Computer lock up during gaming

[Rowsol]

I was playing skyrim and the screen turned black with a stuttering buzz sound, then 5 seconds later the monitor said no signal. I hit the reset button on the tower and I heard about 8 beeps. I held down the power button to cut it off and a minute later started it back up. Everything is fine apart from firefox looking different. It's weird, the addition tab button isn't a plus sign anymore and when I click on the scroll bar on the right it glows blue.

Anyway, the video card I have runs very hard, 100% fan almost constantly in game and hovers in the 80's. I clean it out regularly so I'm not sure why the fan isn't working like it used to. Maybe it needs thermal grease reapplied. Anyway, I do need a new card but cash is sparse.

To give you an idea, I have a box fan, 20 inches laying flat blowing air into the case and the video card is running at 44% fan speed and idling at 47c.

 

[RCoon]

Check task manager for a program called iehighutility.exe
If that't not it, then there certainly is something unstable in your system. Sounds like a processor lockup. Got anything OC'd?

 

[Rowsol]

No program by that name. Yeah, the cpu is and the gpu was, I forgot I did that. It's been so long ago that I forgot I had. I reverted it back to factory clocks and enabled vsync on the game which has dropped the temps to below 70 so I might be able to get some more time out of this gpu after all. I'll update if it does it again.

 

[Geekoid]

8 beeps is down as Display memory Read/Write test failure

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

So you may have a faulty graphics card / be clocking it too hard.

 

[stinger608]

could possibly be a sound card problem as well. Check to insure the sound drivers are up to date.

That ECS motherboard uses the Realtech High Def sound drivers found here:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

Don't use the ones from ECS as they are from 2009!!!

 

[Rowsol]

8 beeps is down as Display memory Read/Write test failure

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

So you may have a faulty graphics card / be clocking it too hard.

I'm not sure how many beeps it was but I'm pretty sure it's the graphics card. After I was able to drop the temps I played the game for a couple more hours. That's not to say it's definitely the card but I'm assuming it is. This post makes me think it even more.

could possibly be a sound card problem as well. Check to insure the sound drivers are up to date.

That ECS motherboard uses the Realtech High Def sound drivers found here:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

Don't use the ones from ECS as they are from 2009!!!

I'm using a sound blaster card, but thanks.

And to make matters worse I woke up this morning with terrible pain in the back of my neck. Yay...

 

[Aquinus]

could possibly be a sound card problem as well. Check to insure the sound drivers are up to date.

That ECS motherboard uses the Realtech High Def sound drivers found here:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

Don't use the ones from ECS as they are from 2009!!!

Actually, you want to use the ones from 2009. Downloading the reference drivers from Realtek don't always work well and don't support all the audio features that your audio codec might support. All in all, it doesn't matter if software is 4 years old. If it's stable, it's a sign that the driver doesn't need to be updated. I would try the ECS driver first and only try the Realtek one if it doesn't work.

Anyway, the video card I have runs very hard, 100% fan almost constantly in game and hovers in the 80's. I clean it out regularly so I'm not sure why the fan isn't working like it used to. Maybe it needs thermal grease reapplied. Anyway, I do need a new card but cash is sparse.

The TIM on my TwinFrozr 6870 dries out every 6 months for some weird reason. When that happens my idles would go up to ~65*C and loaded temps would be 80*C+. I've never needed to change it on the CPU since I bought it and only once have I changed the TIM on my reference 6870 (which I bought several years ago when the 6870 was first released.)

 

[1nf3rn0x]

I was playing skyrim and the screen turned black with a stuttering buzz sound, then 5 seconds later the monitor said no signal. I hit the reset button on the tower and I heard about 8 beeps. I held down the power button to cut it off and a minute later started it back up. Everything is fine apart from firefox looking different. It's weird, the addition tab button isn't a plus sign anymore and when I click on the scroll bar on the right it glows blue.

Anyway, the video card I have runs very hard, 100% fan almost constantly in game and hovers in the 80's. I clean it out regularly so I'm not sure why the fan isn't working like it used to. Maybe it needs thermal grease reapplied. Anyway, I do need a new card but cash is sparse.

To give you an idea, I have a box fan, 20 inches laying flat blowing air into the case and the video card is running at 44% fan speed and idling at 47c.

If you have that shitty Asus card with the cooler that looks like a formula one car, I'd suggest changing it or reapplying thermal paste.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Firefox is the same for Me as of Last week I think, Likely an update,or Some kinda change. Instead of a + sign it looks like 2(two) capital Letter L's back to back with a straight line between them @ the top like this [ on its side. My Scroll bar also Glows Blue.Reset your Appearance back to the default one in tools, that put it back to the way it was for Me. I dont think the mozilla is tied to your GPU issues though.

 

[de.das.dude]

sounds like thermal throttling.

 

[Rowsol]

Firefox is the same for Me as of Last week I think, Likely an update,or Some kinda change. Instead of a + sign it looks like 2(two) capital Letter L's back to back with a straight line between them @ the top like this [ on its side. My Scroll bar also Glows Blue.Reset your Appearance back to the default one in tools, that put it back to the way it was for Me. I dont think the mozilla is tied to your GPU issues though.

Thanks for the heads up. It happened right after the crash so what am I to think.

Can't find the tools menu you speak of, I'll google to see what I can find.

Oh, you using the FT Deep Dark skin? It updated recently I guess.

sounds like thermal throttling.

Yeah, could have been. Or maybe the overclock on the card was unstable. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Scared the hell out of me when it happened, I thought the card died and my only source of entertainment was gone...

 

[de.das.dude]

try with the side panel off.

it might also be the CPU throttling.

it maybe time for an aftermarket cooler...
or maybe a simple change of paste.

the pre applied paste is poor, and dries up real quick. even toothpaste is better than that stuff XD

 

[Rowsol]

try with the side panel off.

it might also be the CPU throttling.

it maybe time for an aftermarket cooler...
or maybe a simple change of paste.

the pre applied paste is poor, and dries up real quick. even toothpaste is better than that stuff XD

Yeah, I have the side panel off and a 500mm fan blowing the case. The CPU cooler is custom, although a cheap one. I need to buy some paste. I bet it would cut my temps by 10c.

 

[de.das.dude]

i think the cooler you have is worse than the stock one