Crash---Help?!

bioshockeruk

bioshockeruk

bioshockeruk

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Joined
16 Aug 2012
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333
Location
Norfolk
Hi guys,

I recently upgraded one computer, with new motherboard, new cpu, new gfx card, 1 new memory module, 1 second hand memory module, 1 new psu, and the same hard disk.

So pretty much a new machine, my problems are that the computer runs fine but whenever I play ANY game after aprox 20-30 mins of play I crash and freeze beyond recognition. Examples are playing NFS I froze the screen turned completely red and then restarted. The second time playing SimCity the screen froze completely blue with what can only be described as white text with massive chunks of the text missing so it looks like dots and dashes. The third time playing BF3 it just rebooted. I am using windows 8 64 bit, and my system specs are below:

AMD Athlon II X4 640
Asus M5A78L-M LX V2 (Latest BIOS)
Asus AMD Radeon HD 6670 (1GB GDDR5)
298GB Western Digital HD (Should be 320GB I think - original)
HP DVD Writer 1070d ATA Device
1x Corsair Vengeance 16000 4gb DDR3 (Secondhand)
1x 4gb DDR3 Hypertec 12600 (New)
500w PSU

If anyone can shed some light please do, I'm at the end of my tether as I've just spent money on upgrading so many components at once and I'm still having problems!!

Thanks in advance...
 
What sort of temperatures is the computer running at?

I'd also consider changing the RAM so they are identical (pairs). From experience un matched RAM sticks perform badly.
 
I looked at this program, but it doesn't offer an overlay for games (or at least that I can see anyways). I use Fraps and it gives me an FPS counter ingame, but I'm looking for a temp counter to do the same sort of thing so when I'm in a game I can see if my temps are excessive just before I reach the crash stage. This would then suggest overheating as my issue. I have run Prime 95 for around 6 hours and it didn't crash, I also run Furmark for approx. 2-3 hours and no problems.

If you can suggest any programs that have an overlay feature for directx games that would be great...thanks in advance :)
 
it is yes, do you think this could be the problem, it is a brand new one as well? but yes cheap...

again while playing a game I just restarted, now screen just plain restarted after approx. 4 hours gametime...

edit: the PSU is Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply
 
Ok I've just put a 550w corsair builder series psu from my other comp in and same results, when I look at the dump file it says driver_power_state_failure I googled this and returned so many problems and solutions that basically doesn't pinpoint this problem down much. I've completely removed the ati drivers and all supporting files, and will try and re-install now to see if this helps, will post results here.

in meantime, if anyone has some suggestions...please feel free...ill try anything...! lol
 
I have managed to resolve the issue, so I thought I would share to all how I done so.

First I looked at my Crash Dump file, this is located c:\Windows\Minidump\ (on windows 7 & 8) And I found a .DMP file. I then opened this in a readily available dump viewer (just google there are many!)

A quick scan through the lines of text I picked up the fault: DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE and references to ati drivers and realtek drivers. I looked through my device manager and saw I was using a realtek driver and obviously Catalyst Control Center, and my thinking was that these were conflicting with eachother with their power management settings.

So I completely removed both drivers and d/c internet so that new drivers were not downloaded automatically from windows update. Then I installed the drivers for realtek from my board manufacturers website and the driver from my GFX manufacturers website instead of from AMD direct.

I also disabled hibernation and sleep mode within windows as this was suggested from a Google search on the issue. After this was done I restarted and went to do some testing - playing lots of games...I successfully had around 6-7 hours of gameplay then realised I had neglected my partner!! lol But all in all it seems as though my machine is now stable.

I hope this helps anyone else having the same or similar issues. And, thanks to everyone that helped out giving me advice also.
 
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