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Hello,
the last couple of days have been absolutely horrible (car accident on Friday, but I'm fine, sleep deprivation and minor health issues probably because of it), so the last thing I need now is even more problems with my computer. However, of course now it starts doing just that.
(I should point out now that I at times have problems with a screeching case fan, which requires me moving my case around until it stops, or more or less gentle "nudges", so it could be a physical reason, like e.g. a loose card perhaps? But then it wouldn't work at all, would it? No, I did NOT bash my computer or throw it around the place. It's far too important to me to risk damaging it like that...)
Anyway, I tried to play Sleeping Dogs three times since the fan noise incident, which has already worked fine for 9 hours according to my Steam library. However, each time it suddenly hard-locked my computer within a minute or two, and forced me to hard boot it. After the first time, I tried again a bit later, starting the game and Alt-Tabbing out of the game to do something in my browser. When I moved back to the game, I got an error pop-up from Windows, but accidentally closed it without seeing what it told me. A minute later, it froze again and I had to reboot again.
This time, when Windows tried to send an error report, it came up with a second one requiring further information, and in that one I saw "video hardware problem" being mentioned, which kinda worries me. Nevertheless, I immediately re-installed my Nvidia drivers to the latest stable version (which were already installed for that matter), choosing a from scratch installation. As I had other things to do, I post-poned trying Sleeping Dogs again until half an hour ago... and sure enough, it crashed my bucket again, this time taking a bit longer, though, about 2 minutes.
Here's the error report I have yet to send to Microsoft:
Going to send it now... but as expected, no follow-up.Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 4103
Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 116
BCP1: FFFFFA800C7F14E0
BCP2: FFFFF8800FEE5004
BCP3: FFFFFFFFC000009A
BCP4: 0000000000000004
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1
Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\092412-7862-01.dmp
C:\Users\Mathias\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-11606-0.sysdata.xml
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C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt
I already downloaded the SF Diagnostic Tool, ran it, gathering all the required data, and zipped it up using WinRAR, saving it as a Drakhor.zip and attaching it now.
Some more data which might be necessary in case they're not included in the Zip file:
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 570
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z
RAM: 8 GB G.Skill Ripjaws-XH
SSD: Crucial m4 128 GB with 000F firmware
Games HDD: WD Caviar Black 1002FAEX
I have not tried playing any other games so far, at least not any full screen ones. "FTL - Faster Than Light", which is a Flash game (and very good for that matter), runs fine when played in a window.
Please tell me that it's just some software I have to remove, and not the graphics card...
[EDIT]: Herpderp, I have 8 GB of RAM, not 8 MB... -facepalm-
So many thread views, but nobody seems to have downloaded the debug files so far...
Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try and find out if it's indeed my graphics card. I got myself OCCT PT 4.3.1 from ocbase.com, installed it, hit the Start button... and nothing happened. It took me half a minute to notice that I was testing the CPU rather than the GPU. Doh... :P
So I switched to the GPU tab, set the Shader Complexity to 8, switched to my main monitor's resolution of 1920x1200, checked FullScreen and Error Check, hit the On button... and within 1 second, my computer was keeling over. :x
I hit the Reset button, the BIOS beeped... but my two monitors remained black. No ASUS ROG Splash Screen, nothing. I hit the Reset button again, and the same. I immediately went into Panic mode and wondered what the hell I'm going to do now, since I currently don't have a car. I held down the Power button, which made the PC switch off after 4 seconds, waited a bit, then switched it back on. Same result... I sat here, wondering if my old PC is still working, when I heard how Windows was booting. I heard the start-up sound, then the sound effect when new hardware was plugged in and found, twice in a row. You know, that "do-beep" sound...
I assume after it wasn't able to find my dedicated graphics card, it automatically booted into the onboard Intel HD Graphics chip, which then found some hardware for a moment (the graphics card) before it was again "removed".
I switched it off again, but decided to give it a shot and follow my own earlier assumption, so I opened the case and checked the card. And indeed, it seemed as if one of the power cables was slightly loose! I pushed it back in, then nudged the card a bit here and there, very gently. With the case still open, I went for one last try: Hit the Power button, the BIOS beeped... and I saw my beloved red ASUS ROG splash screen.
I got the expected "Windows didn't shut down properly" window (which was probably the reason for the delay), picked the normal boot option, and it did just that: Booted up normally.
Could it really have been just that? A loose power cable?
It would explain the "new hardware found" sounds if the graphics card ran out of power, in a way at least... although I don't get then why it didn't do so immediately, or while I was browsing and playing FTL. I had GPU-Z open on my second monitor, always keeping an eye on the Sensors tab, and the Core, Memory and Shader Clocks were always at 100%, and with FTL running (in a window, mind you), the temperature went up to 68°C, whereas right now it idles at 42°C.
Right now, I'm so scared of doing anything else while I wouldn't be able to take it to a store and have it checked by a tech guy who knows more about it than me (which isn't that difficult). I don't want to get near OCCT again, or start Sleeping Dogs, if only to avoid another crash. At least not until I got my car back, which might not be before Friday.
Last edited by z3r010; 24 Sep 2012 at 06:56. Reason: merged
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