Question Windows 10 freezes when playing Steam games for few minutes

[Fagianorex]

Dear Tomshardware community,

I'm writing this thread due the fact tonight I'm gonna have some trouble with a PC which i recentely built for a friend.

The PC is working perfectly and the build is the following:

• CPU: Intel Pentium G4560
• RAM: 1x 8 GB Corsair DDR4 3000 MHz (will upgrade to 2x 8 GB)
• MOBO: MSI B250M Pro-VD
• SSD: Kingston A400 120GB (OS + Steam only)
• HDD: [OLD] Seagate 500GB 7400RPM
• GPU: [OLD] Nvidia GTX 670 (Which we're sure works because i removed it from a working pc and installed in this one),
• PSU: Sharkoon 550W semi-modular.

As I already said, the PC works fine and it's stable while normally using OS and surfing the web; the troubles come as my friend opens up a Steam game.
While in games main menu (let's take as an example Left 4 Dead 2) it seems to work fine, but as i start a game, shortly after any loading screen or video sequence, it completely freezes and also freezes the whole OS forcing to an Hardware restart: CTRL+ALT+DEL not working. Same thing happens for Infestation: The New Z.
PC CPU, RAM and Disk usage seems to be fine and no browser or other apps were in execution. More than 10 attempts were made and all ended up with PC completely freezing and sound started to glitch or repeat.

Last things to consider are the following:
Windows 10 is at its most recent version (I will reply with the correct windows version as my friend brings me the PC to me),
Steam is installed in the SSD,
OS also is installed in the SSD,
Seagate drive is completely empty,
He's using GPU video exit and not the CPU integrated graphics.

I had a chance to briefly troubleshoot through teamviewer yesterday night, before my friend went to sleep, and these are the things i've tried (which appearly didn't work at all):

• Reinstalling GPU drivers (had to download them manually from the website because Geforce Experience would give me an error saying that the peripheral is not compatible with this version of Windows 10, after doing this Geforce Exp. detected the driver and showed it was at its most recent version),
• Ran a stresstest, didn't occour any crash but had ridicoulous high GPU temps,
• Checking Temps - they just seems to be fine except GPU temps during test (~90°C) // Cannot check temps while in-game because PC completely freezes,
• RAM testing with mem86 - apparentely no error in the RAM.

What i will try:

• Use CPU integrated Graphics in order to understand if the trouble is really GPU depending,
• Clean reinstall (once again) of all GPU drivers including geforce experience,
• Check if all drivers are updated (including the MOBO ones),
• Check steam logs & crashlogs to see if i can find anything interesting about the freezes,
• Check BIOS setting relatively to RAM frequency -- will also try to disable onboard audio.

Any suggestion is really appreciated since i've that bad feeling it will took me so many hours away to fix.

Thanks in advance for any of your advices; please keep in mind that i will get the PC from my friend only tonight, so it's probable i can't provide further information regard it.

 

[Colif]

Get a copy of his dxdiag details
right click start
choose run...
type dxdiag and press enter

in the tool, click save all information
this opens file explorer, name file and save it
Upload to file sharing website and share link here

it might give us an ides of what is happening.

run mSI live update 6 on motherboard and see if its got latest drivers/bios

 

[Fagianorex]

Get a copy of his dxdiag details
right click start
choose run...
type dxdiag and press enter

in the tool, click save all information
this opens file explorer, name file and save it
Upload to file sharing website and share link here

it might give us an ides of what is happening.

run mSI live update 6 on motherboard and see if its got latest drivers/bios

Thank you, Colif, i'm gonna try it tonight.
Fact is almost all drivers got automatically detected and installed by windows 10, so i will probably just restart te PC in safe mode, disable auto-reinstall of drivers by windows and installing new ones use the MSI tool.
Do you think it's a good idea?

 

[Colif]

Its worth a try, I would turn on auto update after, as windows may have newer versions of some drivers

 

[Fagianorex]

Ok, this is an update.
Tests done, think i found out the problem was the GPU.
Tested Left 4 Dead 2 with integrated graphics - no problems except for too high CPU temps at high graph. settings.
Strange thing occurred: tried to run the game using GPU while using dual-monitor mode (2nd on CPU and main on GPU). Game would start and run just fine, no crashes or lags after 5 minutes of game.
I decided to detach second monitor and just let GPU running while in-game. Should've never done it. PC freeze occurred in less than 15 seconds with only gpu running. Main tought was that the game was using CPU graphics to run it.

So, i just told my friend he should buy a new gpu because i tried switching it with my GTX 970 and all would just run fine, still can't explain how and why the card is acting like this considering that was a working used card untill my friend brought it at a repair/retail center to switch graphic card. Maybe they damaged it during the change?
Oh yeah, i've also did a couple of clean reinstallation of graphics drivers using DDU in safe mode, nothing changed.
Also installed MSI live update 6 and found out i was missing a couple of mobo drivers regard the Realtek audio device. Nothing changed after the installation.
Went trough BIOS thinking something was wrong there, but found out it was all ok.

Last thing i could've tried there would've been a downgrade of windows version, since it seems some people had trouble with the latest one. The fact is that since it's working fine with both CPU integrated graphics and my GTX 970, i guess the problem is his 670. Am i wrong thinking this way?

PS: Did the dxdiag test, nothing strange showed up, anyway forgot to export the log, is this important if no relevant error were showed?