PC crashing

TheFullDuck

Hi guys,

I'm playing Watch Dogs and for the 3rd time in an hour my PC has crashed while playing it, its not a normal crash, the monitor goes off and goes to sleep mode but the pc keeps running, 2/3 times a sound loop played. I can't get it out of this crash or the monitor to tun back on without restarting it with the power button.
At first I presumed it was the GPU overheating so I opened it up cleaned all the dust I could see from the fans and downloaded GPU-Z to get a temp reading. While the game was running the GPU was at a temp of around 55c. Currently while idling in the desktop it's running at 33c. From my quick google these temps are well within reasonable levels.
I play BF4, titanfall, modded skyrim with no problems of this sort at all.

Has anyone any ideas?

this is my build http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=84721114

Just as I was typing this I remembered AMD released beta drivers for Watch Dogs so I'll download them and report back if that rectifies the problem

Baked.noodle

Is it a legit copy? If it isn't you may have malware/bitcoin miner on your system. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a573318/watch-dogs-torrent-installing-bitcoin-miner-on-pcs.html#~oFvstvRnrbALQW

TheFullDuck

genuine. bought on cdkeys.com and activated through uplay. I didn't get to play much longer after posting this. will report back this eve after work if it happens again.

kevovek

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Is it a legit copy? If it isn't you may have malware/bitcoin miner on your system. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a573318/watch-dogs-torrent-installing-bitcoin-miner-on-pcs.html#~oFvstvRnrbALQW

Haha jesus that could cause quite a bump in your ESB bill. Not that you would leave your PC on that long if it was running so badly.

yoyo

I've had this issue with my AMD GPU before. It can sometimes be caused by overclocking your card so if you've overclocked your GPU/VRAM try reduce it. My issue I believe was caused by not completely clearing the drivers after upgrading them (when I had this issue prior to overclocking). I solved this using DDU, I highly recommend trying this before installing the new beta drivers

Nick

TheFullDuck

yoyo wrote: »

I've had this issue with my AMD GPU before. It can sometimes be caused by overclocking your card so if you've overclocked your GPU/VRAM try reduce it. My issue I believe was caused by not completely clearing the drivers after upgrading them (when I had this issue prior to overclocking). I solved this using DDU, I highly recommend trying this before installing the new beta drivers

Nick

I updated to the beta drivers last night, could I still run DDU?

miece16

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Is it a legit copy? If it isn't you may have malware/bitcoin miner on your system. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a573318/watch-dogs-torrent-installing-bitcoin-miner-on-pcs.html#~oFvstvRnrbALQW

thats why i get my pirated versions from legit websites

And get infracted by legit websites - Sol

yoyo

TheFullDuck wrote: »

I updated to the beta drivers last night, could I still run DDU?

Of course . Just copy the beta driver setup.exe to your desktop to make it easier to reinstall as after uninstall with DDU the resolution will revert to 800x600.

Nick

djerk

the wolfenstein engine is very problematic, probably shouldnt have been released at all in its current state.. people have been reporting all kinds of problems. i cant even get to the start menu!

you could try some of the stuff mentioned here
crashwiki.com/10-fixes-wolfenstein-new-order-crashes-responding-artifacting-installation-windows-8-error-white-screen-poor-fps-audio-sync-texture-glitch/

miece16

miece16 wrote: »

And get infracted by legit websites - Sol

what are you on about? ****ing nazi

miece16

sure i pirate everything. woohoo

oh look i told a joke lets ban me

Wetbench4

Its your GPU. I have the club3d 7870 2GB and it also happens to mine on certain games. Have you ever used MSI afterburner?? If so, I found that reducing the gpu core voltage from the stock 1.213mV to 1.200mV fixes it for me. You don't have to adjust any of the other settings.

