Identifying hardware problem that causes crash

[bgd000]

First of all, apologies as I know this is a generic query that doesn't concern the actual game itself, but as the problem I'm having hinders the experience of playing TS2013 mainly, I am hoping another user will have gone through something similar and have a clue about it (I have googled a fair bit before before falling back on trying to ask here).

My system consists of the following: i5-2400 CPU at 3.10Ghz, 8GB ram, NVIDIA GeForce GT 520, 64-bit Win 7

TS2013 runs fine and pretty smoothly, however (and this happens with other games, so looks a hardware problem), at random moments while playing, the computer will just freeze, screen going black and sound freezing into a distorted buzz from the whatever was last being rendered through the speakers. There is no way to recover from this or even exit to Windows, only alternative is a button-press reset of the entire system. There's no pre-emptive warning sign of this ever happening, it doesn't occur in specific circumstances of any kind, and the system looks very stable when immediately restarted (no heightened noise from the machine/fans, BIOS shows system temp of 35C and CPU temp of 39C, which I think is just normal operating temperature?). The GT 520's drivers are all up to date and nothing else looks out of order. I know it's supposed to be a low-end graphics card from that range, but I've read accounts of this game and others that have crashed on me, being played fine with less impressive specs.

Any ideas if there is something I could try/update (software-wise) without shelling out on a new graphics card (or maybe I'm being presumptuous assuming that's the main culprit)? Any thoughts appreciated.

[gptech]

As the temps seem fine I'd be inclined to think your operating system is running into issues. Are the games you have this problem with installed in C:\Program Files (x86) ?

Are you using on board sound or a discrete sound card?

[bgd000]

A couple of them are in PFx86 yes, including TS2013, although it's crashed with another game which is installed in an entirely separate partition of the drive, away from the Windows one.

Sound card is just the integrated one.

[gptech]

Although your graphics card can be viewed as being weak when it comes to gaming, you shouldn't be experiencing a total lock up of the machine necessitating a hard boot; a lock up of a game now and again could be expected but Windows would/should resolve any conflicts and eventually 'un-clog' the system to let you carry on.

As you're using the integrated sound on the motherboard that rules out the possibility of a duff driver/hardware conflict there so I'm going to stick with it being a *problem* with Windows itself.
This could be a UAC/permissions conflict, fairly easy to resolve once identified or, on the other extreme, be an underlying issue with how Windows is installed. Very hard to diagnose unfortunately and you'll get lots of seemingly conflicting advice wherever you ask.

You say the problem is random; again that makes it very hard to pin down so all I can suggest to start with is to keep a record of your gaming sessions over a week, see if there is actually any kind of pattern or common factor hidden in there.

Sorry I can't be of more help, I assume you've checked all your drivers--including the chipset ones from the motherboard manufacturer are up to date, and that there's no reported issues with any of those.

Gary

[koenig]

Could it possibly be your GFX card overheating? I had the same issue a couple of months ago and found that the thermal paste had melted away from my GFX card, I just reapplied some paste and not only does it run 25c cooler but my PC crashing issues seemed to have vanished too.

[lenfish]

Although you have the latest graphics driver it may be worth re-installing it. Uninstall it in the usual way via add/remove programs and reboot. Download and install Driver Sweeper and use it to delete any left over NVidia display and PhysX driver files. Reboot and then install the latest driver as normal. Worth a try. Also, worth a look in Windows in Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Event Viewer to look for any critical errors that may give a clue as to what is going on.

Regards,

Len

[peterfhayes]

Besides heat just check that the psu is up to the job and it is of good quality.
Regards
pH

[bgd000]

You say the problem is random; again that makes it very hard to pin down so all I can suggest to start with is to keep a record of your gaming sessions over a week, see if there is actually any kind of pattern or common factor hidden in there.

Sorry I can't be of more help, I assume you've checked all your drivers--including the chipset ones from the motherboard manufacturer are up to date, and that there's no reported issues with any of those.

No problem, appreciate the time to go through all the ideas and enunciate them. Sweeping check of all drivers sound like a good idea.

[bgd000]

Could it possibly be your GFX card overheating? I had the same issue a couple of months ago and found that the thermal paste had melted away from my GFX card, I just reapplied some paste and not only does it run 25c cooler but my PC crashing issues seemed to have vanished too.

A bit of googling tells me the card isn't aimed at gamers itself, but seeing as the crashes happen even with old/lower spec games, I guess I dismissed that out of hand. Still, that's not a bad thing to check so I shall investigate, thanks for that.

[bgd000]

Although you have the latest graphics driver it may be worth re-installing it. Uninstall it in the usual way via add/remove programs and reboot. Download and install Driver Sweeper and use it to delete any left over NVidia display and PhysX driver files. Reboot and then install the latest driver as normal. Worth a try. Also, worth a look in Windows in Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Event Viewer to look for any critical errors that may give a clue as to what is going on.

Thanks for that, Len. I actually re-installed the drivers yesterday, to an exact version which someone suggested in an old topic would be the most stable for the 520. The first time playing TS after that, it crashed after 10 mins but then ran without a fault for about 3 hours in the evening. Bizarre.

However, I hadn't used the Driver Sweeper to tidy up small remnants of the old one, so will get that and try do it more thoroughly. Cheers for the suggestion.

[bgd000]

Besides heat just check that the psu is up to the job and it is of good quality.
Regards
pH

Thanks, Peter. PSU is 450W, which discussions elsewhere seem to suggest should be enough (other people with similar problems where the cause was traced back to the PSU seemed to be using 300W ones initially). Not sure how I can judge the quality on it - the system was definitely on the budget side as a whole, so if all else fails I'll see if I can identify it and investigate if it can be improved.

[bgd000]

Just to give an update on progress, in case it helps anyone in the future. Basically, after applying all the suggestions kindly provided by posters here, and everything seeming to be in order, I forked out for a new graphics card and the problem seems to have disappeared. Researched a bit and went for a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650Ti. They say size doesn't matter, but all I can say is I had a good feeling about it when I unpacked it and saw it next to the old GT 520. All faultless so far and running smoothly on highest settings.

Many thanks again for all the help provided.

[gptech]

We like happy endings

Good to hear the problem seems to have been fixed.