Crashes during heavy gaming loads, no BSOD

[JohanEhn]

My computer has been crashing after random time intervals for some weeks now. It crashes almost exclusively during gaming, BFBC2, ME2 and Borderlands atm at medium/high settings.

The crashes are identical. I experience a breif moment och lag/slowdown followed by the sound starting to loop and the screen flickering and then turning black. The sound keeps looping until the computer shutdowns (this only happens sometimes, after approximately 1 min.) or i turn it off by turning of the power (front buttons wont work, only PSU).

I am, to the best of my knowledge, using the latest drivers for at least the GPU and sound card.

The computer has been able to generate mindumps on some occations. I attached them as a rar-directory.

Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

[yowanvista]

Dumps blame atikmdag.sys, your ATI display drivers, may be also caused by overheating

(Do these steps even if you have already reinstalled the ATI drivers)

- Boot into safe mode with networking
- Uninstall the ATI drivers including Catalyst Control Center
- Use driver sweeper to remove leftover ATI display driver files Guru3D - Driver Sweeper (This step is important)
- Reboot into safe mode with networking
- Install the latest drivers. For 32-bit OS For 64-bit OS
- Reboot into normal mode

BugCheck 1000007E, {ffffffffc0000094, fffff88004956119, fffff88002148fb8, fffff88002148820}

Probably caused by : atikmdag.sys ( atikmdag+d3119 )

 

[JohanEhn]

I will try once more as per your instructions. According to HWmonitor my temps are ok, about 70 degrees C at the most during gaming. Other temps seems ok. 50-60 C for cores and 40 C system temp.

I dont have any temps for my Northbridge but the heatsink seems quite hot, approximately 70-80 degrees C.

 

[yowanvista]

heatsink seems quite hot, approximately 70-80 degrees C.

This is too hot, you should clean your PC of dust or get a better cooling system

 

[JohanEhn]

I will look into a new heatsink then. Any suggestions?

I reinstalled the drivers, but i could not install them in safe mode. The installer couldn't detect system data or something like that. Some threads i found recommended updating windos c++ redistributabe, this installer wouldn't work either.

Installer did fine in normal mode though. I will see if there are any changes and try to to pick upp a new cooler monday...

P.S. If i attached a 40mm fan (3.8 cfm) to my current cooler, would that have any effect? I'm having some troubles finding a heatsink that would fit.

 

[JohanEhn]

The problem seems to persist. My computer crashed after about 2 hrs of gaming.

 

[yowanvista]

The problem seems to persist. My computer crashed after about 2 hrs of gaming.

Its most likely overheating or bad GPU/RAM

Test your RAM
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

 

[JohanEhn]

I forgot to mention it but i've already tested my ram, no errors found.

Worth mentioning is that when my computer started crashing i checked temps and found out that my cpu sometimes would run at close to 90 degrees C (this seems new to me, a couple of months ago it ran at aprox. 50-60 C). I changed my cooling and its running at 60 C at the most now.

 

[yowanvista]

I forgot to mention it but i've already tested my ram, no errors found.

Worth mentioning is that when my computer started crashing i checked temps and found out that my cpu sometimes would run at close to 90 degrees C (this seems new to me, a couple of months ago it ran at aprox. 50-60 C). I changed my cooling and its running at 60 C at the most now.

90C is just too hot for a CPU, this might be the cause of your crashes, it should idle at 30-50C and below 70C under load

Take out the heatsink and clean it, also apply thermal paste

 

[JohanEhn]

My CPU is running at 45 idle, 70 load since i changed to my current cooling. My GPU is running at similar temps. recommended max temp for my CPU is 74C, so unless it's damaged i dont see an issue with my CPU. I will replace the thermal paste on my Northbridge.

Since i've experienced such high temps on bort cpu and northbridge, both where fine a couple of months ago, could there be an issue with my PSU?

 

[yowanvista]

Use OCCT to check your components including your PSU
It will check your system stability and report any errors with hardware
OCCT (OverClock Checking Tool) 3.0.0 download from Guru3D.com

 

[JohanEhn]

Haven't been able to change heatsink yet. Will come to that friday when i have time, will also upgrade cooling with sidemounted fan. However OCCT runs nicely on CPU test but crashes on PSU and GPU, in a matter of minutes.
GPU: MEMTEST is unavailable (?). Error message said something about couldn't recognize memory, unfortunately I can't get the program to display the error message again. Will try a reinstall of OCCT later.

I'm guessing this could have something to do with the amount of heat generated during these tests?

All help so far is greatly appreciated as i have little or no knowledge of this subject myself.

I'm attaching files.

 

[yowanvista]

However OCCT runs nicely on CPU test but crashes on PSU and GPU, in a matter of minutes

Most probably one of these is the culprit(most probably the PSU), take out that GPU and try to replicate the same issue in another PC
As for the PSU, check the cables for any defects

Your heatsink could be generating too much heat

 

[JohanEhn]

As i understands it the PSU test stresses most components on the motherboard. So my vote is on the GPU. Especially since I have recently discovered that the D601LED is lit at all times, wich indicates critical core power. This is apparently a common issue on 4870's across a range of PSUs and components. The problem is related to overheating of the voltage regulators. GPU-Z detects the following VDDC phase temps: 55C, 57C, 70C and 57C.

The cards is hot by default but 70C idle seems very high. I'm going to try upgrading the fan on Accelero S1 r2 GPU cooler to a more high-revving one, there is already adequate cooling in the form of a large copper heatsink on the voltage regulators beneath the fan and heatsink. I'm also going to try with another graphics card just to make sure, but if this doesn't work I'll throw in the towel and buy a new graphics card, 5770.

Thanks for your help and if you have any more pro-tips I'd be happy to hear them.

Thanks

Best Regards, Johan