PC Freezes while gaming - PSU gone?

[Lycanthrope]

My advice (and easiest way to check) is run Memtest. This kind of thing is almost always RAM-related, in my experience.

Method to use: test with all RAM in the PC for a good while. If there are errors then turn off, remove one module, repeat.

Good luck.

 

[avaratz]

You could also try and run stress tests that target certain components individually - that would probably help you isolate the source of the problem. If you've formatted your OS recently then we can fairly safely say it's a hardware issue (barring a driver problem). I'm not huge into benchmarking programs but AFAIK Sisoft Sandra (http://www.sisoftware.net/) has options to run stress tests on individual components.

 

[Dan C]

Well, I also noticed it only with online games...

I can play Dirt2 fine, yet I've only done about 3 x 1hr sessions of Dirt.

To add:
I have also tried formatting my OS HDD, no change...

Ok, so can you confirm that it only happens when you play online ? I've read about lots of other people that had this problem... i.e. freezing during online gaming. Seems only to be a problem with the HD5000 series.. in my case it was HD5770.

I also reformatted, installed latest drivers etc.. nothing helped. Luckily when I switched to Win 7, the problem disappeared.

 

[Re83L]

Update:

I ran Intelburntest for about an hour.
It passed 10 runs.

I ran CHKDSK and Memtest, with no errors either.

I switched cards with an old 8800GT, and the same problem was still there..

I will try re-seating my CPU, RAM, GPU, and CPU fan over the weekend.
Hold thumbs!

 

[Archer]

Sounds like its down to the PSU or motherboard.

 

[Re83L]

Sounds like its down to the PSU or motherboard.

I'm also thinking that...

Any1 in CT want a Corsair TX750w to test for a couple of days?
I don't need a PC during the week.

I will try and see whether it happens in offline COD as well over the weekend.

 

[Hectic]

I had a similar problem with a customers pc a while ago. The pc also sometimes would not boot past POST. I could not find a problem. It was twice sent to suppliers. They could not find any problem either. After a huge fight between the customer and the supplier, the case came back to me.

I stress tested everything for almost 3 hours. Eventually I found that the 12v line readings were 8V or lower and the 5V line fluctuated between 1 and 3V. The readings were within the accepted margins when I tested it before stress tests. Replaced the psu with a Corsair and 4 months later, still no problems.

My money is on the psu.