TheFullDuck

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Its your GPU. I have the club3d 7870 2GB and it also happens to mine on certain games. Have you ever used MSI afterburner?? If so, I found that reducing the gpu core voltage from the stock 1.213mV to 1.200mV fixes it for me. You don't have to adjust any of the other settings.

Hi,

I followed yoyo's advice posted above and that seems to have rectified the problem. Have played it for about 10 hours since and it hasn't happened again. If it does I'll give your suggestion a go, thanks!

TheFullDuck

unfortunately I've to bump this thread.

I suppose I'll re-describe whats happening first, the problem happens when im playing any game that 'works' the computer a bit such as watch dogs. The game will be running fine, next thing my screen goes black, the monitor loses connection to the computer completely (ie no source detected comes up on it) and if a sound is playing when it crashes this sound loops. But the computer is still running, Ive to hold the power button to restart it. Ive tried switching the hdmi to the mobo hdmi output after the crash but that hasn't worked.

As was said above by yoyo I ran DDU which seemed to have fixed the problem for a while, I didn't turn on my pc for about a week until yesterday when I played Watch dogs again and the same problem occurred. Then today I played the Wolf among us for a few hours (a much less taxing game) with no problems. However I then launched Payday 2 and surprise surprise my pc crashed.
So I ran DDU again and reinstalled the amd drivers and relaunched Payday and it happened again shortly after starting it. I then opened up the pc case, removed the GPU, cleaned all dust from inside and around the fans and put the GPU back in, ran the game again and once again it happened. Finally I did what wetbench suggested above, downloaded msi and set the gpu core volatge to 1.200mV but the same problem happened again
I'm at a loss what to do, I'm logging the GPU temps and they idle at 35 and seem to hit 89-91 before the computer crashes? Has anyone any ideas or is it that my GPU is bust? Bear in mind it's only a year old and my pc has never been OC'd

Baked.noodle

It's a hard one to pin down but if you could get your hands on another graphics card to test the system you may be able to confirm it is indeed your graphics card. Only other thing I can think of is a faulty power supply that craps out when your card is sucking the juice, so if you could get a reasonably powerful card to test the system you could rule the PSU out.

yoyo

TheFullDuck wrote: »

unfortunately I've to bump this thread.

I suppose I'll re-describe whats happening first, the problem happens when im playing any game that 'works' the computer a bit such as watch dogs. The game will be running fine, next thing my screen goes black, the monitor loses connection to the computer completely (ie no source detected comes up on it) and if a sound is playing when it crashes this sound loops. But the computer is still running, Ive to hold the power button to restart it. Ive tried switching the hdmi to the mobo hdmi output after the crash but that hasn't worked.

As was said above by yoyo I ran DDU which seemed to have fixed the problem for a while, I didn't turn on my pc for about a week until yesterday when I played Watch dogs again and the same problem occurred. Then today I played the Wolf among us for a few hours (a much less taxing game) with no problems. However I then launched Payday 2 and surprise surprise my pc crashed.
So I ran DDU again and reinstalled the amd drivers and relaunched Payday and it happened again shortly after starting it. I then opened up the pc case, removed the GPU, cleaned all dust from inside and around the fans and put the GPU back in, ran the game again and once again it happened. Finally I did what wetbench suggested above, downloaded msi and set the gpu core volatge to 1.200mV but the same problem happened again
I'm at a loss what to do, I'm logging the GPU temps and they idle at 35 and seem to hit 89-91 before the computer crashes? Has anyone any ideas or is it that my GPU is bust? Bear in mind it's only a year old and my pc has never been OC'd

I'm thinking it may be overheating as I've had it happen myself recently, and the weathers got warmer. I have bumped the clock up from 860 -> 1000Mhz though so partially put the blame on that. It happens very rarely though. Do your crashes happen very regularly? Also is it a 1GB 7850 variant you have by any chance?
I think I read somewhere that this card was "designed" for 2GB VRAM but some manufacturers cheaped out and made 1GB versions. Mines an XFX Ghost card iirc.
I have a Corsair 650W PSU, don't think it's the issue though. Will upgrade in a few months more than likely anyways, Battlefield 4 takes ages to load an online match with a 1GB GPU, apparently it needs at least a 2GB to load in a reasonable time..

