I am having a problem with my computer freezing whenever i play games. Almost any new game from crysis, age of conan, and call of duty 4 play for a few hours then my whole pc freezes and i have to restart. I am using : amd fx 60 processor, msi K8N motherboard, BFG 8800 GTX OC 768MB PCIe (factory OC), 2 gb OCZ ram, and windows xp pro. I have a 750w power supply that i believe is working fine, and its all encased in the thermaltake kandalf case. CPU and GPU both have stock cooling. i ran a temp monitoring program and saw that under a high-ish load without freezing up my cpu temp got to about 58C and my gpu got to about 83C. Any ideas what could be making my pc freeze up? and any help on fixing this issue? I love pc games and its my gaming platform of choice so please help.
Which one? Some OCZ PSUs are good, some not so good. For the CPU, can you use a Thermalright IFX-14 with socket AM2? That's a very powerful cooler and is recommended for a blisteringly hot CPU like the FX-60. For the GPU I recommend the Thermalright HR-03Plus with a Sharkoon, Scythe, Nexus or Antec 92mm fan.
Yeah the GameXStreams are probably the weakest of OCZ's PSU lines, shortly followed by the ProXStream. They're not that bad though, so it's not immediate cause for concern. What temperature does your motherboard reach during games?
its a 939 socket type. those heatsinks look good, but any recommendations that don't require me to buy the fan separately?
not that are as good, certainly not for the graphics cooler. Fitting the fan isn't hard, and for a card like the 8800GTX you really do need to get the best cooler you can find, they run hot, as do the FX-60s. The motherboard temperature is also fine, so at the moment I'm not really seeing what the problem is.
i think i forgot to mention that those temps do not plateau or stay the same. the temps rise then stop for a minute or so then rise again. 83 was simply the peak that i got for playing a game for less than an hour.
Ah, you didn't mention that. If you can, play a game in a window with a temperature monitor open. See if the temperature still rises, and make a note of what it is when the PC crashes.
ok so it doesnt seem like my temps get too high while playing most games. for most games nvidia system monitor says 83 while rivatuner says 73, and cpu NSM says 50 something. however looking at other forums most people who have a graphics card overheating problem, the screen usually has lines or changes colors or something to do with the visuals. my computer however just stops. like a perfect screenshot there is no lines so blurring nothing. It just hangs. would this mean that this is probably more of a cpu or motherboard problem?
actually scratch that. even rivatuner says that the gpu gets up to about 85 almost 90 sometimes, and the nvidia system monitor says thats the threshhold. cpu gets up to almost 60 and nvidia SM says thats the threshhold for the cpu so i think that maybe both gpu and cpu are getting a little too hot maybe?
also the motherboard i'm using the K8N-SLI i bought refurbished from a used computer parts store and the guy showed unease about its working ability so would a questionably faulty motherboard make the computer crash as well?
Unfortunatley its a case of hit and miss trying to identify the offending hardware. I had a exactly the same problem a year or so ago where I would be playing games and they would suddenly freeze during play, like a perfect screenshot. For me, it ended up being the graphics card. It eventually died and the problems disappeared with its replacement.....
You get graphical errors if the memory overheats on a graphics card. If the core overheats you get a crash, a freezeframe image, not always with any issue with the sound. FX-60 CPUs run hot, it's their nature, the problem is more likely to be with your GPU I think. You might consider replacing it, or using a third party cooler...
