Friends PC keeps crashing

Dean Campbell · 18 Oct 2017 at 16:28

Hi all hope this is in the right section.

Me and a friend were playing dayz the other day after about half an hour or so his PC crashed with a white screen.restarted and Within 30seconds of playing it crashed again but with a black screen. His HDD has been slow lately so he tried a fresh install with a ssd and the problem persisted. He was using a hd7950 I had one not being used so we tried swapping them out.

This seemed to do the trick he left his PC on to update while at work came home during his lunch break to find the PC crashed with a black screen.

Not sure of the PC spec

Gigabyte MB
AMD piledriver cpu
HD7950 GPU

I can get the spec if needed later.

The only software installed with the fresh o/s was Mb drivers ,steam ,dayz and AMD DRIVERS

Any idea where to start looking

lude1962 · 18 Oct 2017 at 16:46

psu

cpu may need new thermal paste (dayz will thrash an amd piledriver cpu so may be overheating), stock cooler?

Dean Campbell · 18 Oct 2017 at 16:48

Possible the build is around 5yrs old.its a aio watercooled corsair h120 I think

Overheating was my 1st thought He did say nothing was hot.

agnes · 18 Oct 2017 at 16:54

Overheating. Get him to run Open hardware monitor and check his average temps whilst running Prime95:

http://openhardwaremonitor.org/
https://www.mersenne.org/download/#download

With an AIO, I'd be shocked if it's over 30C at idle. And even more so if it's over 70C under load. Not sure what the cap is on those processors, but it it goes over 100C before reboot, very likely it's a heating issue.

Quartz · 18 Oct 2017 at 17:05

Dean Campbell said:
Possible the build is around 5yrs old.its a aio watercooled corsair h120 I think

Check the amount of fluid left in the AIO. Also check that the pump is still working.

Dean Campbell · 18 Oct 2017 at 17:17

I think the aio is a sealed unit. How would the fluid be checked? I'm assuming I can the pump rpm in the bios

agnes · 18 Oct 2017 at 17:43

Dean Campbell said:
I think the aio is a sealed unit. How would the fluid be checked? I'm assuming I can the pump rpm in the bios

It will have a PWN connector, if it's setup normally, he's like got it plugged into the CPU fan, in their you can see it's RPM. Or, if it's got a USB header, it's likely got it's own software.

Quartz · 18 Oct 2017 at 21:48

Dean Campbell said:
I think the aio is a sealed unit. How would the fluid be checked?

By ear. Unscrew the radiator, hold it above the pump and tip it back and forth so you can hear the fluid sloshing around. Too much air is bad. Then hold the radiator below the pump and repeat - there should be no sloshing (the radiator should be full). You could also weigh the assembly, though I can't immediately find the weight.

Don't be fooled by them calling it a sealed unit. Fluid will very gradually leak, both through the tubing - on their website Corsair say their tubing is 'Low permeability for near-zero evaporation' (bolding mine) - and where the tubing joins the radiator and pump - it will gradually evaporate there too. If too much is gone then cooling

I'm assuming I can the pump rpm in the bios

And by ear.