Nick

john the one

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't your graphics card running at 89-91 degrees the problem. The most my r270x goes to is 65 degrees, and that's running dual monitors. The boiling point of water is 99.9 degrees so you could make a decent cup of tea from your GPU! Do you have your card fans set to 100 % and are all your case fans running correctly?

yoyo

john the one wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't your graphics card running at 89-91 degrees the problem. The most my r270x goes to is 65 degrees, and that's running dual monitors. The boiling point of water is 99.9 degrees so you could make a decent cup of tea from your GPU! Do you have your card fans set to 100 % and are all your case fans running correctly?

Mine does it when it's running just shy of 85 degrees, pretty normal temp for this GPU under heavy load

Nick

john the one

yoyo wrote: »

Mine does it when it's running just shy of 85 degrees, pretty normal temp for this GPU under heavy load

Nick

So out of interest, what would be considered excessive with that card?

yoyo

john the one wrote: »

So out of interest, what would be considered excessive with that card?

Anything under 75 degrees would be normal for the card (sorry about typo 85 earlier, was taking temp from memory). 70 is around the norm load temp for a 7850 according to Google. Mine doesn't hit it even overclocked. I get around 73/74 degrees under heavy load, Furmark up and around there.
My point is I don't think this issue is solely caused by the card generating excessive heat, also op hasn't stated what GPU model they have so I'm assuming we have the same GPUs. Fwiw this will happen with the card at stock, under and overclocked. Could be a faulty card, but according to Google its a common issue with the card: here.

Nick

TheFullDuck

yoyo wrote: »

I'm thinking it may be overheating as I've had it happen myself recently, and the weathers got warmer. I have bumped the clock up from 860 -> 1000Mhz though so partially put the blame on that. It happens very rarely though. Do your crashes happen very regularly? Also is it a 1GB 7850 variant you have by any chance?
I think I read somewhere that this card was "designed" for 2GB VRAM but some manufacturers cheaped out and made 1GB versions. Mines an XFX Ghost card iirc.
I have a Corsair 650W PSU, don't think it's the issue though. Will upgrade in a few months more than likely anyways, Battlefield 4 takes ages to load an online match with a 1GB GPU, apparently it needs at least a 2GB to load in a reasonable time..

Nick

hi, the card is http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/01/01/powercolor_radeon_hd_7870_myst_edition_review/#.U67Fr_ldUmk this one, with 2gb memory. It happened 4 times yesterday during gaming, it has never once happened while browsing the internet or on itunes. Today however I bumped the fan speeds up via msi afterburner and it didn't happen at all. Beforehand the fans were set to auto so maybe the problem was they just werent spinning fast enough to handle the heat the gpu was generating.

john the one wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't your graphics card running at 89-91 degrees the problem. The most my r270x goes to is 65 degrees, and that's running dual monitors. The boiling point of water is 99.9 degrees so you could make a decent cup of tea from your GPU! Do you have your card fans set to 100 % and are all your case fans running correctly?

hi there, I did a quick google and most results said that the card operating at that temp is fine. I am aware everything you read on the internet isn't true though ! As I said above I manually boosted the fan speeds today and was playing for a couple hours earlier with no problems!
Have checked the case fans too, all running fine and not blocked with dust. I have the zalman z11 case too so it's not exactly short a few fans. I'll continue with the fan speed manually boosted and hopefully thats the end of that problem occuring

yoyo

TheFullDuck wrote: »

hi, the card is http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/01/01/powercolor_radeon_hd_7870_myst_edition_review/#.U67Fr_ldUmk this one, with 2gb memory. It happened 4 times yesterday during gaming, it has never once happened while browsing the internet or on itunes. Today however I bumped the fan speeds up via msi afterburner and it didn't happen at all. Beforehand the fans were set to auto so maybe the problem was they just werent spinning fast enough to handle the heat the gpu was generating.

