PC Problems (Help!!)

[Rare]

Hey guys, I just built a new PC and it's awesome. The only thing is, I was playing a game today, and my screen froze, game froze, skype call froze, and my audio started stuttering. I restarted my pc, started playing more and 15 minutes later it happened again. Any idea what could be the problem? Another place I asked said it could be the GPU, but the CPU is the thing that's heating up.

[IvanIvanovich]

Specs? How hot is the cpu running?

[Rare]

http://prntscr.com/x5qui

It's running from 40-45 and when I was rendering a video it went up to 70+ I'm unaware of the temps during gaming, but i'd believe it would be similar.

[WRXChris]

The first thing to check is always the CPU heat sink when something like this is happening.  Are all 4 corners of the heat sink securely mounted to the motherboard?  Did you properly apply thermal grease between the CPU and heat sink?

If the heat sink isnt the issue complete specs of your system, and if you're overclocking or not would help.

[bazemk1979]

as Lysol said check for the CPU temps, tells us what CPU you have, is it the stock cooler or aftermarket one. Most likely you haven't seated properly the cooler or there might be too much thermal paste applied, or not enough thermal paste. etc etc etc

You need to tell us more, what cooler, whats the surface of the cooler, is it the rippled one or the shiny one? if its rippled its best to apply thermal paste as a small grain in the middle of the CPU, if its flat surface cooler then you need to spread the thermal paste even trough out the CPU.

Answer this questions so we can help you further, don't worry we all have went trough this

[bazemk1979]

I7-920, that's an oldish chip right, like 3 years or so right?

Have you ever cleaned the cooler surface from the old paste and reaplied new paste?

if it hasn't been changed in years... oh well its time to do it , paste tend to age with time and and sort of crumble- crystalize and wont do the function any more, you need to reaply new paste if you have never done so

[mushupork]

Had a PC last year developed a weird habit of restarting itself when I was not around and it was doing nothing taxing.  No messages in the event log (Windows 7) except the unexpected shutdown.  Opened up the chassis and ran it with a room fan on it and the issue never happened.  Closed up the chassis aagain after adding chassis fans, changed out power supply, changed out processor fan.  Shutdowns still happened. 

The  Northbridge on the mobo was passively cooled for the first couple years I owned the system - but I swapped in a heatsink with a fan and the problem disappeared.

My recommendation would be to open the chassis and run a fan - if that helps start troubleshooting heat and fans ... like the GPU you mentioned

[Rare]

as Lysol said check for the CPU temps, tells us what CPU you have, is it the stock cooler or aftermarket one. Most likely you haven't seated properly the cooler or there might be too much thermal paste applied, or not enough thermal paste. etc etc etc

You need to tell us more, what cooler, whats the surface of the cooler, is it the rippled one or the shiny one? if its rippled its best to apply thermal paste as a small grain in the middle of the CPU, if its flat surface cooler then you need to spread the thermal paste even trough out the CPU.

Answer this questions so we can help you further, don't worry we all have went trough this

I posted the temps above. It's not a stock cooler, it's a cooler master v8. I was getting 40-45 c while just using it normally, and it was going up to 70-75 c. I also said I was unaware of the temps during gaming.

Also, Bazemk, I did clean the thermal paste off and apply some. Some people were saying I applied too little and some were saying I applied too much.

[J0hn]

I had the exact same problem with my old PC (920 + asus p6t deluxe) and I ended up buying a new mobo. But I don't know exactly what was causing the problem but it wasn't a cooling problem.

[Rare]

Was it just random? This only happens when I game. And the temps go up when I game/edit/render.

[J0hn]

Was it just random? This only happens when I game. And the temps go up when I game/edit/render.

If i remember correctly it was almost exclusively when under load with few exceptions.

[WRXChris]

It could be the northbridge overheating, like mushupork said.  Do what he said, try running the case open with a desk fan blowing on your mobo while gaming.  Also a good temperature temperature monitoring program with datalogging, I.e. speedfan would be helpful in finding the culprit.

