Computer become unstable

Macky

Macky

Macky

Soldato
Joined
5 Apr 2009
Posts
6,179
Location
West Midlands
Tried running Guild Wars 2 for the first time today and my computer would come up with a black screen on several occasions and a BSOD on others. I tried messing around with the latest Catalyst Beta driver and the normal one to no avail. I have since formatted my SSD and reinstalled Windows, updated bios to latest beta bios on motherboard. I try and run windows score experience and I get a frozen colour on the screen and computer crashes again.

Anybody got ANY idea what this could be? The hardware is all newish bought from ocuk a few weeks ago. Graphics card was a replacement sent by OcUK and this is where the problems seem to have began. However CS Go ran flawlessly the other day..
Specs:
Gigabyte D3H Z77 with latest beta bios
i5 3570k
2x4GB GEiL Black Dragon 1600MHZ
Sapphire 7850 1GB
Samsung 840 120GB SSD
WD Caviar 640GB
Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU
I'm thinking these problems could be stemming from some of the motherboard drivers that I am installing? Also I was running windows index one earlier and I kept getting a message saying that the AMD display driver had stopped working but restarted. What's that about?

Seriously beginning to think it is the graphics card at fault. Which seems odd as it was working fine 1 day ago? It also seems to be crashing at a more frequent rate. Have taken the card out and am now running on onboard see if any crashes occur. Just ran the score experience on onboard and it worked fine. So, graphics card or PSU the problem here? The PSU is old but Antec Earthwatts is meant to be fairly decent. 500W Should easily power my rig too.
Please can you guys help, this is driving me insane!

Absolutely stumped now, tried graphics on spare pc with and it seemed okay, monitor turned off at one point just as I was starting Furmark but ran furmark fine for about 10 minutes with temps at about 60 degrees. This is infuriating! :( This pc is fine on integrated, so I can't tell if it is some kind of driver conflict or whether the card is broken. I'm hoping some kind of ridiculous driver conflict, but the only stuff I have installed is motherboard drivers and catalyst..
 
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How old is the PSU exactly? If graphics card works fine in other PC then I can only assume it's the PSU ;)
 
Bought in 2007. I really do not think it would be the PSU though. It ran a 5850 solidly for 2 years until that died on me and those are more power hungry than a 7850. I'm not sure if it did run fine on the other pc but I just could not get it to replicate the same crashes. This was on windows XP as opposed to W7 on mine. Does this kind of crashing sound typical of under powered PSU?
 
Hmm will see if I can rip the 460W coolermaster out of the spare pc and try it in mine see if that makes any difference. Don't want to jump straight to buying a new PSU just yet.
 
Thinking about it, I suppose it could be the PSU. Is testing it with a 460W really going to prove much though as the 460W is under the recommended 500W minimum as quoted by AMD.
 
are you overclocked at all? lookslike ram or cpu voltage not enough to me

look in the event viewer for any whea errors or warnings
 
The capacitors age over time. I would've thought over 5 years that PSU is probably only capable of delivering around 350w tops.
 
dacads said:
hmm so over 5 years old, at that length you should be looking to replace it mate :)
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If the PSU is of descent Brand no need, my Corsair is 4yrs old both my CPU + GPU overclocked from day one. Still rock solid CPU voltage still at 1.32v[CPU-Z] 4.2GHZ, BSOD could be his drivers or due to the GPU overclock or heat build up.. :)
 
OLDPHART said:
If the PSU is of descent Brand no need, my Corsair is 4yrs old both my CPU + GPU overclocked from day one. Still rock solid CPU voltage still at 1.32v[CPU-Z] 4.2GHZ, BSOD could be his drivers or due to the GPU overclock or heat build up.. :)
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Depends how cautious you are, even if it was a seasonic I would look to replace it if it was 5 years old.

For the price you pay, £55 for a 550watt XFX, 5 year then bin = £11 per year or 90p per month.

I am sure most people agree it is worth replacing when you look at how long you have it for and how little it cost really, it can be the best £50~ you spend.
 
richb93 said:
The capacitors age over time. I would've thought over 5 years that PSU is probably only capable of delivering around 350w tops.
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Yeah, but that system he has is lucky to even pull 300 under load if not oc'd, if oc'd might pull 300-350 depending, the 7850 is a very efficient card pulling less than 100watts from the PSU @100% load, which never really happens.
 
Gibbo3771 said:
Depends how cautious you are, even if it was a seasonic I would look to replace it if it was 5 years old.

For the price you pay, £55 for a 550watt XFX, 5 year then bin = £11 per year or 90p per month.

I am sure most people agree it is worth replacing when you look at how long you have it for and how little it cost really, it can be the best £50~ you spend.
Click to expand...

I paid £150 4yrs ago Corsair HX850 -" it can be the best £150~ you spend". A PSU is more reliable working at around about 70% load, so taking into account l might want to run two GPU,s + CPU overclocked a HX850 fitted the bill.

I think if you value your PC l would spend a bit more than £55.
 
I remember buying the HX750 and it has been absolutely solid ever since. Really happy I made the purchase of that, even though I could have skimped and got a cheaper one at the time.

This may be a PSU issue, or drivers (as I remember my short time with an ATI (at the time! ;)) graphics card) as they seem to be temperamental.
 
Not the PSU guys. :( Just tried the 460W on my pc with only SSD plugged in. Go to windows score index and get the same crash. Really beginning to think it is the graphics card itself.
 
Download memtest86+ and burn the ISO to disk.

Boot from the disk and then let it run for a couple of full passes and see if you get any memory errors

AD
 
Gonna try that now. :)

If it passes this with no errors can we safely diagnose it as being the graphics card at fault?
 
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