Solved Games keep crashing to desktop without any error messages

[Verrk]

Hey guys,
I just purchased and built my own rig for the first time, and after solving a few driver related issues, I still have a problem while playing games.

Here's a quick overview of my spec:
OS: Win7 Pro N x64
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 @3.3Ghz, 3303 Mhz
MB: Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
RAM: 16GB
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 770 TwinFrozr
PS: 750W Fatality

Whenever I play (DotA2, Witcher2, Borderlands2, Trackmania2etc) , the game randomly crashes and I'm instantly on my desktop, as if I am closing it with Alt+f4 or something. No error messages, no stuttering or any other indicator beforehand. I also kept MSI Afterburner running, but it didn't show any abnormalities.
I had some issues with my GTX before including black screens, but with the recent drivers (326.80 beta) at least it doesn't crash while browsing/desktop anymore.

Since I get no errors whatsoever, I don't have the necesseray know-how to solve this anymore, neither to provide you any additional information. I really hope someone can help me out. If you need any more data from my side, I will answer as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance

 

[Boozad]

First off I'd try a clean install of 320.49 drivers.

 

[Verrk]

First off I'd try a clean install of 320.49 drivers.

Had those initially anyways, but tried it today and Dota2 still crashed like it did with the other drivers. Even Steam recently closes itself with no apparent reason together with Dota2, the icon remaining in the tray until I mouseover it.

 

[Apprentrice5]

Is there anything showing in the event logs around the times the crashes are happening?

 

[Verrk]

Is there anything showing in the event logs around the times the crashes are happening?

Just played until it happened again (about 20min into the game), since I got the older driver again it freezes (2 times so far) instead of closing instantly. Had to end the process with the in task manager to close it.

Yet I didn't find anything at that time in the event viewer (looked for every type).

 

[AstaLaVista]

Games patched all the way through I imagine?

How are you updating your drivers? are you also updating the AUDIO driver?

 

[Verrk]

Games patched all the way through I imagine?

How are you updating your drivers? are you also updating the AUDIO driver?

I updated the Nvidia drivers with the "clean install" checked. Yes, I updated all but GeForce Experience, incl audio.

 

[Verrk]

This is getting really frustrating. I just had 4 crashes in about 1h of DotA2.
Is there any troubleshooting I can do to find the cause of the crashes?
I am already watching the GPU via MSI Afterburner, but it only said I had 62° GPU Temp max. and 98% GPU usage max.
Is there anything else I can do on my side?

 

[Contrabardus]

Might be a hardware issue. A GTX 770 shouldn't be having any trouble running those games even at maxed settings.

You might also try completely downloading a fresh copy of your GPU and Audio drivers, uninstalling your drivers, running a registry cleaner like CCleaner http://www.downloadinfo.co/review/c...d74478f171b5c6c10fb4e6a222f9485&ts=1378492779 and then reinstalling the drivers from scratch.

I had to do this a while back when my GPU drivers started acting up. Something got corrupted and simply updating or reinstalling without a complete uninstall and registry cleaning didn't help. Once I completely ripped them out and replaced them with a fresh install, everything worked again.

If that doesn't work try benchmarking the card and running a stress test. Even if the above works, I recommend having it for future use. Run it and seeing how things go. If it behaves like it does running the games, you've probably got an issue with the GPU and may need to replace it. Run Furmark and see how it goes. It's a free program. Here's a link to it: FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net

Just a warning, don't run stress test or benchmarking programs on a regular basis. They are designed to push your card and run it hard. Occasionally doing so for troubleshooting or just gauging your capabilities won't hurt anything, but running them on a regular basis will burn out your card eventually.

If nothing else the results may help troubleshoot the source of the problem if it's related to the GPU. If you're still having issues I'd suggest trying another GPU. If you've got a friend who will loan you one to test or if you've got an older one that you replaced stored somewhere. You might have a bad card. I had one die on me and it had pretty much the same symptoms at first. It ran most applications fine, but tended to crash if I ran anything intensive, such as games like the ones you list. It got worse and worse and I eventually had to replace the card.