Never had it happen more than once a day. It tends to be once in a blue moon these days so doesn't bother me. 4 times a day would anger me alright . Not much of a gamer these days though.
I do have the fan speed set to auto so I might try manually setting it, on the off chance it is a overheating issue.

Nick

Wetbench4

Which gpu drivers are you using, out of curiosity.

Even with the undervolting, mine started acting up again after i installed the latest beta drivers from amd (14.6 i think) last week. Exact same thing as fullduck described, looping sound, black screen, had to do hard reset, only in certain games,its been happening on and off since i built the pc.

Anyway, i removed beta drivers and installed latest stable drivers 14.4 and its been fine ever since, at stock voltage too.

TheFullDuck

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Which gpu drivers are you using, out of curiosity.

Even with the undervolting, mine started acting up again after i installed the latest beta drivers from amd (14.6 i think) last week. Exact same thing as fullduck described, looping sound, black screen, had to do hard reset, only in certain games,its been happening on and off since i built the pc.

Anyway, i removed beta drivers and installed latest stable drivers 14.4 and its been fine ever since, at stock voltage too.

you may be on to something there, I'm running the latest beta drivers too. Thankfully it hasn't happened since I last posted. I'm planning on playing for a few hours tomorrow and if it happens again I will revert to an older more stable driver!

yoyo

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Which gpu drivers are you using, out of curiosity.

Even with the undervolting, mine started acting up again after i installed the latest beta drivers from amd (14.6 i think) last week. Exact same thing as fullduck described, looping sound, black screen, had to do hard reset, only in certain games,its been happening on and off since i built the pc.

Anyway, i removed beta drivers and installed latest stable drivers 14.4 and its been fine ever since, at stock voltage too.

May try going back to 14.4 alright! AMD drivers are certainly more problematic than Nvidia ones, the one thing I miss about Nvidia!

Nick

TheFullDuck

update update

back to the usual craic again tonight so it is. And it was working fine all day yesterday. I've concluded it has to be a faulty gpu? I am running the fans at nearly full throttle, running the stable amd 14.4 drivers and the computers airflow appears fine and is dust free.

It's getting incredibly frustrating at this stage. I can't fathom any other reason it's giving me such hassle. My rig was bought from HwVS late may last year, I presume a warranty on their parts is a year at most? So looks like I'll be forking out for a new gpu :mad:


EDIT: did a bit of googling, some people that had the problem said it was caused by the PSU not being high enough watage, so I'm wondering is a 450w PSU struggling to power everything and they may be causing the cut outs?

djerk

could very well be the psu..

hardocp.com/images/articles/135702895623mx2qRamo_10_1.png

you could try some burn in tests on your gpu and cpu, id also recommend testing your memory sticks.

intelburntest or prime95 for the cpu.. furmark for the gpu.. and memtest for your ram.

actually before all that, have you tried playing with the case off?

TheFullDuck

djerk wrote: »

could very well be the psu..

hardocp.com/images/articles/135702895623mx2qRamo_10_1.png

you could try some burn in tests on your gpu and cpu, id also recommend testing your memory sticks.

intelburntest or prime95 for the cpu.. furmark for the gpu.. and memtest for your ram.

actually before all that, have you tried playing with the case off?

I've ordered a seasonic psu with a higher wattage to replace my existing one. I am also looking into replacing my GPU, any suggestions for sub €200 gpu?

I ran some tests earlier alright. During the gpu stress test it crashed within a few mins, but it also crashed during a psu test but took a while longer. From my limited knowledge it does seem to be the GPU thats busted.

I have tried with one of the side panels off alright, that and my computer is near a window I usually have open so no lack of air getting at it.