PC shuts down, blue error screen.

Hello,

Built a new PC on last Sunday. Initially had a lot of trouble getting it to post (boot device LED remained red). After 3 hours of troubleshooting, gave up, went to bed. Woke up the next morning, decided to power it on and try just for the heck of it. Presto! It worked! Seemed odd but was relieved!

The first time I tried playing my game (WoW), things looked terrific. Had a framerate of 130 on ultra settings and about 60 in a heavy raid setting. The next day when I logged on, I had a mere 30fps, and the game was choppy. I had not made any changes. When I adjusted the in-game settings (graphics) down, my framerate jumped to 60fps. A couple hours later it suddenly climbed to 130. I had made no changes, hadn't rebooted, etc.

Yesterday, Same stuff. Decided to update the video card and reboot, didnt make a difference. I adjusted the settings down and it sat at 45fps. In addition, the computer completely crashed twice while playing. I was not doing anything particularly graphic intensive during these crashes. I got a blue screen saying it was shutting down because of a system failure and it restarted on its own. (Both times). The second time occurred about 20 minutes later so at that point I decided just to power off and not use the computer any more for the night.

To be honest I don't know a whole lot about computers so I was hoping someone might have some insight as to what may be going wrong.

A) why would the fps be so touchy in game?
B) why would the computer completely crash? Any ideas on what I could troubleshoot there?
C) Should I be concerned about the initial trouble getting to post? Sign of trouble to come? Seems like a common complaint with this motherboard.

My computer is no where near top of the line but I expected it to perform quite well. I'm worried I ended up with bad parts, or maybe I was just misinformed on what to expect performance wise. In either case I feel like I got ripped off.

Here is my build:

Power Supply: Antec 650w Green
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

Operating System: Windows 7 64bit
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q0PT3I/ref=ox_ya_os_product

Vid Card: MSI Twin Frozr (R7870)
http://www.msi.com/product/vga/R7870-Twin-Frozr-2GD5-OC.html

MoBo: Asus Z-778/Thunderbolt
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

Processor: Intel i5 3570k
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5...qid=1353179030&sr=1-1&keywords=intel+i5+3570k

HD: WD Caviar 1TB
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...&keywords=Western+Digital+WD+Black+WD1002FAEX

Ram: 2x 4gb Patriot Viper
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220685

Thanks for any advice you may have for me. I eagerly wait for response!

On a side note: I wondered if I should try overclocking? Any thoughts on that?

 

This kind of blue screen i fought with this two years ago.When i noticed this kind of error then i just went to my pc provider. then i changed my hard drive. these kind of problem occurs due to your hard drive may be you should check your ram. else you have to do like me.

 

Hi my friend , welcome to MG's :major

You have temperature problem i think , you should download this tool

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Core_Temp_1.0_RC3_d7258.html

even you can follow this

Start
My Computer ( right click )
Properties
Advanced tab
Startup and Recovery ( pushing Settings )
Automatic Restart ( un box tick from Automatic Restart )
Ok
Apply
Ok

when the bsod is appeared again you are able to give the error code :wave

 

This is definitely hardware, and I've seen hard drives pull this kind of stunt. Not too recently, I had a "Frankenputer" which would occasioally lock up at the XP splash screen, but every drive diagnostic said it was "healthy". Turned out the drive had issues which were not related to sectors, or platters. Remember, BIOS won't post if something is screwy.

What type of RAID are you running, if any and how many drives?

And, like Falcon said, we need those BSOD codes.