Good luck with your problem. I do hope all you need is a clean reinstall of your drivers and that it's not a hardware issue. On the plus side, if it is a hardware issue a 770 should still be under manufacturer's warranty so you should be able to get it repaired or replaced at no more than the cost of shipping at most.

 

[shumailatariq]

i like it car race and my hobbies is cars i like it cars

 

[AstaLaVista]

Is anything overclocked by chance? some games just do not react to well to OCng. Aside from that, I would try what Contrabardus suggested about the drivers (I would do both Video and Audio for good measure). Aside from that, I am stumped!

 

[Verrk]

First of all, thanks to all for taking your time and trying to help me with my issue.
I tried the clean driver reinstall (uninstall, registry cleanup, reinstall) and did the benchmark, which came out normal for my spec.

Unfortunately though I had a BSOD during the last game and also one of the previous crashes afterwards. Should I open another thread for that or could someone take a look at it here? I attached the dmp just in case.

I think I will try to put in my older GPU tomorrow.

Anyway, thanks again for the help, really appreciate it!

EDIT: Forgot to mention it: I don't OC. I read somewhere that underclocking the graphics card might help, but wasn't sure about it. Does somebody know about that?

 

[Contrabardus]

I think there is a problem with your USB driver. Try going to device manager and rolling back/updating your USB drivers. At the very least I'm pretty sure something is corrupted in your system files. I'm sure there are people here who would know better than I do, but from looking at your BSOD info it looks as if the error is related to some corrupted system files. I have very limited programming knowledge so I can't definitively say that is the case.

Try using a different input device. Switch out your keyboard and mouse, update the drivers, unplug any extra USB input devices such as memory sticks, gamepads, and other peripherals. See if a bad input device is causing the issue. It probably won't fix anything, but it's worth checking at least.

Run a virus scan as well. It's best to rule out that possibility before doing anything drastic. It probably won't do any good, but it's best to err on the side of caution.

It says Wdf01000.sys is taking the blame for your problem according to your BOSD, but then further investigation seems to point to iusb3xhc.sys being the root of the problem. Unfortunately you seem to have an issue with ntoskrnl.exe as well, and that's a pretty important part of the Windows OS. If you're lucky it's not booting right because of the USB issues and rolling those back will fix it.

If that doesn't help you might want to run sfc /scannow and check your system files. That may also help depending on what the problem is. Go to Start> type "command" without quotes into the search bar> and type sfc /scannow into the Dos window that appears. If possible, back up important files as it may remove some things from your computer. It's not a total wipe of your HDD, but anything it sees as incomplete or corrupted will be removed so it's best to back up anything you see as essential first. It will take a while to run so be prepared to wait a bit.

I'm thinking it's probably not your GPU after seeing your crash report. If the above does not work you might try installing an older GPU and see if it will help, but I kind of doubt it will at this point. I'm not 100% sure about that though, so try it anyway.

If it doesn't, you'll likely need to suck in your gut and backup your important personal files and reinstall Windows completely. Now that I've had a look at your screen, I'm fairly sure some sort of corruption is the source of your BSOD problem and that it's most likely not a hardware issue. I'd get ready to get a backup drive for games, media, and other personal files and be prepared to reinstall Windows if necessary. Hopefully rolling back the drivers and running a sfc scan will work and it won't come to that.

Good luck with your problem.

 

[Verrk]

Thanks again for the response!

Unfortunately it kept on crashing after reinstalling the USB drivers. The sfc scan didn't report anything either. While googling the USB problem I read several posts about the USB controllers of my MB, and that the VIA ones are quite messy, so I just use the Intel ones for now.

Today I also got one more error in my collection during the game, this time it was something about the Desktop Window Manager, the Even Viewer gave me the following Error:

Faulting application name: Dwm.exe, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bc541
Faulting module name: nvwgf2umx.dll, version: 9.18.13.2049, time stamp: 0x51c41043
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000019bd54
Faulting process id: 0x750
Faulting application start time: 0x01cead3af38e2ae6
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\nvwgf2umx.dll
Report Id: 8a25965f-1959-11e3-8c0c-94de80690e1e

The game kind of "flickered" before this error crashed it.

