[HELP] PC locking up completely at random during games

[Nexus18]

Got a MSI 7850 twin frz III OC about a week or two ago (bought from OCUK) and for some reason at completely random times, the PC will lock up with the audio going wonky (not even ctrl+alt+delete works).

When I say it happens at random, it really is random, can be fine for hours and then freeze, restart system, 5 minutes later, it happens again, restart and 5-15 minutes later, it happens again or it won't happen for another few hours or even a day.

So far the games, which it has happened in, are the following:

- far cry 3
- COD black ops II

I will play some other games to see if it happens again (have been playing red faction Armageddon and crysis 2 for a good amount and it hasn't happened with them, yet.......). Although never had this issue with my 4850 512MB in far cry 3..........

It hasn't happened at all yet with just browsing or watching videos (1080P blu ray MKV's etc.)

At first, I thought it might be the stock OC so dropped it from 900Mhz to 860MHz with MSI afterburner, still happened, so I did a complete windows 7 (64 bit ultimate version) reinstall yesterday thinking it might be drivers/software but is still happening so now I am left wondering if it might be my PSU or possibly just a faulty GPU? As I didn't have this problem at all with my 4850 512MB GPU.

PSU - antec EW 500W, is around 5 years old, pic below of the amps etc.

Spoiler

CPU - i5 750 stock
RAM - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-290-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517 @ stock speeds
MB - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3164#ov

Play games at 1080P.

Have got the latest stable ATI drivers/CCC installed and all the windows updates too.

Temperatures are all good, CPU cores don't go above 50, GPU doesn't go above 60 and hard drives don't go above 26 at load.

So, which is it:

PSU
GPU faulty
Just the games fault

Or something else?


Thanks in advance for any help/advice

 

[Nexus18]

I have got the latest BIOS update. I did a reflash of the latest one (F9) and it reset the SATA control mode to IDE (have a SSD so it needs to be AHCI), which is mainly why I did a fresh install of windows 7


How do I bump the voltage of the GPU up? (no experience of overclocking etc. except the sliders on MSI afterburner )

EDIT:

and yup I have the latest chipset drivers.

EDIT:

Just seen that afterburner has voltage controls What exactly do I do? How much should I up it by? Are you guys sure that my PSU will be up to the task? (baring in mind it is rather old now)

 

[Nexus18]

Hmm, I went to unlock the voltage control in MSI afterburner but it still won't let me do anything



EDIT:

And graphics overdrive is disabled in CCC.

EDIT:

Having a google about the above issue and it appears that MSI afterburner doesn't support the core voltage control for MSI twin frzr models

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18442447

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=161484.50

Is there anything else I can do then?

If I where to drop the overclock for core and memory clock, would that stop the random locking up? And if so, what values should I set it to? (I don't mind a 5 FPS or so drop if it stops this annoying issue)

 

[Nexus18]

Yup 100% sure, "unlock voltage control" and "unlock voltage monitoring" boxes are ticked. Did the restart of afterburner too.

 

[Nexus18]

NVM

Found a guide:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=338906

EDIT:

Nope, nothing changes

 

[Nexus18]

Here is my RAM info.



EDIT:

Ok, I will run memtest later and see if any errors are brought up.

 

[Nexus18]

Hmm, I may have found my problem.........

Noticed when I was playing far cry 3 that my RAM usage was very high even when I closed far cry 3 it still remains extremely high, so if I where to launch far cry 3 again and after so many minutes I am betting that the PC will lock up due to lack of RAM, right? (going to try that out now).

Unfortunately whatever is using up all the memory is not showing in task manager... any ideas?

 

[Nexus18]

GPU - MSI 7850 twin frz III OC 2GB
PSU - antec EW 500W, is around 5 years old, pic below of the amps etc.

Spoiler

CPU - i5 750 stock
RAM - Corsair XMS 3 8GB (2x4GB) @ 1333MHz
MB - GA-P55-UD3
OS - windows 7 64 bit ultimate

1x WD green 500GB drive used for storage
1x 2TB WD green drive used for storage
1x samsung F3 used for storage, downloads and game installations (split into 3 partitions for each task)
1x crucial M4 128GB drive with 000F firmware used for OS and programs

 

[Nexus18]

No worries


Just took a couple of photos of BIOS stuff including the qpi voltage

Spoiler

Spoiler

Once I enable the XMP profile, do I need to do anything else, just enable and save settings, reboot? Will my CPU clock speed or anything else be affected?

 

[Nexus18]

Ok thanks. I will give the XMP profile setting a shot tomorrow and report back.

Need to get some sleep now, again thanks for the help

 

[Nexus18]

Enabled XMP profile just now and here is the new qpi voltage etc.

Spoiler

Now I will need to play some far cry 3 etc. to see if it happens again.

Wow!!! You use a lot of memory

If you are going over the 8GB, it could be that which is causing the issues. Give msconfig a look and knock off a few processes from start up that are hogging resources.

No idea as to why that much is being used , most I have ever seen is at least 5GB and that is with BF 3 running i.e. this is my usage now:



Had a look there and there isn't much that starts up, just the usual stuff, firewall + AV, peerblock, CCC, unified remote, awaremote, realtek sound drivers, fraps, radeon pro (stable version), dropbox, logitech mouse software, coretemp, display fusion, google update, 7 sidebar widgets/gadgets and music manager.

 

[Nexus18]

I would hate to think that I have got a virus on a brand new install of W7 already!

Have eset nod32 AV and comodo firewall (both fully up to date), will do a scan later and see if anything is brought up.


Yeah, I think the RAM usage jumped to that level previously (around 6.5GB) during far cry 3. Will monitor it and see exactly when it happens.


My uptime varies, sometimes it will only be on for one day and turned of for the night where as other times I will have it running for about 2-3 days at most (again never encountered this before the new GPU though )

 

[Nexus18]

HIS 4850 turbo iceQ4 512MB

 

[Nexus18]

No black screen, screen just freezes on whatever is running (no coloured lines/stripes across the screen and no artefacts/glitching in games either), nothing moves/responds, even the sidebar gadgets freeze on their last readings.

I had a read through your thread there and I didn't have any of those problems with CCC/drivers.

 

[Nexus18]

Ah OK. Maybe try disabling audio completely to rule that out?

I don't know what caused my issues, drivers or power or something else. I'm going to hold back on an RMA and see if it happens again over the next few days.

Good luck with yours.

Will try that too as I have read about people having problems with realtek drivers in a lot of games etc.


Thanks! Keep me up to date with yours.

 

[Nexus18]

Ok, just been playing FC 3 there and the system lock up happened again, however, the RAM usage was fine this time, pics below of RAM, CPU and GPU temps and usage:

Spoiler

Going to run memtest now.

 

[Nexus18]

After enabling the XMP profile:



How do I find out that other stuff?

 

[Nexus18]

8GB (2x4GB sticks in the right slots for dual channel)

Would it be the same for my P55 board though?

How do I change the qpi voltage?

Will switch "performance enhance" to standard as well. Currently running memtest at the minute.

 

[Nexus18]

I will give it a try in a few minutes and see.

 

[Nexus18]

Just been looking at all the settings in the BIOS and when I went to change the "performance enhance" to standard, in red writing it said something along the lines of "if overclocking, reducing this to 'standard' could improve system stability", so I will leave the XMP profile to the standard one supplied for now and see if that one change has solved the issue, if not then I will manually adjust the RAM voltage etc. stuff.

Here is another screen of the voltages etc.