What could be causing game crashes.

[Dude420]

Hi, I've recently just replaced my old mobo, cpu and ram with new ones for my computer. In the beginning everything was working flawlessly. It was my first time assembling a computer so I was a bit nervous to turn it on, but it all went good.

Anyway, after maybe a week of playing around with it, I started noticing a bit of a problem. Whenever I play a game, I sometimes get a hangup and then a crash. This happened with SW: KOTOR (yes i started playing it again lol), Company of Heroes and Dragon Age. I've never had this problem before and now I have a growing suspicion that it's my RAM. I'm not going to run memtest yet until I'm absolutely sure, which is why I'm here. I've played other games as well, but not long enough to see it crash.

First of all, these are my specs.

Intel i5 760 @ 2800mhz
4GB G. Skill Ripjaws @1.5v, 1333mhz and 7-7-7-21
XFX HD 5770
MSI P55A-G55 motherboard

A couple of things to note here as they could be potential problems.

My ram is spec'd to run at 7-7-7-21 but my mobo has them at 9-9-9-24
My Windows 7 is at 32-bit and only runs RAM at 3.24Ghz

Can you guys see the problem right away or should I run the memtest now to see.

Sorry If I'm not as specific as you guys would like, I'm a newb at this stuff.

 

[christop]

go into your bios and change your memory timings to your specs.

 

[Dude420]

Can I do that without changing anything like voltages, or do i have to do some form of overclocking?

Also, I would like to know if the 9-9-9-24 timings could be the cause of my problems so i know next time. (I'm going to change windows 7 to 64 bit soon).

 

[lothdk]

Yes, you can change your timings without changing the voltage, but running the memory at looser timings will not cause a crash, running them at too tight timings could.

You are not saying anything about how you upgraded, did you just reuse the old HDD without doing a new install of the OS and all related drivers to your new motherboard (chipset drivers)?
If yes, then this is where your issues stem from.

 

[Dude420]

Ah ok. Yes, I am using my old HDD as the boot up drive and I didn't reinstall Windows. However, I have updated my drivers except for the mobo. I didn't think I needed to reinstall Windows because everything is working fine. If you really want to know, I've only upgraded my CPU, GPU, RAM and mobo and not too long before that I've recently purchased a second HDD and a new PSU.

I will update my mobo too though once all of this is cleared up.

 

[Wamphryi]

You cant transfer a drive with an OS on it like that. You need to reinstall it from scratch. There is no way around that. Your system will always be unstable until you do. You also should have your RAM matched to the specifications of the manufacturer. Over- clocking is an art albeit one that produces little reward for the drama.

 

[apache_lives]

MSI motherboard what do you expect?

 

[apache_lives]

oh and yes old install's of windows - big big big no no +1, aswell as old crappy components - new systems work best when there NEW

what brand and model is your psu?

 

[Dude420]

My PSU is a 500W Coolermaster Extreme Power Plus, I needed a budget one but it's working well and is pretty quiet. I pretty much consider my system to be all new anyway because I bought the PSU about 6 months ago and bought a second HDD about 3 months ago.

I suppose when I reinstall Windows I should boot it with the new HDD. Alright so I'll do a fresh reinstall, thanks a lot for the info guys.

oh and for this quote...

"MSI motherboard what do you expect?"

I don't know actually, the reason I got it was because I've heard good things about MSI and apparently this models OCs well if ever I want to try it. Plus it has Xfire and SLI support, USB 3.0, Sata 6Gb/s blah blah and I got it for a very good price. I've seen a lot of good rewviews for it lol.

 

[Dude420]

Best answer selected by Dude420.

 

[Dude420]

I know this thread is very old, sorry I was busy for some time and I completely forgot about it.

Anyway, all I did was completely reinstall windows 7 and now everything works fine.

 

[lothdk]

Good to hear you got it all sorted out, and is now up and running with a stable PC.

 

[Dude420]

Yes, thank you very much lothdk, happy new year to you and to all who tried to help me as well.