[Rare]

I'll try that, thanks guys!

[Leslieann]

Check the video card temps as well as the Northbridge.

This is most likely a temp issue, but could also be a driver, codec, software or even a power supply issue. I would start with temps first though.

[IvanIvanovich]

Is it overclock, and more specifically is it over volted anywhere? I think those temps are too high, maybe the cooler is not very effective one? So while temps are on the high side they are not in danger area. So far it only happen under more load when gaming? What happens if you run occt or something?

[Rare]

Alright, It just happened again... No sorts of overclocking, nothing. I'm having frame drops on all of my games now. I'd go from getting like 1000+ FPS on cod4 to like 380-500. This is really stressin me... None of the temps are getting out of hand, Was monitoring my cpu temps which was at 50-57 Celsius and my gpu temps are like 20-30 Celsius.

[IvanIvanovich]

Anything useful in the event viewer? Is it showing any errors or warning messages there?

[Rare]

Absolutely nothing. It honestly just freezes, then boots up like absolutely nothing happened.

[Jocelyn]

What PSU do you own?

[Rare]

I have a sea sonic 620 watt psu. Intel 920 i7 quad core, and an msi gtx 670 pe.

[Jocelyn]

I have a sea sonic 620 watt psu. Intel 920 i7 quad core, and an msi gtx 670 pe.

Sorry, I gathered more info right before you posted and your PSU is most likely fine, being that it's a Seasonic. If you happen to have an extra PSU lying around, I'd give it a try.
Other than that you could try reseating the heatsink (already mentioned) and memory (try this if you haven't already), but my guess is that your problem is most likely CPU or Mobo related.

[bavman]

First run memtest86 to make sure you don't have memory errors. Usually memory errors will throw you a BSOD but it might just be freezing instead.
Next if your memory is fine, run a CPU stress testing program like occt/ibt/prime95. While your doing this you can monitor your temps and make sure they arent getting too hot. If you have a cm v8 and your getting 70+C on stock speeds that seems odd. Get CPUID hw monitor, you'll be able to monitor chipset/cpu/video temps with it.

[Leslieann]

Memory would be my next step, followed by hard drive.
Drives typically do not do this, but they can.
As strange as it sounds, disable the onboard network card. I have seen three systems where the network card caused this sort of thing. 

Also on the PSU, even good ones can go bad, particularly from power spikes and dips.

[Turkishrambo]

do the sounds come from speaker? could even be sound card/onboard. if u got any extras, try it out i had an asus board that had on-board sound go.

[Rare]

Nah, I don't use speakers. Strictly headphones. It's not my memory, I know for a fact. My mobo has a memory tester thing built in on it already. I still don't know what it could be.. I'm gonna take it to my local PC shop and see what they say.

[jcrouse]

I say power supply.

[mushupork]

I think every bit of hardware has been mentioned except the case and power cord ... so maybe swap those out too?   When you swap hardware you are changing the variables which can make things harder to solve.

Did you try running the system with the case open and a fan on yet?  If that works you can rule out software and drivers. 

[Dgsbllx]

+1 on checking all the drivers, especially if its a new build.
Is it just happening with one game as well? Because I used to have problems on one machine running CryEngine, but other games would cause it no issue

[Rare]

Yeah, Dgsbllx, I think that's it.. It seems to just be COD4. I was playing tf2 and it was smooth as butter, no frame drops or anything. Makes me wonder...

[Vyr1s]

If you have a second slot for the video card I would attempt moving it.
I've had this exact problem and had to replace the motherboard.
It was an issue with the BUS that certain PCI-E slots where running on along with some other MISC mainboard features (was a terrible design).

Aside from that I would definitely check your disk usage while gaming.

Unplug all none-required components, and attempt to replicate the problem, it could be a peripheral/USB/addon/etc.

[Leslieann]

I think every bit of hardware has been mentioned except the case and power cord ... so maybe swap those out too?   When you swap hardware you are changing the variables which can make things harder to solve.

