Why are all my games crashing?

Psychosocial94 · 2 Nov 2017 at 09:31

There must be an underlying problem with my PC because the handful of games I'm playing at the moment, nearly all are crashing to desktop and I can't figure out for the life of me why!

My specs:
Windows 10 (Games were crashing before the latest Curators update too)
ASUS Strix Z270i Mini ITX mobo
i5-7600k CPU (OC'd to 4.2ghz, I had it at 4.5 but reduced it thinking it might be causing a problem; crashes still persist)
Corsair H100i V2 240mm Liquid Cooler
EVGA 650W G3 PSU
Samsung 850 M.2 1TB SSD
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000mhz (I have the XMP profile enabled on my mobo to get the 3000mhz speeds, could this be an issue?)
NVIDIA GTX 970 (not overclocked)

What's happening:
Telltale Batman - Graphical artifacts in some scenes then freezes (infrequent)
Borderlands 2 - When there's a lot going on on screen it freezes (infrequent)
Divinity Original Sin 2 - Random crashes to desktop, error report opens, says it's a DirectX error. Searching online other people are also experiencing a DirectX error (frequent, after 5-10 minutes)
PUBG - Random crashes to desktop, error report opens (frequent, after 5-10 minutes)
Destiny 2 - Random crashes to desktop (frequent, after 5-10 minutes)
Witcher 3 - Plays fine
Dishonored 2 - Plays fine

I have the latest NVidia drivers and have tried a clean re-install of the drivers to no avail.
I've tried compatibility settings, running as admin, changing resolutions and window modes etc.
Back in September I moved my PC in the car. It was about a 4hr journey in total, I had it packed safe in the boot and drove carefully but since this move I've installed the other games (Divinity, Destiny, Batman and Borderlands) and they've been crashing/freezing too. PUBG was crashing before the move but I attributed that to the fact it's an early access game.
Could this move have caused some hardware damage? When I get time this weekend I'm going to re-seat the RAM and GPU.
Would a clean install of Windows help?

Note it's only games which are crashing, I can stream on Netflix and YouTube or do anything else and my PC is fine.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

andy_mk3 · 2 Nov 2017 at 13:05

First step would be a hardware check inside the case as you've transported it, make sure the CPU cooler is seated nicely and that nothing had moved about, make sure all fans are working and clear of dust too. Then I would go for a program such as MSI afterburner and monitor your CPU/GPU temps either while gaming or during individual stress test programs.

Radox-0 · 2 Nov 2017 at 13:16

I would monitor temps as suggested. I would also entirely remove the overclock you have in place on the RAM and CPU and work from a clean slate so to speak to fully rule out those parts along with temps.

NeverWinter · 2 Nov 2017 at 15:23

Reseat components, clean heatsinks and fans. Remove overclocks all together. Monitor temps.

chroniclard · 2 Nov 2017 at 15:25

Test your RAM/reseat the ram too.

Memtest HCI is quick enough to run and test it.

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

Delvis · 3 Nov 2017 at 15:35

Perhaps, now I'm plucking at straws here, it's your non-standard system crashing the game?

Remove the clocks, put it back to defaults, test.

Madeddie · 3 Nov 2017 at 16:35

This.

NeverWinter said:
Reseat components, clean heatsinks and fans. Remove overclocks all together. Monitor temps.

Haggisman · 3 Nov 2017 at 16:41

Along with the other suggestions, check your sata cables, I had about 6 months of random crashes that I couldn't get to the bottom of, until one day I was doing some cable management and noticed that one corner of the sata connector on my HDD had cracked and so it wasn't completely snug - it wasn't loose enough to come off, but I guess the vibration of the drive or something was enough to cause an intermittent connection

opethdisciple · 3 Nov 2017 at 17:13

Remove all overclocking to start with.

If this was Ryzen then yes it could be the DOCP profile not being stable. But as it's Intel I was of the understanding it was more set and forget.

My guess is it's your cpu overclock that's the issue

Remove all your overclocking. Play some games for a few days. If all well. Then start overclocking your cpu again. You need to thoroughly test it.

2-3 hours of prime 95 (I'll find some settings that gave me results when I'm home)

Once this is stable then you have to test your ram. You would re-enable your xmp profile then download a program called HCI to test it.

