Can someone give me ideas on how to troubleshoot game crashes?

[eddie500]

Hello, I have a problem where during gaming my computer will freeze with a black screen and a constant noise coming out of the speakers and I have to hard reset it. The crashes happen randomly. It seems like it happens in all games and only during games. Temps seem to be fine.

I upgraded from windows 7 to windows 10 and the problem is still there, although seems a little less, so I doubt it is a driver problem.

I don't have parts to swap out so is there a way I can try and pinpoint where the problem is?

Thanks.

My specs are: mostly very commonly bought components.

GTX 970
i5-2500
ASrock z68 extreme 4

 

[horrorshow]

Sounds like a software issue.

I would format, start fresh, and see if that fixes it.

 

[amddragonpc]

Check your power supply to make sure it is operating within tolerances. Check that your components and connectors are seated firmly.

 

[cyclone3d]

Could be a bad stick of RAM or one of the components needs to be reseated.

For the RAM test, I would use HCI memtest and run as many instances as needed to test all the RAM.

It will find problems much faster than memtest86+

What RAM do you have? Is it set to mfg specs in the BIOS? You may need to bump up the RAM voltage a tiny bit if that is your problem.

Do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard?

What HDD/SSD drive(s) do you have? When it locks up is the HDD light on the case on?

 

[diggi]

Are you using MSI afterburner?

 

[eddie500]

Problem was Asus 970 gtx video card was overheating.

Left to its own cooling it overheated, but once I turned the fans up manually higher to reduce temps to 45c instead of 60c's, no more crashing.

I got lucky and found someone else with the same problem with the same video card.

Who would have thought the 970gtx wouldn't be able to cool itself properly by just increasing the fan speed itself.

 

[defaultluser]

Interesting corner case you had there, a factory-overclocked card crashing because of too high a temperature at load?

And it's only at 60C when it crashes? That's a fairly low load temperature for a 150w video card.

I'd call Asus about that. Sounds like you got a bum card, see if they'll replace it.

 

[Millerboy3]

Interesting corner case you had there, a factory-overclocked card crashing because of too high a temperature at load?

And it's only at 60C when it crashes? That's a fairly low load temperature for a 150w video card.

I'd call Asus about that. Sounds like you got a bum card, see if they'll replace it.

Definitely this. Your card should be able to perform without throttling easily into the high 70c's but 60c? thats a little strange. It could be that factory overclock is slightly to high for the default fan profile, or you got a bum card that needs a bit more voltage to oc at that setting and causes more heat.