What makes games crash?

[Hiijinx]

A very broad question - but generally, what should I be looking for to troubleshoot game crashes.

I can run instances of photoshop, 3dsmax, music etc... for hours at a time without issue, often lagging the computer to a crawl as it muches its way through all the CPU/RAM as it renders away.

I load up a game (any games btw) and very soon I will get a game crash report and or/ sometimes a complete freeze up despite it being only a fraction of the workload it normally suffers

This to me makes me think GPU related.

So...

Drivers removed, cleaned and updated - yet I still seem to suffer frequent crashes in just about any game I have played - I am the subject of a long running joke, "oh Jinxie and his PC.." And am getting quite sick of it.

i5 2500k @ Stock (... to rule out instability)
Asrock z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3
8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1866MHz (Stock)
MSI 7970 GHZ Ed. (Stock)
840 Pro SSD
Soundblaster Titanium Pro Fatality
1200W Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold

So ruling out any hardware defects, because, if that were the case, I have been buying broken components for years now, which is somewhat unlikely - what software should I be most suspicious of?

I dislike messing with voltage but perhaps bump up the GPU?

Thanks to any outside thoughts.

 

[leo2kp]

Have you run memtest86+ at all, or ran Prime95 and monitored temperatures with something like CoreTemp? Stock doesn't always mean stable. I would rule out RAM and CPU first by running the above tools for 8 - 12 hours each (24 hours if you really want to test stability), while monitoring temps. Then if they pass, run like 6 passes of 3DMark11 or Vantage or whatever, to assess graphics card stability, again while monitoring temperatures.

 

[tshrimp]

Check your GPU and CPU temps under load.

 

[Hiijinx]

CPU ~ 39-46 C
GPU~ 58-62 C

Literally just finished a reinstall of windows and after installing all of the latest drivers etc, I try out some games and it still crashes.
Run Prime 95, failed first time at 2 hours with a FATAL HARDWARE ERROR and again at 2 minutes! (This was the default BLEND test)

So am going to run memtest over night.

In the mean time, does everything look OK in my BIOS? I know I have alot set to AUTO which half of me does not trust, where would my best bet be for finding out what it really needs?

Host Clock Override (BCLK is 100 btw, cursor got in the way)

Any input much appreciated,

Jinx

 

[KeeperFiM]

Oh, geez... sooo many things. Buggy games, drivers, system instability, corruption... I'd make sure all drivers are updated, that all games are updated and not corrupted, stress test your components...

 

[tshrimp]

CPU ~ 39-46 C
GPU~ 58-62 C

Literally just finished a reinstall of windows and after installing all of the latest drivers etc, I try out some games and it still crashes.
Run Prime 95, failed first time at 2 hours with a FATAL HARDWARE ERROR and again at 2 minutes! (This was the default BLEND test)

So am going to run memtest over night.

In the mean time, does everything look OK in my BIOS? I know I have alot set to AUTO which half of me does not trust, where would my best bet be for finding out what it really needs?

Host Clock Override (BCLK is 100 btw, cursor got in the way)

Any input much appreciated,

Jinx

Those temps are fine after running prime. I think you are on the right track with running a memtest. If that doesn't show anything I would still look at removing a stick of ram and seeing what happens, and then swapping with the removed stick and trying again. Since you just reloaded the OS it might be hardware.

One other thing.... if this only happens under stress...could be a PSU issue as well. Troubleshooting possible hardware issues stink, and I feel for you.

Edit: PS...reset your bios might not be a bad idea...especially if you have made some changes you might not remember. Or if your bios has loging check to see if is shows any changes you might have made in the past and don't remember. Also might verify with your motherboard document to make sure your memory is the right slots since your bios shows 4 slots with 2 taken. I don't think this is your issue, but won't hurt to verify. You never know