That is the problem with helping online (or even over the phone) like this, you only get a partial picture based on what the person tells you, as such, you tend to get a lot of ideas thrown at you. All of which may be valid, but still only ideas based on limited information.


In this case, failing to mention that it only happened in one specific game, is a rather important detail that would have narrowed down the issue extremely fast. However, no one asked that because it was probably assumed Rare had already been working on the problem and he would have mentioned it if it was relevant. Rare could have failed to mention it because it either didn't seem important, or didn't realize it wasn't mentioned.

That is the trouble with helping like this, you never know the persons skill at troubleshooting, so you don't know where to start. Being a geek site, only makes the problem worse. We all jump in with ideas about where would either start or where we think the person got stuck along our own personal timeline of troubleshooting.

[Jocelyn]

I think every bit of hardware has been mentioned except the case and power cord ... so maybe swap those out too?   When you swap hardware you are changing the variables which can make things harder to solve.

That is the problem with helping online (or even over the phone) like this, you only get a partial picture based on what the person tells you, as such, you tend to get a lot of ideas thrown at you. All of which may be valid, but still only ideas based on limited information.


In this case, failing to mention that it only happened in one specific game, is a rather important detail that would have narrowed down the issue extremely fast. However, no one asked that because it was probably assumed Rare had already been working on the problem and he would have mentioned it if it was relevant. Rare could have failed to mention it because it either didn't seem important, or didn't realize it wasn't mentioned.

That is the trouble with helping like this, you never know the persons skill at troubleshooting, so you don't know where to start. Being a geek site, only makes the problem worse. We all jump in with ideas about where would either start or where we think the person got stuck along our own personal timeline of troubleshooting.

lol I completely agree with all of this

[mushupork]

excellent observation 

[Rare]

I think every bit of hardware has been mentioned except the case and power cord ... so maybe swap those out too?   When you swap hardware you are changing the variables which can make things harder to solve.

That is the problem with helping online (or even over the phone) like this, you only get a partial picture based on what the person tells you, as such, you tend to get a lot of ideas thrown at you. All of which may be valid, but still only ideas based on limited information.


In this case, failing to mention that it only happened in one specific game, is a rather important detail that would have narrowed down the issue extremely fast. However, no one asked that because it was probably assumed Rare had already been working on the problem and he would have mentioned it if it was relevant. Rare could have failed to mention it because it either didn't seem important, or didn't realize it wasn't mentioned.

That is the trouble with helping like this, you never know the persons skill at troubleshooting, so you don't know where to start. Being a geek site, only makes the problem worse. We all jump in with ideas about where would either start or where we think the person got stuck along our own personal timeline of troubleshooting.

I didn't mention it because I hadn't tried any other games within the time that it was happening. I was playing team fortress 2 for a good 2 hours and nothing happened, as with COD4 it will just freeze and stutter every 20 minutes or so. Just letting you know why I didn't mention it earlier. As for the problem, i've taken it into my own hands and am doing my own research. I really appreciate everyone trying to help. If anyone here plays cod4 and has had this problem, feel free to let me know as well.

[bazemk1979]

rare sry I disappeared men I forgot about ur thread, is ur cpu pumping high temps at stock clock?

I see people say try this try that, if NB heats up you can see the temps on the nb, not your gpu either.

Have you ever tried resseting ur V8? maeby its not sitting properly, give it a try.

[Mandolin]

I'd check everything related to the PSU and heating. Do you have a good heatsink? I'd recommend to use a good quality termal paste between the gpu/cpu and heatsink, like artic silver, it can get you a few degrees lower temps.

[acediac01]

To be honest it sounds software side, drivers, codex, updates, etc. All the other places I would look have been mentioned. The next place I would look is the PCH, I've noticed a lot of systems that come with an Intel chip set not properly cooling it (lots of Dells ship without even a heat sink on it!). I know at Fry's they sell "VGA coolers" or some such, it's an aluminum heatsink w/ thermal glue (instead of paste) on it.

I'm curious to know what the root cause of this issue is, and how you fixed it.