Computer freezing randomly

[lozina]

I have an older machine which I recently reinstalled OS to Windows 8.1 and it seems like since then it is having situations where the whole machine just randomly freezes, and there is nothing I can do except hard shut down with the button on the case.

It has so far only happened while I play a game, though I don't do much else with the PC to have had much time to see if it happens regardless.

What happens is the screen will freeze and the audio will typically repeat in an endless loop. Ctrl + alt + del or the windows key or alt + tab does nothing. I tried running the game in windowed mode to see if it makes a difference, it does not.

One culprit I am suspecting is the gfx card is running too hot. While playing the game it is goes over 85 degrees C while monitoring it. So its entirely possible it is going over 90 by the time the system freezes.

I tried cleaning out my case and the card with compressed air - there wasn't much dust to begin with though. And I even installed an extra 120mm case fan blowing directly towards the card from the front of the case (one of those optional case fan ports I never used before.)

Despite that, the gpu still runs so damn hot while playing the game. Currently it is sitting at around 50 degrees idle which is pretty good I think.

I did confirm the fan on the card (which is an nVidia GeForce GTX 470) does spin properly.

But Im surprised after cleaning it out it seemed to make no difference in how hot the card gets during gameplay.

What else can I try?

I've already turned down the gfx settings on the game drastically!

Or could the freezing be due to soemthing else?

 

[lozina]

Update- going down the gpu temp route I noticed that the fan speed was not changing despite how hot the thing was getting, it stayed at 40% and it is set for auto control.

I decided to download an app to manually control it and I changed it to 80%.

I then ran the game and it seemed to make a huge diff in how hot the core was getting, but then while I left the game running and was using the browser the machine froze again. The temp at the time was only 57 degrees. So I guess that rules out the gpu being too hot.

Why else would the machine freeze up like this? No BSOD, no warnings, just the entire thing freezes up. I have let it sit for several minutes like that it never changes.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Full system specs are always helpful.

It could be numerous things. You wrote you reinstalled the OS, but do you mean you updated from 7 or 8 to 8.1?

Things I would do include - Start by checking the event viewer logs. Next, ensuring the latest drivers for everything. Running memtest on the ram. Use hardware monitor to check all the PSU rails and watch for significant dips. Update to latest bios. Scan drives for errors. reseat everything physically. Even consider redoing the T.I.M. on both CPU and GPU since the system is older.

The vid card is old, could be failing, so if you have another, or can borrow one, it would be good test that if nothing else helps. You can underclock core and ram too. I have dealt with faulty cards that simply could not run the speeds they shipped at anymore. Underclock the ram and or core enough, and they ran flawlessly.