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Video card crashes when gaming

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occasional_game

Junior Member
Hello,

My monitor enters stand-by when gaming. It happens with a variety of games, but I'll use Dead Space as an example.

Specs: Windows 7, Intel E8400 @ 3GHz (stock), Asus P5K-E, 4x1GB OCZ ram, Sapphire 5770 1GB graphics card, 4 SATA disk drives, Antec NeoHE 550W PSU.

When playing Dead Space with V-Sync on, the load on my GPU is about 30% and I get low frame rates (this is a known general issue). However, I can play as long as I want. I can also play older games (e.g., Doom 3) without instability.

When playing Dead Space with V-Sync off, I get high frame rates. But after about 3 minutes of game play, my monitor enters stand-by. Audio continues for about 10 seconds more, before the system becomes unresponsive and requires a hard reboot. Logs from monitoring programs indicate (just before the crash) my CPU load is below 70% and temperature is below 50C; my GPU load is almost 100% and temperature is below 65C.

This problem has been occurring for quite a while. But because I don't game often, I've put off trying to fix it. Heat does not seem to be an issue. My power supply provides 18A on the 12V rail connected to my video card and disk drives (it provides a total of 42A over all three 12V rails). Several MemTest passes yield no memory errors. I've downgraded and upgraded drivers, but with no change. I tried an older video card (Radeon 2600xt) and got similar results. However, that time, I was able to game for about 15-20 before crashing.

I'm not sure what the problem is or how else to troubleshoot it. I’d welcome any advice. Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks, busydude for the quick reply. However, my situation seems a little more drastic than the ones in your link. There, the game crashes to the desktop. I have to push the restart button on my case (sometimes, that doesn't work and I have to hold the power button).
 
occasional_game said:
Thanks, busydude for the quick reply. However, my situation seems a little more drastic than the ones in your link. There, the game crashes to the desktop. I have to push the restart button on my case (sometimes, that doesn't work and I have to hold the power button).
Click to expand...

After you get a black screen with audio playing.. its take a good 15-30 seconds before you are taken back to the desktop.

Did you wait for some time before trying to reset/force shutdown your system?
 
busydude: Yes, I did wait sometime before restarting.

RedShirt: I had 10.09 installed previously (and still experienced this problem), but I will try re-installing it. Thanks.
 
Run a program called Furmark to ensure it's not hardware related. If it runs fine for twenty minutes or more do yourself a favor and disable Catalyst A.I. in the Catalyst control center; that should fix your problem.
 
I'm using 10.10 right now. I tried 10.09 with no change. I've experienced this problem even with my 2600xt and Catalyst 9.x. However, with the 2600xt, the problem would only surface after an hour or so of gaming.

BD231: I ran both OCCT (DirectX) and Furmark (OpenGL) and experienced the same problem 2-3 minutes into the test.

Considering this, is it safe to conclude that I have a hardware defect? How would I determine if it's my PSU or my mobo?
 
Last edited:
I swapped the PCIe power cable from my (modular) PSU and can now complete both OCCT and Furmark (I stopped the tests after 10 minutes).

I'll continue to test, but I think I've found the culprit. Thanks for the advice.
 
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