Games keep crashing after 10-20 minutes

GastricTitan · 25 May 2017 at 17:20

So I posted this over on Reddit but r/techsupport tends to move too slowly at times.

I built a PC approx 12 months ago, to these specs;

Windows 10
Asus Z170i Pro Gaming Motherboard
16gb Ram
i5 6600k processor (not overclocked)
GTX 1070 GPU
600w PSU
Asus 170hz G Sync Monitor

Everything has been running fine up until this week. It started when I was playing The Divison, the game would randomly freeze to a black screen and I would need to reboot the PC. Then it started to happen with Overwatch, only I would get the error message 'Your rendering device has been lost'.

Reading up on this it's prone to happening due to heat issues, drivers or a faulty GPU. I replaced the GPU with a new one as it was still under warranty and to be sure, but the issue persists. I also used DDU to totally remove all traces of the GPU driver. Testing the heat of the system my CPU is approx 40 degrees idle, 50 under load and GPU is 40 idle, 70 under load. Also, when a game crashes, my time and date also rest and change to 13:00 09/06/2017, each and everytime

I'm at a loss as to what to do know, any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Why am I getting these errors? How do I fix them?

Just a final note, I've read other posts with similar issues whose 'fix' is to adjust the timeout delay in the registry. I want to avoid doing this as this doesn't resolve the issue in my opinion

Many thanks in advance for all responses.

Further update, Batman Arkham Knight just crashed, same symptoms as above.

Finners · 25 May 2017 at 17:28

Well you have been through all the obvious things so next on the list for me would be your PSU.

What make and model is it?

They can start to become unstable if they have an underlying issue that gets worse as the temperature rises

Zefan · 25 May 2017 at 17:28

What's the brand of PSU you have? I reckon it's having a hard time supplying the power under load and is crapping out.

ExoMale · 25 May 2017 at 17:28

have you tried updating the drivers or rolling back then reinstalling?

sounds like its software rather than hardware as ive had similar before, it was either a driver issue, having to reseat the graphics card or something else on my system was inflicting with it, i know for a fact you install certain games and it will cause graphical issues/crashing down to the nature of how that game was coded or not installed properly.

GastricTitan · 25 May 2017 at 18:35

Finners said:
Well you have been through all the obvious things so next on the list for me would be your PSU.

What make and model is it?

They can start to become unstable if they have an underlying issue that gets worse as the temperature rises

It's an EVGA 600w PSU

GastricTitan · 25 May 2017 at 18:36

ExoMale said:
have you tried updating the drivers or rolling back then reinstalling?

sounds like its software rather than hardware as ive had similar before, it was either a driver issue, having to reseat the graphics card or something else on my system was inflicting with it, i know for a fact you install certain games and it will cause graphical issues/crashing down to the nature of how that game was coded or not installed properly.

Yeah, I've used DDU to remove all traces of my graphics driver, the stable version I was using exhibited errors before I even updated the nvidia driver, which too had the same problems.

I've also run memtest on it for the last 4 hours, no errors on any pass.

GastricTitan · 25 May 2017 at 18:37

Finners said:
Well you have been through all the obvious things so next on the list for me would be your PSU.

What make and model is it?

They can start to become unstable if they have an underlying issue that gets worse as the temperature rises

It has been quite warm this past week but even under load my gfx card doesn't go above 70

Finners · 25 May 2017 at 22:27

GastricTitan said:
It has been quite warm this past week but even under load my gfx card doesn't go above 70

I meant heat inside the PSU, with the warmer weather it could be just enough to make it unstable. In thorough PSU reviews they test them in a hot box to simulate high Ambient temps and it often shows weaknesses in PSU design

GastricTitan · 26 May 2017 at 11:16

Finners said:
I meant heat inside the PSU, with the warmer weather it could be just enough to make it unstable. In thorough PSU reviews they test them in a hot box to simulate high Ambient temps and it often shows weaknesses in PSU design

I don't have any real way to test for that but it doesn't seem likely. I took the PSU out this morning to give it a good clean although there was hardly any dust on it. Booted back up and within an hour my screen went black, sound looped for a couple of seconds and continued to work, although the time and date had been reset again.

