel support, which I initially had the sticks put in the right slots for. I already did a fresh install of the OS, so it rules out any driver issues. I do need to test the other two slots to see if that can be something to fix. A quality PSU could also help fix the problems, so there's still that solution. I'll go through each of those solutions and we'll see if I can finally narrow down the problem.

I did notice that when I increase the voltage with two ram sticks, the crashes happen less, but still happen.

 

[mamasan2000]

Did you test both sticks separately? That should be the first test. If the issue only happens once you test over 4 gigs, it could well be the other stick is broken.