Since the errors (and crashes without any) just keep coming, I'd happily reinstall my OS. I'm not very hopeful though. I had Win8 at first and then installed Win7 just about a week ago because I wasn't happy with it (and was hoping to solve the issues at the same time).

 

[AstaLaVista]

Not to wish you any ill will but, I do believe you have tried to do everything there is to do in your case scenario, heck, at least, everything I would have try doing before nuking my OS.

Contrabardus is correct, it does not look like a GPU or hardware issue, it looks more like you may need to bite the bullet and make a new/fresh windows installation or, as a last resort... try to make a Repair with the Windows 7 CD inserted. If you have more than 1 HDD/SSD I recommend you unplug them and leave only the OS. Personally, I have had some issues trying this method when I have more than 1 drive plugged in, then again, I could be the one doing it wrong but, at least I know that doing it this way, I will not run into any problems.

After you are done with the Repairing, if Windows tells you that it has not found any errors or issues then you know that you will have to do a clean install.

Tips before doing a clean Windows install... go to each manufacturer and download the latest firmware, patch, drivers for your Audio, Video, Motherboard chipsets (networks, etc), mouse, keyboards, printers, etc, etc., put them on a thumbdrive. Install windows completely, do not do any windows update, run all of your downloaded drivers and then run windows update but, DO NOT, I repeat... DO NOT let "Windows Update" do any driver updates for you. After you have win 7 with SP! and all of their update, then connect your other drives and immediately install one of your games, the one you are having more difficulty with and test it out... hopefully, the nightmare will be over by now

 

[Contrabardus]

I've found mention of someone who reported the same error as the one in your last post that said that uninstalling, cleaning, and reinstalling the drivers didn't help, but found a workaround/fix for it. Not sure if this will help you or not, but it's worth a shot I guess. There were several 'this worked for me too' posts as well in regard to the same error message. Call it a last ditch effort before trying a reinstall again.

nvwgf2umx.dll is an Nvidia driver BTW.

Try renaming "C:\Windows\System32\nvwgf2umx.dll" to "nvwgf2umx.dll.bak."

There is another copy of this file in C:\Windows\System32\Driverstore\FileRepository\nv_lh.inf_[the last part of this folder name depends on your GPU]. You'll want to change it's name here as well, but you'll need to change permissions and take ownership to make changes inside this folder.

To do that right click on DriverStore, go to properties, Security, Advanced, Owner, then edit and select your user account. Make sure you check the 'replace owner on subcontainers and objects' as well. Click on Apply and then OK. Close all the windows but the System32 folder and right click on DriveStore and Properties again. Go to Security and select edit under Group or User Names. Select your account or everyone and allow Full Control.

You should now be able to modify files within the DriverStore folder and it's subfolders.

Once you change the filenames run a command prompt [Start>command] and run "net stop uxsms" and then "net start uxsms" without quotes.

Restart your computer and see if it helps.

 

[Verrk]

Just wanted to say thank you again for taking your time with my issue, and giving a quick update in case someone has similar issues still!

So I did the clean Windows install, but still got the crashes - this time during FarCry3, but with an error message. The Forum there listed it as a common issue, mostly caused by multiple overlays but was also somehow linked to memory issues. Since I did the memtest a few days ago I didn't really believe it would help me, but I took out one of my two RAMs anyway. Long story short, it seems to be one of the two 8gb RAM bars...

I will order a new set today, hoping that it will fix it.

 

[AstaLaVista]

It never fails doesn't it... I have had a couple of issues with RAM sticks and the pisser is that all the test have passed with flying colors but as soon as I have done what you did, take 1 stick out, the problem goes away. Oh well, jotted down to experience and knowledge for the future, keep you chin up and keep on trucking and wasting baddies... The only easy day was yesterday!

 

[Verrk]

The last weeks were quite frustrating, but after solving the problem I'm still happy to have tackled the task of building my own PC. So much you learn in the process, and so much more if you try to hunt down a problem like this. And just as much great experiences in communities like these, were people actually help you! Thanks again

 

[AstaLaVista]

One of the reasons I have hanged on to this site, so much experience but a lot of tremendous help and patience... nobody requires more patience than me!

The feeling and the satisfaction you get when you are done with the build and you can post is just out of this world... nevermind getting to the desktop