Why does my computer shutdown ONLY when I play video games?

[kersedsaint]

Specs:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2700K CPU @ 3.50GHz 3.50GHz
RAM: DDR3 16G
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 (x2 Video cards)
Motherboard: Maximus IV Extreme-Z
Power Supply: Antec High Current Pro 850W 80 PLUS Gold Certified
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

This could happen when I'm playing LoL (very rarely), GTA 4 (happens fast), Planetside 2 (happens fast), Skyrim (Rare)
It depends on the game... Some games can run good for a few hours then shut down. Others take less than a half hour. However when it does shut down, my screen freezes and my speakers make this weird loud buzzing noise, it's always a different sounding frequency. This never happened before, a friend of mine built this computer for me and it ran fine until I want to say over 6 months I've been having this problem, just haven't had the money to take it in anywhere yet.

I do not use any overclocking at all. My temperatures seem fine. The max temperature that any of my cores have reached from my CPU is 49 C. The video cards max is 41 C. I frequently update my graphic cards, haven't updated the bios yet because I don't feel comfortable playing around with them until I get some advice. I've even tried getting rid of my antivirus temporarily and defragmented my hard drives just to give it a try, nothing worked. I had this exact same problem I want to say over a year ago but I resolved it because both my sound cards were turned on, so I disabled at least one and it worked fine until now. If there's any info I'm missing let me know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I would really appreciate some help! ^___^. I don't know if this is the right thread to put this in either, I'm a newb.

 

[meowmix44]

Whats your CPU heatsink?

 

[kersedsaint]

Cooler Master V8

 

[meowmix44]

Cooler Master V8

Maybe one of your componets is faulty. Or maybe static is the problem

 

[imaurer269]

I would try to update to the latest driver from nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win8-win7-winvista-64bit-320.49-whql-driver.html

If you have had it for 6 months and have never updated your drivers there is a chance one got d/l with a windows 7 update and that could be causing problems

 

[helz IT]

What are your GPU temps at load? 41C sounds more like what you'd see on idle. To answer your question, games are probably stressing your system more than anything else you're doing on your computer. If somethings unstable, especially if its your GPUs, playing graphically intensive games will expose it.

 

[kersedsaint]

I stated in my original post that I frequently update my graphics card, so that's not the issue there. I'll try to play a video game and see if my temperature on my GPU raises a lot, haven't really took a close look at it. But the program I use (Hardware Monitor) tells me that 41 C is that maximum it has reached, so I don't know if that statistic is accurate or not.

 

[kersedsaint]

A friend of mine told me to take out the circular battery that is on the motherboard, and then put it back in because apparently that resets the BIOs. Haven't tried it yet, but it fixed his issue when he had the same problem as me. Any thoughts?
Do you have any troubleshooting that I could try?

 

[VXBlade]

Take a look at your event viewer and see what it says (If anything) also, a hard lock like that I've seen because of drivers, hardware malfunction, Bad RAM, bad V RAM, etc.. etc.. its really hard to go off of what you've described.
Remove parts one by one... go to a single GPU setup and play for a while and see if it happens first off.

 

[kersedsaint]

Yeah I've looked at Event Viewer before and it says the same thing every time it shuts down:
Event ID 41. "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."
Would updating my BIOs do anything to resolve this issue? I'm asking cause I still haven't done that yet.

 

[VXBlade]

What BIOS are you using? Have you removed one Graphics Card and run with it for a while to see it's the SLI?

Also, what Nvidia drivers are you using?

If you remove 1 card and it still happens, try removing 1 RAM chip (or 2 if you have 4gb modules) Also, a voltage drop from the Powersupply can cause that, or a grounding of a component on the MB to the case by accident. I once had a very similar problem from bad sound card drivers... it can be so many things it's hard to narrow it down without the proper trial and error troubleshooting unless you have some sort of log data to go off of.

To respond to your ONLY when I play video games part, they tend to tax the system more than regular use, but it does point to Video/RAM/sound card issues more than anything else. I'd ignore my grounding issue, but voltage being bad to the graphics cards from the powersupply could still be an issue.

 

[VXBlade]

Also, try re-installing Direct X

 

[haider95]

Hey man. where did you get early access to GTA5?

 

[VXBlade]

Hey man. where did you get early access to GTA5?

I just noticed that! I'd like to know too...

 

[kersedsaint]

Sorry guys I totally meant to say GTA4. Didn't mean to get anyone's hopes up haha 🙁. I feel bad now.
According to CPU-Z my BIOS is from the brand American Megatrends Inc version 0210, that's all I know. Keep in mind I'm not completely computer savvy as much as I wish I was, still learning .
My current driver version for NVidia is 320.49 which is the most updated according to the site.

I have NOT yet removed 1 graphics card to see if the issue is with the SLI. I don't have the time at the moment until probably tomorrow, I have family over at the moment. I should also mention this: I am using my sound driver off the motherboard. For SOME reason the sound card that I payed for (Creative SoundBlaster X-FI TIANIUM Fatal1ty Champion Series PCI-E) isn't working. Device Manager detects that it is there but I had to disable it and use the soundcard off my motherboard instead, so maybe that is what is causing the issue, I don't know.

Thanks for the questions. Hopefully we can resolve this.

 

[kersedsaint]

Haven't touched anything yet but I thought there was also something worth mentioning before I do anything.
When I restart (or shutdown and turn PC back on), the main screen never shows me anything anymore. It's just a completely black screen until I get to the login screen of the OS... It used to show me "American Megatrends Inc." and other info.
What could cause this? This exact issue started happening maybe about a couple weeks a go. I've been trying to get into the BIO's with every F key from 1 to 12. When I try this it stays at a black screen and never even goes to the login screen, so I thought that was really bizarre. I'm going to take that as my computer is really haha.

 

[VXBlade]

Haven't touched anything yet but I thought there was also something worth mentioning before I do anything.
When I restart (or shutdown and turn PC back on), the main screen never shows me anything anymore. It's just a completely black screen until I get to the login screen of the OS... It used to show me "American Megatrends Inc." and other info.
What could cause this? This exact issue started happening maybe about a couple weeks a go. I've been trying to get into the BIO's with every F key from 1 to 12. When I try this it stays at a black screen and never even goes to the login screen, so I thought that was really bizarre. I'm going to take that as my computer is really haha.

Sounds like 1 of the graphics cards is kicking in and thus your display is kicking in, once the video card driver loads from windows. Before that, you have no signal... try a different monitor port on the card (or other card)?

 

[kersedsaint]

Haven't touched anything yet but I thought there was also something worth mentioning before I do anything.
When I restart (or shutdown and turn PC back on), the main screen never shows me anything anymore. It's just a completely black screen until I get to the login screen of the OS... It used to show me "American Megatrends Inc." and other info.
What could cause this? This exact issue started happening maybe about a couple weeks a go. I've been trying to get into the BIO's with every F key from 1 to 12. When I try this it stays at a black screen and never even goes to the login screen, so I thought that was really bizarre. I'm going to take that as my computer is really haha.

Sounds like 1 of the graphics cards is kicking in and thus your display is kicking in, once the video card driver loads from windows. Before that, you have no signal... try a different monitor port on the card (or other card)?

I tried both. When I tried the other card that seemed to do the trick so thank you!
When taking out the ram (each stick is 4GB), can I just take out any stick or does it have to be certain ones? Just wanted to verify that. Haven't took out my other card just yet still. Do you have any idea about the sound card issue that I stated earlier?