Why am I crashing?

[frankthetank195]

This is getting annoying. I'll be in the middle of a game, whether it's battlefield 3 or minecraft, and randomly my screens will flash, then go dark. I hear a post beep, and it restarts, but amazingly slow (30mins to desktop). At no point do my case LEDs switch off, so its not losing connection to the power supply. Also, this was happening before my recent overclock, so that's ruled out.

This doesn't only happen during games, but usually that does it. I've noticed Alt+Tab and Alt+Enter are touchy with this too. The screen crash makes me think it's a graphics issue, and I hope it is thay because I'll be upgrading in a week or so. Thanks in advance.

 

[lehtv]

Have you tried resetting CMOS? Consult the motherboard manual

 

[frankthetank195]

Yes I've done that. Haven't removed battery yet though.

 

[bbhaag]

Does the event viewer show anything out of the ordinary? Any critical errors reported around the time of the crash?

 

[frankthetank195]

Nope, just normal things. I really have no explanation for this, it just turns off. I also forgot to mention that occasionally when this happens, I get a really loud multi-tonal buzzing noise in headphones, speakers, whatever audio device I'm using.

 

[Big Roger]

Run memtest. Check temperatures o your CPU and GPU

 

[frankthetank195]

Did all that, passed memtest86+, CPU maxed at 47C in Prime95, GPU at 45C last time it happened.

 

[Ketchup]

Now that you have run CPU stress testing, try something like 3dmark. Run it back to back for a while. Does the issue return? and if so, which test?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Did all that, passed memtest86+, CPU maxed at 47C in Prime95, GPU at 45C last time it happened.

I struggled with a recent built crashing unexpectedly and eventually traced it to bad RAM. The stuff passed Prime and Memtest without a hitch, but after REALLY extensive testing it was clearly one stick that was bad at rated speed. Try either over-volting or under-clocking the RAM to see if that helps, you can pass all the benchmarks and still have a problem. I learned that the hard way.

 

[dbailey]

If memory passes and temps are good, but you still have issues... it is likely a power supply(borrow one or swap one in to test), OS issue(format and reinstall) and if none of the above probably a motherboard issue.

 

[frankthetank195]

Now that you have run CPU stress testing, try something like 3dmark. Run it back to back for a while. Does the issue return? and if so, which test?

Back to back? So one after another or simultaneously?

I struggled with a recent built crashing unexpectedly and eventually traced it to bad RAM. The stuff passed Prime and Memtest without a hitch, but after REALLY extensive testing it was clearly one stick that was bad at rated speed. Try either over-volting or under-clocking the RAM to see if that helps, you can pass all the benchmarks and still have a problem. I learned that the hard way.

What kind of testing? How would changing voltage show me anything?

If memory passes and temps are good, but you still have issues... it is likely a power supply(borrow one or swap one in to test), OS issue(format and reinstall) and if none of the above probably a motherboard issue.

It happened with my old Corsair 650TX too, so that's not it. I don't want to reinstall windows until I get a new 6Gb/s SSD. The one I have now is terrible. Could critically low system drive capacity cause this? Mines usually around 100MB free:|

 

[Vectronic]

Rasing the voltage would tell you that your current voltage isn't enough for the speed your RAM is running at.

Critically low space *could* cause it... it shouldn't crash/reboot though if that was the only issue, you'd just get freezes, or CTD (crash to desktop), that's assuming you actually have 100MB free, if it's less than that... that might cause a BSOD/Restart system crashes "normally" tries to write a log file/event/etc... runs out of space.

Seriously, fix that first, it should be extremely easy to clean up at least 500MB of space if not more. A quick run with CCleaner would probably do it.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

What kind of testing? How would changing voltage show me anything?

Built machine, ran all tests, all passed including extensive runs of Prime and Memtest. no hiccups. Used machine with normal apps, would NOT run stable. Ran test again, all good. Still unstable. Reinstalled Windows to see if it was a driver problem. Didn't help. Tried Win XP instead of 7/64, no help. Removed video card, went with onboard video. No help. Replaced PSU with one that was known good, no help. Removed one stick of RAM and re-ran all tests, all passed. Changed to the other stick only, re-ran tests, all good. Tried machine with one stick of RAM, crashes returned. Tried with only the other stick, rock stable. Upped RAM voltage with both sticks, stable. Went back to recommended voltage, crashes returned. Underclocked RAM, rock stable. Went back to recommended timings, crashes returned. Tried RAM in a different machine, tested with Prime and Memtest, passed. Crashed when using normal apps. Re-ran all the one-stick/two-stick tests with timings and voltages. Same thing, one stick would crash constantly doing real-world tasks when set to recommended voltage and timing, worked fine when over-volted and/or undertimed. And NEVER failed a single run of Prime or Memtest

 

[dbailey]

Well, ram is your issue.. sounds like your motherboard and ram don't play nicely together. I'd keep the one rock solid stick in there for now and look into a different brand of ram that is more tolerant to voltage and different chipsets. Honestly though, 2 sticks of ram is only shown to run around 8-10 % faster than one.. so if you have a large 4gb stick and it works for you, i'd just leave that one.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Well, ram is your issue.. sounds like your motherboard and ram don't play nicely together. I'd keep the one rock solid stick in there for now and look into a different brand of ram that is more tolerant to voltage and different chipsets. Honestly though, 2 sticks of ram is only shown to run around 8-10 % faster than one.. so if you have a large 4gb stick and it works for you, i'd just leave that one.

RIF