Borealis · 26 May 2017 at 11:37

What PSU is it? If it's an old PSU it could be struggling to deliver sufficient power under load.

If your date/time keeps resetting, it would suggest that the motherboard is losing its memory. But then why would it come up with a date in the future (13:00 09/06/2017)?

GastricTitan · 26 May 2017 at 12:13

Borealis said:
What PSU is it? If it's an old PSU it could be struggling to deliver sufficient power under load.

If your date/time keeps resetting, it would suggest that the motherboard is losing its memory. But then why would it come up with a date in the future (13:00 09/06/2017)?

It's an EVGA 600w, more than enough power I'd have thought.

The only thing completely consistent with this is that the time and date change when the screen goes black/games crash. To me atleast it seems like power isn't being delivered correctly.

But other than that, I'm stumped.

Zefan · 26 May 2017 at 12:18

Borealis said:
What PSU is it? If it's an old PSU it could be struggling to deliver sufficient power under load.

If your date/time keeps resetting, it would suggest that the motherboard is losing its memory. But then why would it come up with a date in the future (13:00 09/06/2017)?

GastricTitan said:
It's an EVGA 600w PSU

But yes, if it's old (over 3 years) then I'd still say it's the likely suspect. Unfortunately in my experience it isn't that easy to get accurate readings when monitoring power in software, but it might be worth a try monitoring while trying to replicate the fault.

ChrisD. · 26 May 2017 at 12:24

It's definitely worth trying a friends PSU to see if it's the same symptoms.

GastricTitan · 26 May 2017 at 13:40

Zefan said:
But yes, if it's old (over 3 years) then I'd still say it's the likely suspect. Unfortunately in my experience it isn't that easy to get accurate readings when monitoring power in software, but it might be worth a try monitoring while trying to replicate the fault.

Pc is less than 12 months old, including all components.

GastricTitan · 26 May 2017 at 13:41

ChrisD. said:
It's definitely worth trying a friends PSU to see if it's the same symptoms.

Just tried a new out of the box PSU, same problems, so it's definitely not PSU related.

Totally at a loss now. Currently reinstalling windows 10 to see if that helps.

ChrisD. · 26 May 2017 at 13:47

What are your RAM timings? Default or in an XMP profile maybe?

ExoMale · 26 May 2017 at 13:53

Are you able to get hold of a spare motherboard or rather a bundle all ready or even just a pc you can put your power supply and gpu in?

If the power supply is good then the motherboard itself could have an issue, but the only real way to eliminate that from the equation is connect everything attached to the board to another system and do the exact same thing you was doing and see what happens and if the board is eliminated then it could be cpu or perhaps cooling issue?

Parky · 26 May 2017 at 15:22

Random question, had you been fiddling inside the machine before the issue started happening? Also is this only happening during games? or do you get freezes during normal use?

I had something very similar happen on an old machine a couple of years, same with the date/time being reset. I'd followed all the steps like yourself but it turned out that I must have brushed my CMOS battery ever so slightly when I was fitting a graphics card into my tight fit case, it must have literally moved by a hair. I reseated it and the issue just disappeared and never came back.

Might be worth taking a look at all your connections inside and making sure that they are all sitting correctly.

GastricTitan · 26 May 2017 at 15:41

ChrisD. said:
What are your RAM timings? Default or in an XMP profile maybe?

Ram timings are default, wouldn't even know where to start messing with them

GastricTitan · 26 May 2017 at 15:43

Parky said:
Random question, had you been fiddling inside the machine before the issue started happening? Also is this only happening during games? or do you get freezes during normal use?

I had something very similar happen on an old machine a couple of years, same with the date/time being reset. I'd followed all the steps like yourself but it turned out that I must have brushed my CMOS battery ever so slightly when I was fitting a graphics card into my tight fit case, it must have literally moved by a hair. I reseated it and the issue just disappeared and never came back.

Might be worth taking a look at all your connections inside and making sure that they are all sitting correctly.

Last time I opened the case was to add a new 2.5 HDD, but that was a month or so ago and these issues only started this week. I've got a new motherboard arriving tomorrow that I can send to test with. I'll have a look to see if the CMOS has been dislodged