System locks up when playing a game

[jcpangs]

When im playing a game, my screen will turn black and the game sounds will stutter and none of my keyboard and mouse will respond to anything. My sysem specs:

Phenom II x3 720 2.8ghz Black Edition with Deep Cool Ice blade heatsink

Sapphire Radeon Hd 4770 GDDR5 (w/ artic cooling) dual dvi

2pcs of 2gb 800 DDR2 Team Xtreme Ram

MSI K9A2 CF-F motherboard (ami bios)

Seagate 320gb sata hdd.

Hec Cougar 700watts



I just got all of this for christmas and im planning to overclock my system. Right now everything is on default and i havent change anything yet, but when I play Devil May Cry, Batman Arkham Aslyum and GTA4 my sysem will locked up. Is there any way I can isolate the issue? It happends randomly, no specific time..

 

[Bobnova]

Download GPUz, run it, hit the Sensors tab, check both the "Log to file" box and "Keep refreshing this window cause it'd be useless if you didn't, you stupid program" box, and select a directory to put the log.

Now play games till it goes crunch.
Reboot, open that log file, and post the last ten or fifteen lines so we can check the temps.

Also, what are your CPU load temps? And, what do you have in the way of case ventilation?

 

[jcpangs]

Download GPUz, run it, hit the Sensors tab, check both the "Log to file" box and "Keep refreshing this window cause it'd be useless if you didn't, you stupid program" box, and select a directory to put the log.

Now play games till it goes crunch.
Reboot, open that log file, and post the last ten or fifteen lines so we can check the temps.

Also, what are your CPU load temps? And, what do you have in the way of case ventilation?

Thanks for the advise, i'll do it right away.. i have 2 deepcool 50cfm intake on the front and 1 silverston fm123 outtake at the back... by using amd overdrive, my cpu temps is around 27c when idle, 40c when running a game. video card is at 43c when idle and 55c-60c when running.

 

[jcpangs]

so far so good.. i'll just keep on playing until it freezes up again..


up

 

[jcpangs]

and it freezes up again..

 

[Bobnova]

Very strange. I think the first thing i'd do now is update the drivers, maybe something strange is going on in there.

 

[jcpangs]

Very strange. I think the first thing i'd do now is update the drivers, maybe something strange is going on in there.

i know, im still under warranty with the part but right now im not sure which is causing the problem. I was playing starcraft 2 when suddenly it does the same thing, Ive repeated everything that was suggested to me in this post. I cant just return an item without being sure if its really damage, im thinking there might be wrong with the video card

 

[OnDborder]

1 Have you run memtest yet?
What slots are you running the ram in?
Maybe switch 'em to the other?
Do you have your vcard fan on "auto" or manually set?
2 Have you run prime yet, or some other stress test to the cpu?
3 Run a video card stress test or bench.

Doing these 3 stress tests will narrow down to where the issue might exsist.

 

[jcpangs]

1 Have you run memtest yet?
What slots are you running the ram in?
Maybe switch 'em to the other?
Do you have your vcard fan on "auto" or manually set?
2 Have you run prime yet, or some other stress test to the cpu?
3 Run a video card stress test or bench.

Doing these 3 stress tests will narrow down to where the issue might exsist.

Yup, ive run memtest, 3rd mark and prime on my system, i followed the instruction I saw on this website and they didnt freeze or no errors appeared. my vcard is currently in auto and ive done no overlocking configurations.

I havent tried switching over my ram, currenly my mobo has 4slots and they are color coded, is it ok ive I transfer them in another slot? would it make a difference in terms of performance?

 

[Bobnova]

There is a slight overclocking advantage (ram overclocking, not cpu) to the ones closest to the cpu.

 

[jcpangs]

There is a slight overclocking advantage (ram overclocking, not cpu) to the ones closest to the cpu.

ok,i have 4 slots and color coding is green orange green orange, I have my rams in all the green slots. Should I moved them on the orange slots and ran memtest again? Will that help?

 

[Bobnova]

It's worth a shot.

 

[jcpangs]

ok, i have 2pcs of 2gb ram and 4 slots. im tried running memtest and they all passed. ive tried running each memory on each slot..tried swapping memory and run them. Ive tried several possible combintion (ram1 on slot1 2 3 4, ram2 on slot1 2 3 4) it took me almost a week to test them and they all passed. Is there anyway I can test the video card?

 

[TollhouseFrank]

if it is a single GPU (or perhaps a better question, if it is a single card), then swap it to another PCIE slot.

 

[jcpangs]

if it is a single GPU (or perhaps a better question, if it is a single card), then swap it to another PCIE slot.

yup, its a single gpu.. my mobo has 2 video slots of crossfire configuration. Will it work properly if use my other PCIE slot? Sadly I dont have another gpu to test my system with..

 

[TollhouseFrank]

it should work properly. i don't know anything about your board, so it's possible the second slot isn't a full 16x slot... but either way, try it in the other slot. That will rule out the original slot as the culprit.

 

[jcpangs]

it should work properly. i don't know anything about your board, so it's possible the second slot isn't a full 16x slot... but either way, try it in the other slot. That will rule out the original slot as the culprit.

You're right, it isnt a full 16x... here my mobo specs http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=prodmbspec&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=1333#menu

I will swap it and try to play a game. Ill return for more updates

 

[jcpangs]

Ive installed my video card on the 2nd 8x pci-e slot and run 3rdmark for 6hours. didnt freeze or anything. After the test ive run dirt2 and after a good 10minutes or less the game freezes (blackscreen, wierd repeating sounds)..

 

[ratbuddy]

What version of windows? Is it legit?

 

[DSM4Life]

Def check temps. I just had my 5850 lock up me lastnight because i forgot to turn the fan up while gaming.