How do I identify the source of my crashing?

[jimrawr]

I have had this PC for a couple years now, and lately its started to crash on me to the point where I can do any gaming anymore. I don't play overly demanding games, mostly Heroes of Newerth and Dota2. HoN I have been playing since the beta on this system with no problems up until lately. Basically I will be playing the game, and after about 20m or so my PC will completely crash and need a hard restart. Then if I try to reboot right away I will get three beeps from the motherboard and it wont start up. If I wait a bit, then it will start up normally. My first inclination was that it was temperatures, so I bought a new fan (better fan). That didnt help at all. Also I am not sure why all of a sudden temps would be an issue when its not a new system, and I have been playing this game for over two years. So now I think it might be some sort of hardware going bad, but I dont know exactly how to identify the issue. These games that I play are easily run by this system on highest settings without a hiccup, then all of a sudden black screen of death.

I did check my temps at max load and

CPU Cores - 49-50c
GPU Cores - 83-89c

Its a i7-920
nvidia 295gtx
8gb g.skill ram
rosewill 650w power supply

What do you guys think? Could really use some help here. Thanks!

 

[paul878]

Tell us a bit more about the beeps, if it is 1 long 2 short beep, that mean your video is having problem. What motherboard is it?

 

[jimrawr]

Its 3 quick beeps in succession on an Asus p6T motherboard

 

[paul878]

3 short beep indicate memory problem, run memtest to confirm.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Agreed: Three beeps means there has been a base memory read/write test error. Replacing the RAM usually solves this AMI beep code.

 

[jimrawr]

I have two 4gb sticks, can I just remove one and see if the problem is fixed? If not, swap out the other one? Link to memtest86? Is that the correct one?

 

[Bubbaleone]

Yup...try one stick at a time.

 

[jimrawr]

If its a memory problem, why would it only happen during gaming and not during regular PC use?

 

[jimrawr]

Ran the MEMTEST86, did one PASS and had 0 errors, told me to press esc to exit and no errors found.

Any other ideas? Im going to try and recreate the crash (not hard, happens everytime I am gaming after 20 mins or so). I want to do this to make sure I am correct in hearing the 3 beeps.

 

[Bubbaleone]

If its a memory problem, why would it only happen during gaming and not during regular PC use?

How long do you play at a time? You're utilizing a lot of memory during game play. Run MEMTEST86 at full load for two or three hours and see what happens.

 

[jimrawr]

Usually I play 45 mins to a couple hours max. The crashing happens after 20 mins. I just did it again, and actually its 1 long beep followed by 3 short beeps. Thats still memory error, right? Should I maybe run MEMTEST all night? When you say run it at full load, how exactly would I do that? I mean I am booting to a cd with mem test on it, so how would I put the PC on full load?

 

[Bubbaleone]

Guide to using Memtest86+

 

[Steltek]

Usually I play 45 mins to a couple hours max. The crashing happens after 20 mins. I just did it again, and actually its 1 long beep followed by 3 short beeps. Thats still memory error, right? Should I maybe run MEMTEST all night? When you say run it at full load, how exactly would I do that? I mean I am booting to a cd with mem test on it, so how would I put the PC on full load?

Yeah, that is the AMI BIOS beep code indication of a memory failure. It is best to test one memory module at a time. Pull a module, then boot the Memtest86+ CD and let it run for a few hours on the remaining module. If you don't get an error, swap the modules and repeat.

 

[sm625]

Most likely, all you need to do is pull out your memory and put it back in. Blow out the dust while you're at it.

 

[jimrawr]

1 long beep followed by 3 short beeps is still memory? I read somewhere else thats a VGA problem so likely my video card failing? Going to pull the memory and reinstall it today

 

[paul878]

1 long beep followed by 3 short beeps is still memory? I read somewhere else thats a VGA problem so likely my video card failing? Going to pull the memory and reinstall it today

Depends on the manufacturer, beep codes are really not standardized.
In this case, according to the Asus P6t manual it is a VGA problem.

 

[jimrawr]

So I guess the next step is to call EVGA to send in for an RMA