Divide your system ram by the number of threads your cpu has and then then calculate 90% of it.

Open up as many instances of HCI as you have cpu threads and put the value you calculated for 90% of your ram divided by threads.

Let each instance run untill you get 400% pass in each instance with no errors.

This will also peg your cpu to 100% as well so will test cpu stability at the same time.

If after all that lot your PC remains stable then you will have a stable pc.

Psychosocial94 · 4 Nov 2017 at 18:12

Thanks for all the suggestions but I've tried all of the above today and no still having the same problems.

I reseated my components, removed all overclocks, ran prime95 and memtest and was looking nice and stable. I opened HW Monitor to watch my temps and started Destiny 2. Within 15 minutes I crashed to desktop, same with the other games. CPU temp never went above 54c. GPU maxed at 81c.
I did notice my max clock speed was 3818mhz which I'm not sure is normal if the base clock is meant to be 3.8ghz, perhaps there's a setting in the ASUS BIOS which is affecting my clock speeds??

I'm really at a loss here

Psychosocial94 · 4 Nov 2017 at 18:17

Also, this is what Event Viewer is saying at the time of crashing:

Application Logs:
Source: ESENT
DllHost (5232,G,0) The beta feature EseDiskFlushConsistency is enabled in ESENT due to the beta site mode settings 0x800000.

System Logs:
Source: nvlddmkm
The description for Event ID 13 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

\Device\Video3
Graphics Exception: ESR 0x404490=0x80000001 (and another event at the same time but the graphics exception says MISSING_MACRO_DATA)

the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table

I have no idea what these mean, I'm hoping one of you clever people do?

andy_mk3 · 4 Nov 2017 at 19:10

The above suggest an nvidia driver error. Whether it's the root cause or not is an unknown.

Have you done a clean install of windows? If you have a spare hard drive maybe try it out and see what happens.

IronWarrior · 4 Nov 2017 at 19:53

Do you have a spare GPU? Try a other one see if that works. If not, remove the GPU anyway and try running some games with onboard video drivers and see if it still crash.

I know you said some other games are running fine, but these games could be doing something not to trigger the crashing.

That said, if I was crashing that much as you are, I be removing the drivers fully, remove traces, install again and maybe going as far as reinstalling windows again.

Psychosocial94 · 6 Nov 2017 at 21:19

I've tried a clean install of Windows and unfrotunately I'm still crashing. I think I'm going to try and underclock my GPU see if that helps. But if that doesn't fix it, do you think I should send my GPU back to the manufacturer?

Hedge · 6 Nov 2017 at 22:17

You reset bios fully to default?

NeverWinter · 7 Nov 2017 at 08:39

Psychosocial94 said:
Thanks for all the suggestions but I've tried all of the above today and no still having the same problems.

I reseated my components, removed all overclocks, ran prime95 and memtest and was looking nice and stable. I opened HW Monitor to watch my temps and started Destiny 2. Within 15 minutes I crashed to desktop, same with the other games. CPU temp never went above 54c. GPU maxed at 81c.
I did notice my max clock speed was 3818mhz which I'm not sure is normal if the base clock is meant to be 3.8ghz, perhaps there's a setting in the ASUS BIOS which is affecting my clock speeds??

I'm really at a loss here

Have you tried a GPU stress test and monitor the temps and speeds whilst doing that? Use Unigine or something along those lines.

ci_newman · 7 Nov 2017 at 08:59

IMO, the graphical artefacts and subsequent crashing suggests a memory problem on the GPU to me.

Try underclocking both the RMA and the CPU on the graphics card.

Tek81 · 7 Nov 2017 at 09:36

I had a similar problem a few months ago and it turned out to be a bad stick of RAM, despite it passing MemTest. I would suggest removing any existing overclocks from both RAM and CPU, then physically removing the RAM and testing it one stick at a time in the games you mentioned.

Epoch · 7 Nov 2017 at 09:50

Install DDU, boot your computer into safe mode and run it to fully clean up drivers. Then install the newest drivers from the NVidia site. Works better than NVIDIAs clean install option.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
Although if you've done a clean install of windows like you said it probably wont just be the driver and could be a hardware issue.

Putty · 7 Nov 2017 at 10:58

Try switching off HDR if it's on. Nigh on all my games were crashing until I turned that off - may have just been a coincidence but worth a try.