[SOLVED]Gaming causes crashes

[guilty_rebel]

Ok I don't know if this is the correct forum but i figured since it coincides with gaming, i'd give it a shot. This is sort of a long story, so strap it. A while back my computer had a problem that started while my roomate was on it. According to him he was playing Sniper Elite on Steam, everything was fine, then out of nowhere the computer crashed. When he turned it back on it showed the first loading screen and then it went black. Usually at this point the computer goes to the log in screen but this time it stayed black, and there was a cursor flashing in the upper left corner. When he told me what happened I tried to fix it. Eventually what happened was I reformatted my harddrive, reinstalled windows 7 and it started working again. Shortly after I tried playing a game and it crashed. Rinse and repeat that with a few different games. I remembered that since the format I hadn't updated any drivers, so I did that. I updated, then it showed me anotehr update that I was supposed to get so I updated it again. No problem. I decided not to try any more games and called it quits for the night. I shut off my pc, the next morning the black screen happened again. I did a system restore, which failed the first 10 attempts or so, and that eventually got it working again. I re-updated my drivers, leaving out the last update and now it starts fine, but it still crashes whenever I play a game. It also sometimes has problems turning back on if it goes to sleep where it fails so I have to restart and then it resumes where I was at. Sometimes I have to try restarting a few times before it will work. So yeah. Thats my can of worms. Anyone able to crack this or have any experience with it? I just want to be able to game again, I'm sort of an addict.

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

Some specs would help...

All the best Brett

 

[guilty_rebel]

intel i7 2.8GHz cpu
12 GB triple channel ram
ATI Radeon 5670
cant rememebr what my power supply is.
I ran the memtest with no errors, scanned HDD and memory, no problems. Not sure what other specs, lemme know and i'll figure it out for ya

 

[addzy94]

Ok, do this first...check and tell me by installing speedfan and using the graph option in speed fan if any of your computer devices are overheating while gaming...

 

[guilty_rebel]

On the 'readins' tab of speedfan, it shows this:
temp 1: 28
temp 2: 46
temp 3: 40-42
HD0: 28
GPU: 50-52
GPU: 0
Core 1: 41-43
Core 2: 41-42
Core 3: 44

All of the numbers have symbols like a green check, blue/red arrow, or a fireball next to them which make sense, but what doesnt make sense is that the few numbers that are moving, when they go up it'll change to a red arrow or fireball, then it'll change back to a green arrow without the temp dropping back down. So I don't really understand.

 

[guilty_rebel]

ok I just ran a steam game in the back ground with the speedfan window up, the second GPU went up to 48, and Cores 1-3 went up also, floating between 49-53

 

[Spoony]

temps are normal but they wont be high if you have it running in the background since its like shutting it off, or going back to desktop mode, if i was you i would be doing the following.

go to AMD CCC and turning the fan on manually at around 50%, also if you have MSI afterburn installed uninstall it as that WILL make problems during gaming.

also with sniper elite turn down the graphics a touch not alot just a bit, i have 3 x 6970 cards and i had problems playing it on max settings, game didnt like it for some reason on steam. installed it onto the HDDnormal and not on steam and all was good on highest settings so i think its a part steam and part high temp problem.

 

[addzy94]

ok I just ran a steam game in the back ground with the speedfan window up, the second GPU went up to 48, and Cores 1-3 went up also, floating between 49-53

Spoony is right. You need to monitor the temps while gaming.

There is a tab called chart in speed fan application. In that mention temperatures and let the graph run while you play the game, minimize speed fan and do it.

See the highest temp of cores and gpu when a game is running.

http://attachments.techguy.org/attachments/135357d1216303975/speedfan-chart.jpg

go to the above mentioned link to get the idea.

 

[guilty_rebel]

Ok So I ran jedi academy for a couple of missions, i was suprised to see that the computer didnt crash. while gaming the gpus were at mid 50's or so and cores were in low 60's.

 

[guilty_rebel]

Alrighty, well I tried to get red orchestra 2 to play becuase it's crashed on that game before but for some reason the game wont open. It seemed to run without crashing when I was playing jedi academy, so maybe it just isn't handling games with higher graphics. Just to test it out i'm going to find a new demo to download to see if a better looking game will make it crash or not.

 

[guilty_rebel]

Ok so I started up the kingoms of amalur demo and with skipping cutscenes it made it part of the way into character creation before the computer crashed. Just before that tho, the picture stopped responding so I alt+tabbed out and there was an error bubble saying my display driver had stopped working but recovered. i also happened to glance at the temps in the speedfan graph and it looked about the same as when I was running jedi academy. does this mean my graphics card is bad??

