Constant Crashes/Freezes... Vid Card Problem?

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lbj.

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 18, 2011
Messages
199
Hey guys, so it was about 10 months ago that I built my rig (in my sig). I started out with a 7850 then switched to the current 670.

However, throughout this whole time, my game would either crash or the entire system would freeze whenever I gamed. Sometimes it occurs very frequently in a short period of time (few hours of gaming), sometimes it happens every once a week or so. I've played games from Crysis, Crysis 2, Skyrim, Civ 5, Dota 2, Metro 2033, NBA 2K13, Medieval 2 Total War, etc.

I've tried gaming with the video card overclocked and at reference clocks with both the 7850 and 670. The crashes still happen, what exactly is the problem with my PC? Should I do a reinstall of windows?
 
Reinstall windows might help. Thats the easiest thing... After that and you still have problems you might be looking at a faulty motherboard, power supply , cpu or ram.
 
It could be a multitude of things, but what I'd suggest trying in order:

Perform a clean uninstall of your drivers, and use something like ccleaner or (if you're willing to pay) driver fusion to get all the remnants. There's several guides out there you can google to do this, just google for uninstall AMD drivers and uninstall Nvidia drivers. Once you're certain there is no remnants left on your system, try reinstalling your drivers and check.

If that doesn't work, try putting the card into another PCI slot, maybe your first slot is defective.

Also to be safe I'd do a memtest on the ram to make sure there's no faults with it, and run prime95 or something for an hour or so to make sure it's not CPU related.

If that doesn't work then I'd probably suggest a reinstall of windows. And if that still doesn't work you should get in touch with your mobo and gpu manufacturers and see what they say, an RMA may be in order.
 
Just to clarify, I've ran prime95 and memtest and IBT to check the stability of the CPU OC and that the memory arent faulty.

I am currently running the gtx 670 at stock but still get crashes, I've ran the 7850 when I had it before at stock and also still get crashes, so really not sure what it could be.

I also do use ccleaner and have ensured it was a clean install switching from amd to nvidia. But then again I was still getting crashes even before switching to nvidia.
 
lbj. said:
Just to clarify, I've ran prime95 and memtest and IBT to check the stability of the CPU OC and that the memory arent faulty....
Click to expand...

Honestly, those tests don't mean jack!
I can run a multitude of "stability tests" all day long with my CPU OCed to 4.6Ghz with no problem... Get in a game (BF3) and shit hits the fan in 10~15min... Some games stress all of your components at once, where the "tests" only hit one component at a time...

Have you tried running you CPU at stock, ie reset BIOS to default setting..???
 
mzs_biteme said:
Honestly, those tests don't mean jack!
I can run a multitude of "stability tests" all day long with my CPU OCed to 4.6Ghz with no problem... Get in a game (BF3) and shit hits the fan in 10~15min... Some games stress all of your components at once, where the "tests" only hit one component at a time...

Have you tried running you CPU at stock, ie reset BIOS to default setting..???
Click to expand...

The reason why you test them separately is to see which one is causing the problem. If it turns out the problem is when they're all being stressed, than it probably would tell you it's either your motherboard power supply or a program (in your bf3 case I know that they used to have issues with running the game with any GPU that's been oced, though I don't know if it's been fixed since) as those you can't test individually. There's a reason for going component by component, and a reason why it's the preferred method.
 
If you've run both a 7850 and 670 and get the same problem you've ruled out the video card.

Reset the BIOS, start removing your DIMMs and put them in one by one, see if the game crashes with all of them. Running Furmark full screen with Prime95 in the background would stress your PSU and see if that's an issue. Worse comes to worse, remove the video card and play some games with the IGP and see if it crashes. If you so you probably have a defective mobo. Installing Windows to a new partition and installing just the game is also a good idea.

Some 3570Ks can be obnoxious snots to OC, especially on Gigabytes (the one's I've tried). Try using a static voltage and increasing it slowly. Even though you're only at 4400, you might still be clocked too high your CPU.
 
Fooshnik said:
If you've run both a 7850 and 670 and get the same problem you've ruled out the video card.

Reset the BIOS, start removing your DIMMs and put them in one by one, see if the game crashes with all of them. Running Furmark full screen with Prime95 in the background would stress your PSU and see if that's an issue. Worse comes to worse, remove the video card and play some games with the IGP and see if it crashes. If you so you probably have a defective mobo. Installing Windows to a new partition and installing just the game is also a good idea.

Some 3570Ks can be obnoxious snots to OC, especially on Gigabytes (the one's I've tried). Try using a static voltage and increasing it slowly. Even though you're only at 4400, you might still be clocked too high your CPU.
Click to expand...

I agree with fooshnik, most likely you have either a faulty mobo, or your psu is acting up. How big is your psu?

EDIT: Noticed in sig, the psu you have is definitely enough adequate, does it make any noise? At this point I'm leaning to the motherboard as well.
 
So i reset everything in bios to default. So far it's not crashing anymore.

I think even at stock, my temps run pretty high... in the 33-37 range with nothing running?

I've mounted my cooler many times but didnt really see any difference, not sure if it's cause I'm just not doing it right or something else is wrong? (Case cooling, etc.?) This was back in last summer when I first built this computer.

I think I'm fine with running the 3570k at stock...but just seems like I'm wasting its potential.
 
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