An old TF guy in need of some help!

[HAVOC]

Hello everyone. It's been a long time since I've been here. As of late I'm having some issues with my Gaming PC and I thought perhaps I throw something together to see if anyone can come up with something I haven't. So here it goes....

About a month ago I decided it was time to upgrade a few components of my PC. I ordered some Gskill Ripjaws 16gig. DDR3 1600 (kit). I also ordered a Visiontek HD 6970. Yesterday I installed a Seasonic 1000w platinum PSU.

Original specs:

AMD PII 955 x4
Gigabyte 770t USB3 board
8 gig of gskillripjaws ddr3 1600 (kit)
Sapphire 4850X2
4 HDD's
1 Optical drive
1 blu-ray drive
650w Corsair PSU (yellow label)
1 x-fi sound card.
4 USB devices
Windows 7 home prem.

So... All original components everything was just fine. No issues at all.
Then Battlefield 3 comes out and I've got a little money to upgrade. So first I buy the 16g of ripjaws. Get them install them. Still no issues. Everything is great. I'm playing BF3 no issues. But, of course I want to play in dx11 so I order the Radeon 6970HD. I get the card, install it, play for a few weeks it's fantastic no issues. Then out of the blue, BF3 starts freezing / crashing / rebooting. Basically what happens is I'll be playing BF3 - sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 1 hour and boom it freezes with some odd looking screen, not even the actually game image frozen, it's either white or red or some odd color with straight lines, then reboots.

So I check the temps during gaming, GPU is about 60C tops. CPU is 55F tops. All other temps look normal. So I think about it and think, perhaps this new videocard combined with all the other components is drawing too much juice from the PSU (650w). So I order a new PSU. Get the PSU installed last night, starts right up load windows. Boom Crashes. Then when it shut off, I can see some lights on "sound card, power button, HDD lights" but it seems like the PSU is clicking... which I think is the fan. Seems the PC won't post. So I unplug PSU and let it sit. Try it again and it starts up, loads windows and everything seems ok. I played BF3 for about 2 hours today. No crashing. Took a break, then later played for 20 minutes.. BOOM Crash. Now before anyone thinks it's BF3. I've tried several other games too "Skyrim, Dirt 3, crysis 2" it crashes the same with all of them. I just happen to play BF3 most.

So I'm thinking come on. So I go get my 4850X2 and install it. Launch BF3, play for about 10 minutes and BOOM CRASH. Same type crash as other card.

So I think I can rule out the actual video cards themselves. So I think, let me put my old ram back in. I take out the 16gig, put the 8gig back in, launch BF3, played for 20 minutes, BOOM CRASH - same thing AGAIN.

So now I'm wondering could it be the motherboard? is it the HDD windows / bf3 is installed on? Could it possibly be the sound card is bad or going bad and causing the PC to crash during gaming. And just to mention it, it really ONLY crashes during gaming. Desktop, web, etc... never crashes.

Sorry for the long winded post, But I just wanted to get everything in. Anyone at all have any ideas?

 

[MindoverMaster]

At least your thorough about it.

I don't think the sound card would cause a crash. It just wouldn't produce sound.

Sounds like there's a short someplace. Do you have a different PCI-E slot, that you can switch your 6970 to? Also, do you have the latest drivers?

 

[HAVOC]

I have the latest drivers. Only one PCI-e slot on mobo.

Also, when I check the window events, I'm getting the "kernel power 41 (63)" report. however there are a billion of those posted online and it could be 1 of 100 different things. I just spent 25 minutes reading an epic forum post on another forum of a guy that had that event report and random reboots. However, in the end it was something to so with AMD quiet and cool in the bios. I'll look at that tonight, but I haven't touched my bios in a few months.

You mentioned a short. I was considering that earlier when posting the OP. Might explain the fact that after I installed the PSU, I got it to start, but then it shut down and I had to unplug the PSU as well as try to get it to start a few times. Which it eventually did. There was a clicking sound coming from the PSU. THE NEW ONE. I'm assuming this is the fan clicking on and off, on and off.

Also the lights on the X-fi card flicker on and off. Also case buttons flicker too.

 

[patonb]

Well, while the 1000W seasonic is extemely nice, its way more than you need. 650W was/is plenty..

I'm noty sure of a short of any kind, shorts usually shut you straight off, not bsod.

You need to get the bsod error number and or memory dump file, it will tell you the driver thats messing up. You can zip up the dumps, usually in the minidump folder of windows, and attach them. They may be an easy read.

You're running ALOT of ram, which can stress out the system if not setup right.

When you installed the 6970, did you remove the olds drivers completelty? You should, try using drive sweeper.

Without a bsod number or file its a crap shoot figuring this out.

 

[Slaymate]

Are you overclocking?

Running 16GB of memory is a lot more strenuous on the memory controller than running 8GB, I would run Memtest to see if the problem is memory related or not.

Did you try removing the video driver with a utility like DriverSweeper? Sometimes the system doesn't want to overwrite some files that are in use by the system.

I've been Ninja'd

 

[S0ULphIRE]

You're running ALOT of ram, which can stress out the system if not setup right.

wut? first I've heard about that. Used to be a possible problem if you filled all the slots, is that what you meant?
He also said he tried with his old ram, still crashed.

I agree with paton about the bsod error codes though, would be useful.

Apart from that, I guess the next easiest thing to check is to rule out the sound card and/or driver clashes thereof. Remove the sound card, uninstall the drivers, use the onboard audio (maybe even uninstall the drivers for that too and reinstall latest from manufacturer's website to be safe, in case other sound drivers shared some of the same files). See if it still crashes in-game then.

 

[HAVOC]

Ok. Good suggestions.

1.) When you say "16gig is strenuous if not set up right, what do you mean?" (It also crashed with the 8gig back in)
2.) I uninstalled old drivers and installed new drivers in windows. (I will try the utility you mentioned).
3.) Where do I find the BSOD error number or dump file?
4.) I'm not overclocking CPU or RAM. ATI/AMD GPU Over drive was enabled, but I disabled it when I started having issues.
5.) I know that 1000w for what I currently have is a lot. I thought of my purchase as future proofing. (Crossfire etc) I did one of those "PSU calulcators and it said my system required 642w. I know that's an estimate. But we know that a 650w PSU doesn't deliver 650w.

 

[patonb]

As Slay also said, The extra ram stresses out the memory controller. You usually need to increase memory voltages, or it just cant run right. The bios might set itself up and stuck.

Try clearing the cmos and then put your old ram in


The dumps are in C:\Windows\Minidump

 

[Trotter]

I got a message to pass this along:

when you get in tell him to check his registry first and attempt to fix it, defrag for 1 hour. also ask him to look into stable drivers and see what his card can handle on those resolutions. not every card will work on one game settings.

 

[Slaymate]

Using 2-4GB sticks is harder on the memory controller than 2-2GB sticks. Using 4-2GB sticks is harder than 2-4GB sticks. Using 4-4GB sticks is harder on the memory controller than all of them.