Black screening during gameplay

Hey all relatively new to these forums, but you all seem very helpful so I thought i'd give it a try.

Recently i've put a new mobo/chip in, and ever since I can only run games for 15-30 mins before my computer reboots itself. Only during gaming mind you.

I've gone through the usual checks... Dust, Spyware,malware etc...
I've changed video cards, reformatted, added extra cooling/ventilation, and got a new master hard drive alltogether. I can't seem to get it to stop shutting down.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

My specs are:
Intel core i7
Asus PSX58D-E
Thermaltake 750W
Geforce GTX 200
Windows XP 64bit proffesional
Service pack 2
6 GB of Corsair ram

Thanks in advance.

 

Greetings, Shrad.

Let's see if we can get a handle on what's going on. I'm on a Win 7 machine, but your path should be similar:

Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Settings.
Make sure 'Automatically restart' is not checked, and choose 'Small memory dump' in the 'Write debugging information' dropdown box. OK out of Control Panel.

Now, download and install BlueScreenView. If and when the next crash occurs, the crash dump should be recorded by BSV, and you can attach the resultant file here so we can take a look at it.

 

Assuming the new mobo is okay, here's a few things to check before anything else:
1. Are the drivers right? Are you getting errors in the Event Viewer that can shed light on this?
2. Did you remember to connect the graphics card power cable? If you have a beefy graphics card it may well require it's own power cord, and from personal experience it's easy to forget to connect it.
3. Are all the fans plugged into the mobo? The time delay before a reboot certainly matches a heat issue.
4. Likewise are any of the cords loose or might be getting bad connection? It's easy to have the PSU power cord slightly pulled out from the PSU while you were working on the PC, and that kinda thing is hard to diagnose. I even once had the leg of my desk resting against the Reset button on the power strip - frustrating, but very funny when i finally figured it out.

I know the list above is full of annoying suggestions, but it's a lot more annoying to discover it was something obvious after you've investing hours into looking for a more complex cause.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the help

Caliban, I havent been able to get it to restart/crash (oddly enough) since I unchecked the automaticly restart, but Im still trying.

And grif, i've looked over the event viewer many times, checked all my power cables and such, and was thoroughly amused by your story of the desk leg on your power cord (which I also checked ;p) thanks for the reply.

 

Not crashing is a good thing!

Hang in there, and keep us posted.

 

Your machine is incredibly similar to the one I just built (6GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Corsair 1000w, Intel i7 920, Win7 64bit).

I'm betting on an incompatibility issue. Either it's software or it's hardware. Agree with 94dgrif about checking on the drivers. But I also say, look into your mobo/chip compatibility. I say this because I'm currently having major issues on my machine because of the older ASUS video card I put in there. My rig isn't restarting like yours, but I'm getting black screens, scrambled, random flickers, etc. And I know it's the video card lol. Which is why I have a new one landing on Wednesday. I don't know much about your MB, but I have read up on your card. It's an older one like mine is (approx 2 years), so make sure that's not the problem.

 

I had the automaticly restart option taken off, It restarted during gameplay, and the Bluescreenview program doesnt seem to have recorded anything about it.

 

BSV is for recording and translating the memory dumps deposited from a blue screen crash. If Windows is not delivering that information (which we tried to get it to do by disabling the 'auto restart'), then something deeper may be going on.

Agreed with the others, especially since the issues started when you installed a new motherboard and CPU. You might consider reviewing your install procedure: make sure no standoffs are shorting to the case, clean and reapply heatsink thermal paste, clean and reseat the RAM modules, etc.

You also mentioned that the crashes occur only during gaming. What games? Have you tried different resolutions, toning down game settings such as AA, etc.?

 

Yeah I was thinking thermal paste reapplication myself, going to pick some up tommorow, i'll play with the ram and such as wall. And As for the games it seems like pretty much anyone that require the graphics card, from Starcraft 2 to Warhammer online, and i've tried running everything at the very lowest settings, to no avail.

What exactly are standoffs?

 

Standoffs are the things that secure the motherboard in place, but at a distance from the case. They need to be there so that none of the components of the board touch the case and short everything out. But they also need to be the right size - if your motherboard only has room for small standoffs and you have chunky ones that stray outsize of their zone, then they may be causing problems themselves.

I don't see you having a memory or hard drive problem. I have never seen a memory or hard drive problem that didn't give a lot of indication of being the cause - error messages, events, very random effects, and so on. The same is pretty much true of the graphics card. I've seen situations where the program using the graphics card instantly closes, or the comp flashes a BSOD and reboots, but never a situation without any warning or error message.

Spontaneous unexpected crashing suggests a physical, electrical or possibly a heat problem to me - though for it to be heat I'd expect everything to slow down or become unstable shortly before the crash. You've checked that everything's plugged in the right ports, and connected tightly. You're about to check the standoffs in case they're allowing a short. All that being said, the remaining possibilities I can think of are:
1. The PSU wasn't putting out enough power or had a bad cord, and only since your upgrades has it reached the tipping point or had that bad cord plugged into something.
2. You bought a faulty CPU.
3. You bought a faulty mobo.
4. The power cord for the PSU has moved to a bad outlet.
5. Your thermal paste idea was a good one - does your BIOS have a auto shutdown when CPU gets too hot?
6. The standoff idea was a good one.
7. You're wife is in the garage flipping the breaker just to screw with you.