A lot of problems.

Syribo

Syribo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2008
Messages
1,515
So my PC has been running perfectly since I built it last month. A few days ago, some crazy stuff started to happen after it restarted after installing some windows updates. I usually turn automatic updates off... but I forgot ugh.

Well, I noticed some random strange things. For one, text would randomly look strange.. not all the time, but some FB messages or fonts in browser would look very weird and different. Then I started getting a black screen with just my cursor available when I restarted and tried to get back into Windows. I couldn't get out of it. It was an endless loop, even automatic repair wouldn't work, nothing.

I was able to get to an old restore point, and everything was fine.. but when I started it up, it started automatically updating right away again. Everything was fine until I had to reboot, and then the same issues began once more. This time though, I couldn't even get it to go to an old restore point, nothing.

I looked up a lot of people having issues with some updates lately, and Microsoft even pulled them? Something with the fonts. I tried the instructions of deleting the fontcache file via command prompt when booting up with my windows disc.. but still couldn't get it to boot into 8.1. I finally gave up and reformatted, after switching out my SSD to get my files off it that I still needed with my old computer.

Well, I made sure not to install any of those updates, and turned off automatic update.. but now I have another issue. Before reformatting, the last two days I've been having games just crash and my graphics driver crash. Again, this was all fine until the other issues began two days ago. So I tried going back to an older driver, still crashing.

Both Terraria and FFXIV both completely lock up anytime I minimize or maximize the game. I have ATI Tool running as well, to test the GPU, and that's running fine without any errors or artifacts, and is still running even after the games and driver crash..

I've done clean installs, installed an older driver, a newer driver. I don't know what else to do. I think I'm going to take my old 8800GTS from my old computer, put it in this one, and see if I get any crashes, that way I can pinpoint if it's the GPU itself or not. Any ideas? This is driving me crazy now!
 
Oh great.... FFXIV still crashed even with my old 8800GTS in it... what in the hell..

ATI Tool doesn't crash anything... and running FurMark burn-in benchmarks run fine too... I mean, it can't be the GPU itself since two separate GPU's make no difference to the game crashing issues... wtf
 
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Sounds like that thing needs a digital enema.. I'd say backup all your important stuff, and give that whole drive a wipe clean, maybe even replace the drive itself.
 
So.. this is so sad......

The fact that it was only crashing when minimizing or maximizing games, or switching tabs between games made me think "Maybe it's something to do with the Windows theme..". Furmark, AIDA64, Prime95, ATI Tool, nothing resulted in any crashes.

So I uninstall the theme packager thing, I set it back to default Windows theme. No crashing now. WTF? I used that same theme since the week I put this thing together and never had any issues. I put it back on after I reformatted yesterday, but now all of a sudden my PC won't play nice with it?

I'm trying to force it to crash by minimizing and maximizing, moving the games around.. nothing yet.

Is it sad that I almost hoped it WAS my GPU so I could try and grab one of the 970 GTX's? :p Because I was about to (Well, if they didn't seem to be sold out everywhere, that is!)
 
Have you put your CPU back to stock speeds and voltages and tested like that?
 
Have you tested the memory? sometimes bad memory can cause funky symptoms
 
Well, like I wrote above.. I can't believe it but.. the issue really was the Windows theme I was using. When I set it back to the default,.. and no crashing at all. So I fixed both issues. First the corrupt or messed up Windows Update that messed up my install, fixed it by reformatting and not installing those updates again. And now this crazy crashing issue with games, by reverting back to the default Windows theme.

And... I also bought myself the MSI Gaming 970 GTX because..... why not. When I built this PC last month, every part was new except for the video card, which I re-used. I wanted to wait until the new cards came out, and I have never gotten a new piece of hardware at release, so I'm excited :) I hope I picked a good one. And I hope Amazon gets them back in stock soon so I can get it ASAP Haha.
 
That Windows Update issue was resolved a while ago and was only an issue on machines with .otf fonts installed outside of %windir%\fonts. It caused a black screen or BSOD upon boot, not the problems you were having.

Are you 100% sure your overclock is stable? I say this because my Haswell OC seemed ok for weeks, then I started having issues including GPU driver problems.
 
ru!ner said:
That Windows Update issue was resolved a while ago and was only an issue on machines with .otf fonts installed outside of %windir%\fonts. It caused a black screen or BSOD upon boot, not the problems you were having.

Are you 100% sure your overclock is stable? I say this because my Haswell OC seemed ok for weeks, then I started having issues including GPU driver problems.
Click to expand...

I had a whole ton of fonts I downloaded and installed for graphic design stuff. The original problems I was having yesterday and the day before, it all began after an update restarted my PC. It was fine, until I rebooted a second time. Then all I got was a black screen with my cursor available. Automatic repair wouldn't help. Reformatting it helped. Those updates were there for a while, but I never installed them until two days ago. Also, I was having a strange issue where fonts in certain areas looked weird. Like when I was getting Facebook messages, sometimes the font randomly changed to something aside from the default, and would even look like the bottom half of the text was missing.

One of those updates that I read were causing trouble is still there when I search for updates. The other three I don't see. KB2975719 is one of the ones I saw listed, and that one is still there.. I just didn't let it install it when I installed the others.

I still haven't had a single crash since reverting back to the default windows 8.1 theme, and uninstalling the UltraUXTheme Patcher program. Everything is running fine.. Have two games open at once, stress testing going, minimizing and maximizing everything with no issues. I used that program before I reformatted, but the theme I was using was new.. I couldn't find the one I was originally using.
 
Sigh.. I reverted back to stock voltage and clocks, Terraria is still locking up for no reason whatsoever after a minute or two. I haven't had FFXIV crash yet though.. This is driving me absolutely insane right now.

Welp, nevermind.. FFXIV has crashed now as well. I'm about to give up, this is unbelievable.
 
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So here's what I'm doing this time. I'm starting over AGAIN, reformatted my OS drive. I installed the bare minimum drivers and such, trying to run Terraria now to initiate a crash, nothing yet.. Longest it's gone since this issue began. The only other thing that changed since I reformatted yesterday was updating to EVGA Precision 16. I didn't install it yet, I wonder if there's an issue with it... Because even when I would try to enable k-boost, or change ANY settings on it, games would crash.

It can't be the GPU, since my 8800GTS did the same exact thing when put in this system. Also, instead of copying over my program files for games and such, I'm completely reinstalling them fresh. Maybe there was some kind of issue with that.. Who knows.. As a matter of fact, I couldnt' get Precision to load on startup no matter what. So I would have to open it myself... I was able to game for a bit without issues before the crashing began, I think it might have began each time AFTER opening Precision..

ANOTHER EDIT: STILL no crashing.. Game still running. I think I just overloaded my system with bad crap. The Windows Update thing.. the Precision X possible issue.. I also read something about Precision 16 X causing an issue with a font, and ironically, those Windows updates were also font-related?? And the weird font graphical issue I experienced after the update and installation.. This is just so coincidental. But everything is running fine now, I installed MSI Afterburner instead. Might as well, the 970GTX I bought is the MSI Gaming one.. First time not going with an EVGA card.
 
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Last update, unless this all happens again, no issues after uninstalling Precision X. Been raiding tonight in FFXIV, playing other games, streaming, etc.. all is fine. Very strange.
 
I'm curious just to know if other OC software like GPUTweak or Afterburner would cause it as well. I wonder what it is interfering with.
 
I've been using Afterburner since yesterday, after I reformatted and didn't re-install Precision again, and all is fine. Still no crashes or issues. I had Googled "Precision 16 X issues" and found some people having the SAME problem I did. I never had a problem with the previous versions of Precision.
 
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