Reboot or black screen during gaming

[yura-aaksenov]

Hello!

I would like some help with a problem I'm having. My old PC recently died and I had to buy new motherboard, CPU and RAM. My old video card survived so I just shoved that back in and made a clean install of Windows 10. But for some reason, whenever I try to play a videogame, after a couple minutes one of several things happen. My computer may freeze with black screen and then reboot. Computer may freeze, the screens go black and then turn back on. If this happens, I receive no error messages or anything, it just turns back on. The game can be HEARD running but it appears as if it's "minimized" (i.e. I'm back at Windows desktop and can't see the game itself, even Alt-Tabbing back and forth). All other OS features work just fine. Or, the previous thing may happen but only just one monitor would come back on (I have two), and won't turn back on until I manually restart. What the heck is going on? My system is as follows.

CPU: Intel i3 8350K
Motherboard: Gigabyte z370P D3
RAM: 1 x DDR 4 8 Gb
Videocard: Nvidia GTX 960
HDD: 2 x SATA 1 Tb
Monitors: 2 x LCD, 22" and 19"
PSU: generic 450W
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Video drivers are up to date, downloaded from Nvidia site itself.

Thank you!

 

[pete_101]

Have you checked the GPU temperature? It possible your new system is working your old card much harder than it use to be used, and it's now getting too hot. I assume you have a few case fans installed?

One other thing, why do people use a single memory stick when dual channel memory is so much better? I don't mean this to be rude, I assume you didn't know about the difference.

 

[yura-aaksenov]

Have you checked the GPU temperature? It possible your new system is working your old card much harder than it use to be used, and it's now getting too hot.

I thought about that too, and I did check, no alarms were had. I also cleaned the card just in case, from all the dust. I do have fans on PSU, CPU and videocard, of course.

...I think it's PSU after all, though. I noticed yesterday that after I watched video for a while, which doesn't cause the system to freeze or reboot, my hard disk started clicking like crazy, like it's resetting its heads every other second. I checked the power connectors, made sure it's level, etc. etc. so I kinda suspect as I was watching video, the card was drawing more power and HDD went hungry a bit?.. It stopped making this sound after reboot and didn't start again when I was just browsing the 'net and stuff.

One other thing, why do people use a single memory stick when dual channel memory is so much better? I don't mean this to be rude, I assume you didn't know about the difference.

Yeah, to be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. When I was buying my RAM, I was most concerned with price, so two sticks were more expensive than one, and I went with that. I do still have three RAM slots free though, and plan to eventually fill it with more memory.

 

[pete_101]

Have you checked the GPU temperature? It possible your new system is working your old card much harder than it use to be used, and it's now getting too hot.

I thought about that too, and I did check, no alarms were had. I also cleaned the card just in case, from all the dust. I do have fans on PSU, CPU and videocard, of course.

...I think it's PSU after all, though. I noticed yesterday that after I watched video for a while, which doesn't cause the system to freeze or reboot, my hard disk started clicking like crazy, like it's resetting its heads every other second. I checked the power connectors, made sure it's level, etc. etc. so I kinda suspect as I was watching video, the card was drawing more power and HDD went hungry a bit?.. It stopped making this sound after reboot and didn't start again when I was just browsing the 'net and stuff.

One other thing, why do people use a single memory stick when dual channel memory is so much better? I don't mean this to be rude, I assume you didn't know about the difference.

Yeah, to be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. When I was buying my RAM, I was most concerned with price, so two sticks were more expensive than one, and I went with that. I do still have three RAM slots free though, and plan to eventually fill it with more memory.

Yes, a bad PSU can cause all sorts of problems, I was just trying to eliminate other causes before telling you to spend money on something that may not be the main issue. It's often said on this forum that the PSU is the most important component, all the other components rely on it to supply them with nice steady voltage. It never pays to use cheap generic units, get yourself a quality unit.

As for dual channel vs single channel memory, there can be as much as 30% difference in performance, depending on the application or game. Youtube is full of videos showing the side by side comparison of the two. If you do add more RAM, make sure it's identical to the first one AND you put it in the correct slot for dual channel, the motherboard manual will tell you which slot to use.

 

[yura-aaksenov]

Yes, a bad PSU can cause all sorts of problems.

I got a new one today, a Chieftech Force series 650W and at the very least, computer stopped rebooting, so there's that, but for some reason the games still crash. They don't turn off the displays with them anymore, though. They just freeze with garbled video and close. Maybe I have a videodriver problem on top of all that?

As for dual channel vs single channel memory, there can be as much as 30% difference in performance

Got it, I'll bear it in mind!

 

[yura-aaksenov]

Well great. Now, drivers or not, my videocard just doesn't work (error 43 in device manager). Replugging everything from videocard to its power cables, removing Nvidia drivers with DDU and then installing them back again, nothing works. I'm stuck in low res. What the hell is going on.

 

[pete_101]

Well great. Now, drivers or not, my videocard just doesn't work (error 43 in device manager). Replugging everything from videocard to its power cables, removing Nvidia drivers with DDU and then installing them back again, nothing works. I'm stuck in low res. What the hell is going on.

Are you using your old PSU or are did you get a new unit?

You said that your old PC died, what happened to it? I'm just wondering if a power surge or something has damaged the graphics card.

 

[yura-aaksenov]

Are you using your old PSU or are did you get a new unit?

I got a new one, a Chieftech 650W unit. I had to replace the (dead?) videocard with a tiny weak spare, it was Nvidia GT 8800 or something, and it works so far, except for it being too weak to launch any game.

You said that your old PC died, what happened to it? I'm just wondering if a power surge or something has damaged the graphics card.

It was 10 years old and one day it just refused to turn on. It would turn on, spin the fans for a couple seconds, turn off, repeat ad nauseam. I took it to service and they said the motherboard died.