BSOD and.. dust?

(My other post is severely outdated now.. and many pages back also, so time for a new one for new questions )

Well for weeks the computer has been fine. Last night I got a BSOD out of nowhere while watching something in Media Player. It started to artifact and then the screen just turned to the blue screen with a message about a hardware problem.

I restarted it and ran ATI Tool for a while, scanned for artifacts too and found nothing. Then I left Prime95 running while I went to sleep, and it's still up and running. Been about 11 hours since I started running it and it's still going. I've had no other errors or lockups or anything else.. So hopefully it was just a freak thing.. I hope

Also, when I woke up I noticed that my load temps were up to 65, 68, 59, 59... (I've never hit 70 once yet on any of my hardware, but 68 is the highest it has ever gotten.. Unless I'm forgetting a time it was over 70). It's been so warm out, and I live upstairs in an attic-like room.. it gets HOT in here. Not to mention the parrots and the cat in my room.. there's dust everywhere! I went to the front of my computer and ran my finger along the grills there, and a layer of dust came off! Same with the big side fan. I cleaned it all off (I usually do it every morning or every other morning) and then opened my other window which is right next to the computer and the temperatures went down to 61, 62, 57, 57.

All I can do, I guess, is just make sure it is clear of dust everyday... Can't move the pets out of this room (There are other pets in the rest of the house) so I have to deal with it... But weird how just clearing the dust away and opening the window could have that much of a significant difference

And aside from the BSOD before.. I HAVE been having internet problems all morning.. But I think it's just a coincidence. My cable provider has been crappy for a while now... So hopefully it goes back to normal, and something is NOT dying in my computer already

You had better get some cans of compressed air and take the side panel off, your going to need to clean the CPU fan and probably the GPU fan as well.

Outamyhead said:

You had better get some cans of compressed air and take the side panel off, your going to need to clean the CPU fan and probably the GPU fan as well.

Click to expand...

I actually have some cans of compressed air. I just built the computer a month ago, so luckily the inside isn't covered in dust... yet. I won't let that happen to this computer. I try to dust the inside and outside as many times as I can remember.. and always make sure to clear off the vents and such too.

Another coincidence? My computer was fine after getting that BSOD on Monday.. but just now I was watching something on YouTube and the sound kept repeating and the entire computer froze for about 20 seconds until it restarted itself..

I haven't had any other problems.. but these two crashes are really close together... so I'm a little worried I ran Prime95 after the BSOD on Monday for 24 hours, no problems while also running 3DMark and alternating between ATI Tool and 3DMark.. No errors or anything.

Temperatures are okay.. 45, 47, 39, 42.. they keep moving between the upper 30s and mid 50s (It's really hot outside again today).. On load they get up to the upper 60s, almost hitting 70.

Also, I can't get to YouTube now.. the website won't load. Maybe YouTube went down?.. But I don't think it's possible for a website to go down and crash your computer at the same time.

If I had to guess, and a guess is all this is, I would say you either have a video card hardware problem or driver problem, because of the artifacts in media player and the resulting BSD, and the problem you had in youtube.

You might want to check your gpu temperatures, gpu power connections, fan, and anything else gpu related.

Hope you find the problem.

Okay it's been a few days since I had that problem in the first post up there... And it just happened again. Watching something in Media Player, then green artifacts everywhere and computer completely froze.. Had to shut it down.

This seems to be adding up to a lot of coincidences lately.. Random problems still, here and there... A lot of networking problems (My internet connection completely stops all the time, or goes from 14,000kbps to 1000kbps and back again, over and over), also having trouble with some games... Assassin's Creed just will not work, I try so hard and keep having a different issue every time I fix something.

I tried the newest drivers to see if they would help, and everything is still pretty much the same (Drivers for the GPU). My temperatures are all fine (35, 37, 31, 32 and in the low 40s with Prime95 running along with ATI Tool and the GPU are both at 40C and 39C under load). All of the fans are working.. GPU power connections are fine also.

I tried Crysis for a bit to see if I could get it to crash again, and it was fine. WoW seems okay (Although I feel like I should be able to run it much more smoothly even with all settings maxed out on this computer)... But I don't know.. Actually, I just remembered that I had a lockup after I started WoW before. I got to the character screen and the picture froze, but the music kept going...

I have it at stock and it still does it (Especially since RivaTuner doesn't work anymore.. And the new Nvidia control panel is strange). It was fine for a long time.. I'm going to try playing more games and seeing what happens..

I can also get through 18+ hours of Prime95 with ATI Tool or 3DMark running also without a problem. Can scan infinitely in ATI Tool for artifacts, and it finds none..



Edit: It is impossible to try and play games online.. because my connection is just so horrible.. Tried WoW and TF2 and just so much lag, this is so very strange

corrupt drivers are usually the direct cause of BSOD's that or a failing motherboard, if you have OC'D your GPU that could also be the cause i have experienced BSODs after OCing my graphics card but the issue was resolved after reverting to stock speeds