Upgrade my build for $300-400

[ItsZanoniBro]

Hey everyone. I'm running into either RAM incompatibility with my motherboard OR an overaged graphics card? My screen blacks out and my GPU needs to recover (according to windows 10).

What do you think would be the best (while budget given of $400 max) way to upgrade this build and maybe put a few extra years in the processor? I'm already thinking a new SSD as mine is getting a little full. I hear good things about a 480 or 960GB SanDisk? Ideally I wouldn't have to touch my motherboard/CPU, but everything else is up for ultimate debate.

Thanks in advance - my build is as follows (and keep in mind, this was my first ever, I'm a novice on a good day with this stuff):

Thermaltake Versa H23 Mid-Tower Case w/ Window - Micro-ATX, ATX, SPCC Material, 1x 120mm Fan, 7 Expansion Slots

Intel Core i7-4790K Processor

Asus Z97 Motherboard - Intel Socket LGA1150

Rosewill CAPSTONE Series ATX 12V/EPS 12V 750W 80 Plus Gold Certified Power Supply

2X Kingston HyperX Fury Red 4GB Desktop Memory Module

Kingston V300 240GB SSD - 2.5" Form Factor, SATA III 6Gb/s, Up To 450 MB/s Read Speed, Up To 450 MB/s Write Speed

EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti Superclock w/G-SYNC Support 2GB GDDR5 128bit, Dual-Link

 

[xapoc]

Well your rig is good. You could get total of 16gb ram, and upgrade GPU to gtx 1070. Also your CPU can likely overclock at at least 4.8ghz if you into that sort of thing. If your display crashed, you have GPU related problem such as too much heat due to bad cooling, corrupted GPU drivers, bad overclock on GPU, PSU power ripples.

 

[ItsZanoniBro]

Well your rig is good. You could get total of 16gb ram, and upgrade GPU to gtx 1070. Also your CPU can likely overclock at at least 4.8ghz if you into that sort of thing. If your display crashed, you have GPU related problem such as too much heat due to bad cooling, corrupted GPU drivers, bad overclock on GPU, PSU power ripples.

Thanks pal. The RAM / Motherboard should be OK right? I was told this may be a problem where my RAM is essentially shorting out my GPU with its own lapses in data...? I simply know too little do discredit this hypothesis.

I also take pride in my cooling - I have more fans than I wish to admit pointed and rigged strangely pointing directly at the hot points. It runs incredibly cool and quiet.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the GPU and always keep the drivers up to date - can it just be a shoddy unit?

I would hate for it to be the GPU because it's not like I'm playing cutting edge games at 31 years old anymore. DOTA2 and Diablo 3 is about as real as it gets for the system (which it normally plays without a hitch - save a few of these blackouts).

It it helps a diagnosis at all - there are days it happens more frequently vs sometimes not at all. I know it sounds like a temperature thing - but I'm not talking about June vs. December here. I'm talking about Monday vs Tuesday. A restart usually stops it for the most part.

Thanks again for the "good rig" comment.

 

[xapoc]

I would perhaps consider older video drivers, not sure if you tried it. If not I would get something from few months ago and see if the crashes continue.
The RAM / motherboard problem its possible but you would need to do some testing, perhaps download prime95 and run blend test for a while, see if your PC crashes. It will indicate stability issue with hardware.

 

[geofelt]

You need first to identify the cause of your current problem.

Run memtest86+.
If your ram is good, you should be able to complete a couple of full passes with NO errors.

If the ram test fails, then by all means buy a new 2 x 8gb kit that is compatible.

If the ram is good, then the next most likely cause will be the graphics card or the driver for it.
See what happens if you remove the graphics card and run on integrated graphics.

If your ssd is 90% full, it will start to lose performance and endurance.
I doubt that would be the cause of blackouts.

Is your monitor possibly going bad? They do not last forever?
Adding a second monitor is not a bad idea for general use anyway.

 

[ItsZanoniBro]

You need first to identify the cause of your current problem.

Run memtest86+.
If your ram is good, you should be able to complete a couple of full passes with NO errors.

If the ram test fails, then by all means buy a new 2 x 8gb kit that is compatible.

If the ram is good, then the next most likely cause will be the graphics card or the driver for it.
See what happens if you remove the graphics card and run on integrated graphics.

If your ssd is 90% full, it will start to lose performance and endurance.
I doubt that would be the cause of blackouts.

Is your monitor possibly going bad? They do not last forever?
Adding a second monitor is not a bad idea for general use anyway.

Will definitely try this weekend and see what happens. Thanks a ton.

 

[ItsZanoniBro]

Newbie move here - please correct me if wrong. I picked "any old on sale" 16 (2 X 8) DDR to upgrade the machine (because why not, I needed to kill some time this weekend anyway)... and sure enough, I'm not able to boot. After doing some more research, I see that my 1150 motherboard may not support DDR4.

Would someone kindly correct me if I'm wrong? Or do I simply need to update my BIOS?

Thanks as always.

 

[xapoc]

z97 is ddr3. z170 is ddr4, z270 is ddr4