 

[addzy94]

No, graphic cards are tough and don't go bad so easily.

What might have happened is that the thermal grease might have been dried out for the Graphic card or CPU. If this is the case apply fresh thermal grease after removing the dried remains...

If you don't have an idea about it, look for some videos on applying thermal grease.

 

[guilty_rebel]

i'll check it out and do what I can, then post the results

 

[addzy94]

Also, tell me if you are getting any blue screen errors or green screen errors.

Is the computer crashing and restarting or just crashing.

 

[guilty_rebel]

when the computer crashes it gives me the blue screen of death.

 

[addzy94]

Anything written on the Blue screen of death???

Also check your event log by going to control panel->System and security->Administrative tools->event viewer->(a window opens)->custom views->administrative events.

Check if you have kernel power or kernal voltage or anything kernal and post details.

You sure that on the day your friend was using the comp, you guys didn't copy or download any malware unknowingly...it's alright if you have a good antivirus.

Did you happen to install any windows updates recently or update to service pack 1???

Does your PSU have enough power to support your graphic card.

Did you check if the thermal grease is not dried out both from the GPU as well as CPU???

 

[addzy94]

Sell this garbage and buy yourself a gym membership. Go workout and make some muscles, then make it out with chicks! It's a better game!

That is not fair. You should either answer or stay out.

 

[guilty_rebel]

@ Zingam: I don't really lift but I stay in shape. I have an athletic build and can run a mile in 5.20. Ontop of that I already have a girlfriend and two kids so the 'game' is pretty much over and I couldn't be happier with that. So unless you have something to say about the actuall topic at hand, please move on.

@ addzy94:
There is writing on the screen but I don't remember it off of the top of my head. When I opened my event viewer it lists some warnings and a few errors but i'm not sure what info you want.

This is the info in the event log for the 5 errors:

1. The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. (continues with various info) A dump was saved.

Log Name: System
Source: BugCheck
Event Id: 1001
Level: error
User: N/A
OpCode: Info
Task Category: None
Keywords: Classic

2. The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or list power unexpectedly.

Log Name: System
Source: Kernel-Power
Event Id: 41
Level: Critical
User: SYSTEM
OpCode: Info
Task Category: (63)
Keywords: (2)

3. The previous system shutdown was unexpected.

Log Name: System
Source: EventLog
Event Id: 6008
Level: Error
User: N/A
OpCode:
Task Category: None
Keywords: Classic

4. The Steam Client service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Event Id: 7000
Level: Error
User: N/A
OpCode: Info
Task Category: None
Keywords: Classic

5. A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Steam Client service to connect.

Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Event Id: 7009
Level: Error
User: N/A
OpCode: Info
Task Category: None
Keywords: Classic

 

[addzy94]

Ok, you might be getting these errors because of windows updates. Do this it worked for me.

Re-install a fresh copy of windows 7 and turn off automatic updates.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=28&post=326049&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

 

[Thornyjohny]

Just a suggestion, but could this be caused by a bad hard drive? My dad had the same crashing/not booting up problem with his office computer, and it turned out his hard drive had given out.

 

[addzy94]

Just a suggestion, but could this be caused by a bad hard drive? My dad had the same crashing/not booting up problem with his office computer, and it turned out his hard drive had given out.

If it was a hard drive gone bad case then it was supposed to crash all the time. But guilty_rebel says it crashes only during games.

 

[guilty_rebel]

Right, it does only crash during full client gaming. Browsing the internet, videos, broswer based games all work fine, but it does also have problems resuming. It was few and far between but now its happened twice since last night. What is the best method of resintalling widnows?

 

[addzy94]

Install using CD. Not from BIOS or anything. Install after logging on and turn off automatic updates as soon as you login with the new windows 7.

 

[guilty_rebel]

ok so I did a new install of windows 7 and turned off automatic updates. So far, it's worked a little better but i've sort of traded one problem for another. Now games keep freezing so I have to do a hard reset. :/

 

[guilty_rebel]

Well sir, I reinstalled steam and got it updated. Now i've been trying various games with progressivly improved graphics to check it. Started with star wars jedi academy: worked fine, then Jade Empire: worked fine also, next was red orchestra 2: worked like normal: and then topped it off with splinter cell convition: also worked! Apparently you got it figured out and I couldn't appriciate it more. Thank you so much, I was getting pretty frusterated.