PC Freezing

[ek5932]

Hey, I wonder if anyone can help me, my PC keeps freezing when I attempt to play any games or do any graphic intensive operations. I originally thought it was my graphics card so I upgraded to a 570 GTX and now the problem is worse. Previously the PC would last for an hour or so before crashing, now it only lasts 5 minutes when trying to play a graphic heavy game. The cards not overheating, it only gets to around 65c when the PC locks up. My next guess was that the power supply wasn't capable hence the bigger card killing the PC quicker. I recently invested in a Corsair GS700 PSU which is more than capable but the PC is still freezing! I reformatted my PC today and I am using the latest Nvidia drivers (296.10) and STILL have no luck, even when trying to determine my system rating both of my monitors go blank and the PC reboots. I'm completely stuck from what it could be, do I really need a new CPU and Mobo as well?

[Scainer]

Is your CPU running default?
Have you tested your memory?

[ek5932]

Everything is running at stock speeds. I'll test my memory now but surely that can't be the culprit seeing as it works fine running the OS normally?

[Scainer]

Just a process of elimination. If its a fresh install and everything is seated happily then to me it has to be a hardware issue.
I've had issues due to unstable OC, and i've also goosed RAM sticks that showed up with Memtest86.
The only other thing I can think is a failing HDD.

[ek5932]

Ran windows memory diagnostics and no problems. I'll run my new card in a different machine just to double check it's not faulty but I highly doubt that's the problem seeing as it was freezing before. Perhaps a motherboard issue?

[Demonwar]

Your temps ok system/CPU? You could be reaching some limits and the BIOS safe guards are kicking in, try with the side off to see it lasts any longer, if it does then it's a case cooling issue probably or CPU getting too hot ( which kinda makes sense if you have added a more beefier card to the mix that was freezing already)
Clean the PC and reapply TIM if needed as well to the CPU
Not sure which tester you ran, but get memtest86 it's a bootable memory checker.

[ek5932]

CPU maxes out at 40 degrees. I ran the system rating check as soon as I turned my PC on after it being off all night so the temps was all right down low and it freezes after seconds. I haven't changed any Bios settings, i've had the system just under a year and it used to run fine in Australian summer and I have now moved to the UK so it's a lot cooler so I don't think it's a temp issue. I used the bootable mem test.

[ek5932]

Ok, so I put the card in a different box and have managed to re-create the error. When running the Windows system rating assessment the Nvidia driver crashed twice. This leads me to believe it's either an issue with the card or driver.

UPDATE: I read on the net lowering the memory clock fixes the issue. I have done so and the PC no longer locks but will this have a major impact on performance? I ran BF3 on ultra settings and it seemed fine?

[nightcypher]

It depends how much you've lowered the memory clock by. Most of the time I don't reckon you're likely to notice that being much of a problem in real-world gaming, as the GPU is the bottleneck in most use cases for gaming.

[bennyboy32]

I'd say motherboard, but thats my own experience, run memtest and check the ram