[SOLVED] -SOLVED- HELP PLEASE? I HAVE NO IDEA ANYMORE!

[willie030]

Oooooooooookay... so I have been trying to find out why my computer is crashing, what could be the issue...

The following is happening:
List of specs:
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU
Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz 33 °C Haswell 22nm Technology

RAM
16,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (11-11-11-28)(First try)
24,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24) (Second try)

Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. MAXIMUS VII RANGER (SOCKET 1150) 24 °C

Graphics
DELL ST2310 (1920x1080@60Hz)(Monitor) 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Gigabyte) 25 °C

Storage
223GB KINGSTON SH103S3240G (SATA-3 (SSD)) 22 °C 1863GB Seagate ST2000DX001-1CM164 (SATA ) 25 °C

Optical Drives (CD-Disk mounter)
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSB0

Audio
NVIDIA High Definition Audio

PSU:
Cooler Master G750M

Here's my issue: my computer randomly hard-hangs after playing CSGO for a while. Sometimes it's after 20 minutes, sometimes after 3 hours. I also got this once whilst playing DayZ. I checked the CPU and GPU temperatures and they are fine (I recently reapplied thermal paste to the CPU). I also cleaned the GPU fans for any dust. However, it still gives me the hard hang. There are a couple of things that are noteworthy here:

The error ONLY OCCURS when gaming. It doesnt happen on a game like Combat Arms (Classic), but it DOES happen on CSGO (its like two in three games the PC completely crashes) and after about 1 hour of playing DayZ.
I checked for CPU and GPU driver issues but windows-update and the nvidia page both conclude I have the most up to date drivers.
I tried memtest86 but every time I run it it crashes after 4-15 minutes. I bought new ram (24gb), lower voltage, still crash.
When I bought my computer it was overclocked in some way (I don't completely understand why, and what was done) but I reset my bios settings to factory default in an attempt to fix the problem.
Windows logs don't provide any interesting information.
When the hard hang occurs, the entire PC freezes up to a point where I have to use the on/off button to restart. It randomly hits and when it does, the screen freezes, sound freezes (it still plays like the last second of moving sound like it's stuck with the screen), and the keyboard and mouse are, logically, unresponsive (caps lock doesnt work).
I scanned for virusses: clean. I scanned and cleaned with CC Cleaner, so: clean.
I used FurMark to sort of test the GPU and the CPU again... no results though. It didn't cause the hang!
I reset my windows with a factory reset and reupdated, still didnt fix the problem.



SO: if anyone can help me with my issue: please! PLEASE! it's annoying and i'm afraid the hard-hang will occur when i'm actually doing something serious...!

 

[Ralston18]

Noted: "Windows logs don't provide any interesting information. "

Which logs? Any error code numbers?

= = = =

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer.

Either one or both may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events just before or at the time of the crashes/freezes.

Reliability History is much more user friendly and presents a timeline format that can be very helpful.

Clicking any given entry will provide additional details. The details may or may not prove helpful.

 

[willie030]

I updated the bios and so far it hasnt crashed yet. Will do a memtest to be certain!

 

[gamerk316]

I tried memtest86 but every time I run it it crashes after 4-15 minutes. I bought new ram (24gb), lower voltage, still crash.

If memtest is crashing with two different RAM setups makes me immediately suspicious of the BIOS/Motherboard, and frankly even the CPU (although that last one is very unlikely). Standalone there's very little that could cause memtest to outright crash, which makes me suspect something is either wrong in BIOS or there is some physical HW failure somewhere.

While I'm not one to generally recommend updating BIOS unnecessarily, this is a case where you absolutely should update to the latest BIOS revision. Set all settings to stock, ensure RAM is running at the correct settings in the correct slots, and try memtest again.

If you're still bombing, then the next step is probably a visual check of the motherboard/CPU to make sure everything is connected, no physical damage (burst cap, etc.).

 

[willie030]

If memtest is crashing with two different RAM setups makes me immediately suspicious of the BIOS/Motherboard, and frankly even the CPU (although that last one is very unlikely). Standalone there's very little that could cause memtest to outright crash, which makes me suspect something is either wrong in BIOS or there is some physical HW failure somewhere.

While I'm not one to generally recommend updating BIOS unnecessarily, this is a case where you absolutely should update to the latest BIOS revision. Set all settings to stock, ensure RAM is running at the correct settings in the correct slots, and try memtest again.

If you're still bombing, then the next step is probably a visual check of the motherboard/CPU to make sure everything is connected, no physical damage (burst cap, etc.).

Well well. Yesterday afternoon I did a bios update. The previous owner never did this. That evening I ran memtest again until this morning; no crashes, ram seemed to be just fine!! Bios update was the trick then! Ill mark it as solved!

 

[Jo_Hardy]

Well well. Yesterday afternoon I did a bios update. The previous owner never did this. That evening I ran memtest again until this morning; no crashes, ram seemed to be just fine!! Bios update was the trick then! Ill mark it as solved!

You have to select that trophy button on an answer/reply to mark the question as solved

 

[Vic 40]

You have to select that trophy button on an answer/reply to mark the question as solved

He can't choose himself. In time are there others that might take care of it if necessary.