Freezing/restarting In The Middle Of Gaming.

This is my first time posting on any kind of help forum for computer related problems so I'll try to be thorough. I just ordered parts from newegg.com and put together my first PC by myself. It's only the second computer I've ever owned. It took me about twelve hours to fully put together. I've attached my system specs. My computer was purchased on a budget and mostly for gaming. My computer has been freezing during video games as well as randomly going black then restarting. I've done a few things to try to fix the problem, although I'm not sure how accurate or helpful they are. All my windows updates and drivers are up to date. I've done a windows file integrity check as well as a memtest. I've checked and set the DRAM timings to default and I've found a few errors in the event viewer in windows around the times of the crashes. They are as follows:

Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.



Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.
5038
\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Fuel\i386\aoddriver2.sys

As you can imagine, building and booting up your first PC is pretty frustrating when I can't play a game for more than 5 minutes on it.

If it helps, the games I paly mostly are League of Legends, Civ 5, and Starcraft 2. It does okay with LoL, but the others crash pretty quickly. Any help or advice would be very appreciated. I'll check back often and try to be as helpful as I can.

Cheers.

 

Thee are a few things that come to mind before even dealing with windows issues. Are you certain that your fans are properly connected and running. Did you install the CPU or was it already part of a package with the Motherboard. From what I gather from your post things seem to be OK until you get into the gaming experience for a while.

If you installed the CPU did you apply any heatsink (thermal) paste? Try downloading speccy from piriform http://www.piriform.com/speccy check your heat when you first boot up and after you are playing fro a while. Pay particular attention to the CPU and graphics temperatures. Speccy is free and pretty reliable.

 

I did install the CPU and heatsink myself. I'm not exactly sure what thermal paste is, but there was a sticky paste residue on the bottom of the heatsink when I removed it from the package. I assume that's what you're talking about. I'm playing a game of League of Legends at the moment, which is the least stressful of the games. It has only frozen once or twice. The current temperatures have hovered around 44-48 degrees Celsius (Mobo) and 50-55 degress Celcius (Graphics card). I'll try the one that freezes the most in a second and let you know the temperatures. Oh, and as for my fans, all of them appear to be running fine.

 

I've started a game of Civilization V which has been freezing frequently. It has not frozen yet this session but less than five minutes in here are the temperatures. The motherboard remains 46-49 degrees Celsius but the graphics card temperature has risen to about 68-75 degrees Celsius and is hovering frequently at 73-74. I assume this is bad as the color on Piriform Speccy has deepened from yellow to a foreboding orange.

 

Graphics card temperature has hit 84 now. Yikes?

 

I think we need to know a little bit more about the case you have used, the number of fans, etc. Ventilation and cooling is vital when using these mid range cards for intensive gaming. Did you do another temp check after your last post?

 

It's idling at about 47-50 degrees Celsius. What I did just do was run a game of Starcraft 2 with a friend of mine who has the same motherboard, CPU, and graphics card. Our temperatures were within a few degrees of each other and I didn't have any problems. This is the case I'm using: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156063.

Something to note, although I'm not sure if it makes a difference, is that my PSU isn't actually inside the case. This case came with a really crappy 500w PSU that wasn't enough meet the recommended power supply for my motherboard so I have the PSU from my old computer, a 750w hooked up. However, it's larger and doesn't fit in the case so it's sitting on top with the cables running through the back.

I read a few forums and it said 85C is okay for a HD 6870 as long as I don't break 100C?

There appear to be 5 fans in total. One in the rear, two on the right side, one on the heatsink and one on the graphics card.

 

On a slightly different line of thought, what are the in game video settings set at, and have you tried lowering them to their minimum setting?

 

Hi hoilismad,

The graphics card temp looks fine to me, I have 2 x Ati 5850s running and they reach about 75-80 degrees on load.

The 750watt powersupply you have, is this a branded PSU? for example Corsair...

Reason I am asking, the Companies that manufacture the "cheapy" power supplies sell on Watts...so if someone with less experience sees a Powersupply say at $45 and it has 750 watts to them its a bargain, but really the actual power generated from the powersupply is alot less that you thought. Which can cause issues with your Hardware.

With the type of Graphics card you have, look for Sli or Crossfire ready, as these have a seperate power rail to give you a decent amout of power just for your Graphics card.

 

I've lowered the graphics from high to medium with no change in temperature or stability, but I would think the hardware I have is capable of running this game at max.

The PSU is Newton. I've used it for about 4 years with no problem on my Alienware tower, so it is old, but like I said I've yet to have problems with it.

 

Also, I'm not sure if this bears moving my post, but I just upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

 

Can you explain the process that you used to upgrade to W7
The reason I ask is that there can be some residual files left from the previous OS that can cause issues with games.

 

Well, when I originally made this post I was still on Vista Home Premium 32 bit and experiencing the problem. Anyway, I booted from the disc, erased the vista partition, and fresh installed 7 using the disc.

 

Still happening

 

Still waiting to see what Dalo's reply was

but maybe we could look at what you have running in the background like AV's or any other software or processes that may be using CPU time and resources

if your not sure what to or where to look, start, type Task Manager in the search box, and hit the return key, then select the processes tab, take a screen shot and post it, or tell us about anything that is using CPU, or excessive amounts of memory.

 

A very good question from Match regarding other processes hogging resources. A perfect example of one such is the Firefox browser and as I found, leaving it running in the background while trying to edit video was a real pain.Since finding that, I close Firefox and any other browser that may be running as Opera also is a real hog of RAM too.

Nev.

 

I had other things running at first, but since I've been experiencing the problem I've shut down everything except the program and occasionally steam since some of the games run off of it. However, when playing some games steam is off as well and it still happens.

 

It done it on Vista and does it on a Clean Install of W7, How or Where did you get the Drivers for W7? did you just let W7 find and load them in or did you go to the specific Manufactures sites and down load them, and then installed them?

 

I just used the Windows update tool.

 

Since it's been awhile since anyone has responded and it doesn't really seem like we're making progress I'll just go ahead and close this and seek help elsewhere. Thanks for all your help.