Bought a second hand PC, keeps freezing when playing games

Frater · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:08

Hopefully I'm posting this to the right place.

Sadly had to sell my PC last year and have wanted another ever since. Found one with fairly similar specs as my old pc on facebook and collected it on Thursday night. Spent the night setting it up and updating drivers and such.

Sat down Friday to play some games and noticed the system had some FPS drops. In Overwatch it would drop from ~120 to 14 then climb back up. Then after around 30 mins playing the full system would freeze up, Having to hold down the power button and boot back up.

I've check all drivers and they're up to date, cleared temp files, adjusted the size of virtual memory, ran a chkdsk and checked the windows system files as well. Everything seeming okay but still happening.

Guy i bought it off has given me a years warranty but obviously would like to try rectify it before getting in touch with him.

Anything else i can try? I've checked how much wattage i should be pulling and its coming out at ~320w I have a 500w psu.

Specs:

FX-4300 @4.4GHz (Guy the sold me it OC'd it)
ASRock N68-GS4 FX
GTX 960
16GB

Plec · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:14

Check the temps of your CPU and GPU when under load.

Frater · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:25

Plec said:
Check the temps of your CPU and GPU when under load.

GPU is sitting around 70-71C under load i'll check the CPU the now.

Frater · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:34

CPU is hovering around 70-72 under load

Plec · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:37

Frater said:
FX-4300 @4.4GHz (Guy the sold me it OC'd it)

I would advise you test with the clock removed - it's the next logical step - as it's under warranty i would contact him.

Frater · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:39

Thanks, I'll removed to clock and give it a try then send him a message

Plec · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:45

Frater said:
Thanks, I'll removed to clock and give it a try then send him a message

Save the clocked settings under a profile - if he's not done so already.

Frater · 4 Apr 2020 at 21:10

Plec said:
Save the clocked settings under a profile - if he's not done so already.

Settings have been changed temps are quite a bit lower and games seem to be running fine for now (fingers crossed)

Thanks for your help Plec

postmanfw · 4 Apr 2020 at 21:27

Check the specs of the psu (on the sticker on it )

In particular looking at the ampage on the 12v rail (s)?

Frater · 4 Apr 2020 at 21:35

postmanfw said:
Check the specs of the psu (on the sticker on it )

In particular looking at the ampage on the 12v rail (s)?

Its an AeroCool Integrator 500, Having a look at the sticker its saying this:

DC Output +3.3V +5V +12V -12V +5VsB
Max Current 18A 16A 38A 0.3A 1.5A
Max Combined 110W 456W 3.6W 12.5W

Danny75 · 4 Apr 2020 at 23:05

Get an On Screen Display (OSD) using Afterburner + Rivatuner for example. Specifically enable CPU usage monitoring and check while playing to see if the drops/freezes happen with 100% CPU usage.

If they happen again, that is.

Frater · 5 Apr 2020 at 00:44

Danny75 said:
Get an On Screen Display (OSD) using Afterburner + Rivatuner for example. Specifically enable CPU usage monitoring and check while playing to see if the drops/freezes happen with 100% CPU usage.

If they happen again, that is.

Thanks for the reply, heading off to bed so i'll give it a try in the morning

Gray2233 · 5 Apr 2020 at 01:15

Re-seat the GPU, it might have shifted in transit.

Make sure the CPU HSF, RAM, and all your cables are properly secured too.