Lockup in Games - No BSOD

[dr0be]

Totally stumped with this one guys. I just built a mostly new ITX build and in two games now I get a similar crash. After some game time (random; Sometimes in 10 mins, other times hours with no issues), the audio produces a short burst of static and cuts out and the entire system locks - can't alt-tab, alt+f4, win+D, whatever, but all games/programs lockup and stay on the screen. Below I will list the specs and everything I've done so far to troubleshoot.

Specs:
- Boot Samsung 950 Pro
- 500GB WD Black & 3TB WD Green (reused from last build)
- i7-6700k (stock clock/volt)
- MSI Z170i gaming pro AC motherboard
- 16GB DDR4
- MSI GTX 970 (reused) (stock clock/volt)
- EVGA 850W PSU (reused. Less than year old and worked fine in last build)

Steps I've taken:
- Had temps open during a crash (never over 55C CPU and 65C GPU)(All Noctua case fans - no air flow problems)
- Reinstalled video and sound drivers
- Uninstalled wifi and bluetooth drivers since I don't use either.
- Turned on small memory dumps to try to catch a stop error code, but the crash does not produce a minidump to %systemroot%
- Ran memtest on both RAM sticks; Both passed, no errors.
- Visually checked for blown/crowned capacitors.
- Double checked power connections.
- Ran chkdsk. No errors.
- Updated BIOS.

Any help or ideas would be wonderful. Thanks.

 

[Ketchup]

Freezes with no blue screen (minidump) are usually a power problem.

One other thing I noticed is that you are using a WD green. They have a pretty short period of unuse in which they will spin down to idle. So if you are in the middle of a game that doesn't use the drive at all (and the drive has previously been running for a while), there could be a small possibility that the drive is spinning down, which may cause some confusion to the system as it waits for the spin-down to complete.

Another small possibility is a memory problem, but those would create a dump file, at least once.

 

[dr0be]

Freezes with no blue screen (minidump) are usually a power problem.

One other thing I noticed is that you are using a WD green. They have a pretty short period of unuse in which they will spin down to idle. So if you are in the middle of a game that doesn't use the drive at all (and the drive has previously been running for a while), there could be a small possibility that the drive is spinning down, which may cause some confusion to the system as it waits for the spin-down to complete.

Another small possibility is a memory problem, but those would create a dump file, at least once.

Would be odd that this PSU would be dying already since I just bought it in April and it's totally overkill for this build.

As for the WD Green, I only keep media on it - games are on the WD Black.

Someone on another forum suggested it could be a crap SATA cable, which I did change to the fresh new ones that came with the ITX board. Been playing a game now for an hour or so with no issues, but we'll see.

 

[Ketchup]

Good. Maybe that was it. Would also explain why it only happens in games.

 

[dr0be]

Good. Maybe that was it. Would also explain why it only happens in games.

Alright. Changed back to the old SATA cables I was using in my old build and was able to play a game that previously locked up for about three hours with no issues. Maybe coincidence, but hopefully the new SATA cable was just a dud.

 

[dr0be]

Bump. Well, just got the same crash with different SATA cables so that can be ruled out. Still no minidump file. Not sure what else to do - I just don't know.

 

[Ketchup]

How often are you having issues now? You may want to try running memtest, or running memory one stick at a time.

To you see a blue screen? If so, tell Windows not to auto-reboot. Write down the message, google the description.

Let us know what you get.

 

[dr0be]

How often are you having issues now? You may want to try running memtest, or running memory one stick at a time.

To you see a blue screen? If so, tell Windows not to auto-reboot. Write down the message, google the description.

Let us know what you get.

It crashed once in about 3-4 hours of game time. I have already ran memtest on each stick - both passed after ~10 hours with 0 errors.

Setting Windows to not auto reboot and to create small mem dumps was my first step, but no crashes produce a dump file so I assume that's because it's not BSODing.

Assuming all my troubleshooting techniques are successful filtering out suspect hardware, I'm thinking it's either the motherboard or video card. I know microcenter has a 30 day return on video cards so I think I'm going to buy a new one and see if I can replicate the crash. Crashes; Probably the motherboard. Doesn't crash; It was the GPU and I can RMA the GTX970.