Random freezes during gameplay...

Hey everyone,

My PC is constantly freezing up while playing certain games. I can play Left4Dead for about 10 minutes before it crashes, and some games I can play for days without a crash. But the problem is, it can crash at any moment. I play a lot of team-based games with real-life friends, and disconnections due to crashes just don't cut it.

I've never seen it crash during web-browsing or other light work, so it appears to be related to heavy load brought on by gaming or other things like that.

I don't know what kind of information I am supposed to provide here, but if anyone has any leads as to how I can track this issue down, that'd be great. Is there any sort of log generated when a computer crashes like that? I can 'induce' this crash by playing heavy games, so if I can open a log or something that might help, that'd be great.

The computer locks up entirely. It is frozen indefinitely until I hard-restart the system. I had this on Windows XP, but updating to Windows 7 didn't fix the problem.


Specs from Steam Hardware Analysis: (Windows 7, 64-bit)


Processor Information:
Vendor: AuthenticAMD
Speed: 3016 Mhz
2 logical processors
2 physical processors
HyperThreading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Supported
SSE41: Unsupported
SSE42: Unsupported

Network Information:
Network Speed: T1 > 1M

Operating System Version:
Windows 7 (64 bit)
NTFS: Supported
Crypto Provider Codes: Supported 323 0x0 0x0 0x0

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250

DirectX Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll
Driver Version: 8.17.12.5721
DirectX Driver Version: 8.17.12.5721
Driver Date: 7 June 2010
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x615
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution: 1440 x 900
Desktop Resolution: 1440 x 900
Primary Display Size: 20.00" x 12.52" (23.58" diag)
50.8cm x 31.8cm (59.9cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 1024 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x

Sound card:
Audio device: Speakers (Realtek High Definiti

Memory:
RAM: 4095 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
Microphone: Don't know
Media Type: DVD
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 238464 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 205995 Mb
Steam Hard Disk Usage: 33 Mb
OS Install Date: Dec 31 1969
Game Controller: None detected

Installed software:
Adobe Reader 9.3
AVG Free 9.0
Hotfix for Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU (KB945282)
Hotfix for Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU (KB946040)
Hotfix for Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU (KB946308)
Hotfix for Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU (KB947540)
Hotfix for Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU (KB947789)
Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger Light (x64) - ENU (KB944899)
Java Auto Updater
Java(TM) 6 Update 20
League of Legends
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Multi-Targeting Pack
Microsoft Application Error Reporting
Microsoft Choice Guard
Microsoft Games for Windows - LIVE Redistributable
Microsoft Help Viewer 1.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Objects
Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Design Tools English
Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 ENU
Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 x64 ENU
Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types
Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU
Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express - ENU
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 ATL Update kb973924 - x64 9.0.30729.4148
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x64 9.0.21022
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.4974
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x64 Runtime - 10.0.30319
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger Light (x64) - ENU
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger Light (x64) - ENU Service Pack 1 (KB945140)
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Prerequisites x64 - ENU
Microsoft Windows SDK for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Express Tools for .NET Framework - enu
Microsoft Windows SDK for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Express Tools for Win32
Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0
Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 3.1
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 (ARP entry)
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 (Platformer)
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 (Redists)
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 (Shared Components)
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 (VCSExpress)
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 (XnaLiveProxy)
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 Documentation
Microsoft XNA Game Studio Platform Tools
MSVCRT
NVIDIA Display Control Panel
NVIDIA Drivers
NVIDIA PhysX
NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver
OpenOffice.org 3.2
Pando Media Booster
Realtek High Definition Audio Driver
Steam
Ventrilo Client for Windows x64
Visual C++ 8.0 Runtime Setup Package (x64)
Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 ENU
Windows Live Call
Windows Live Communications Platform
Windows Live Essentials
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Sign-in Assistant
Windows Live Upload Tool
WinRAR archiver

 

Hey Kibble Just a hunch I looked through your specs and saw this which set my internal alarm bell off.

I didn't know what it is so after a little research it seems its a P2P program for installing LEGITIMATE games it comes up in Lord of the rings Forums a lot 'If anyone has any more info please chirp in"

As far as I can tell it once you have downloaded the game it continues to seed the game for other people using up your upload speed reducing your broadband speed which can crash all your online games,you can remove it add remove programs or access its controls and disable it from starting.

http://www.pando.com/help-pvb

Start there and see if there's any improvement then post back

 

It sounds to me like a Power/Heat issue. Either the power supply is too weak for the system, or there isn't enough airflow in your case, or the fan on the video card could be defective.

Can you try setting the case on the ground with nothing around it and removing the side panel (so it has more air circulation) and see if it works better? Also, if you could post the brand/model of your power supply that would be helpful.

 

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late reply; was away for the weekend.

I removed Pandobooster, but I have had a lockup since then so I don't think that was it (but I removed it anyway, just incase). Thanks for the tip!

Wyatt, I'm running a Corsair VX550w Power Supply on this PC. Does that look like it should be enough juice?

Could it be a memory issue by any chance? Is there a way of generating crash logs and opening them up to see the cause?


Thanks for your help so far!

 

That power supply should be fine for your system, assuming that there isn't an inordinate amount of hard drives or optical drives.

I'm assuming you tried running with the side of the case off and the problem persisted? Also, did you check to see if the video card fan is operating correctly?

You are right, the problem could also be a memory issue. One way to test it would be to run memtest86. ( http://www.memtest86.com/ ) Another way to test would be to remove one of the RAM sticks and see if it freezes up. Then try with the other stick.

 

Thanks; I'll see if I can get memtest86 to work.