new build constantly freezing

[dmoll14]

Hi again,

I have already posted this question in my last thread, as I have been encountering a large number of problems with my new build , however I haven't gotten any answers yet and am posting this in a new thread in the hope that someone will help me.

I recently finished my very first PC build, and almost straight off the bat experienced problems. when installing a LAN Driver of my motherboard drivers CD my screen flashed a stack of random colours then switched off. I went to install a different LAN driver and the exact same thing happened. Both of these times, I had to switch off my PSU and leave the PC for 10 minutes before it decided to boot up completely. After that, I experienced two switch-offs without any warning, except without the flashing screen.

So here's what I'm struggling with now:

On Hexus advice, I ran memtest 86+ for two passes, and it detected no errors. So I reinstalled windows and left the LAN Drivers alone. that seemed to fix the first problem. I installed all the drivers I needed, and a bit later Installed and ran Far Cry 2, which I had previously played on another PC without any issues. about 3 minutes into the intro sequence, my PC completely froze, refusing to respond to anything except for me holding down the power button. This has happened 5 times on FC2, always around the same point but never exactly the same. It has also happened twice when idling or installing software, except around 1.5 hours after booting up. As was the case with my last issue, my PC refused to boot up properly until around 10 minutes after each freeze-up, not even reaching the BIOS, simply sitting with all the lights on and nobody home. I have never gotten the BSOD, and the PC hasn't given me any error messages.

As it was happening at around the same time frame, I suspected overheating, and installed and ran FanSpeed about 20 minutes after bootup. here are the results:

Temperatures:
GPU: 33C
System: 30C
CPU: 31C
AUX: 43C
SMIOVT4: 31C
SMIOVT5: 31C
SMIOVT6: 31C
HD0: 30C
Core0: 33C

Voltages:
3Vsb: 3.42V
Vbat: 0.00V
Vcore: 0.98V
+12V: 11.93V
AVcc: 3.38V
3Vcc: 3.36V
VIN1: 0.04V
VIN2: 1.71V
VIN3: 0.85V

This is my rig:
CPU : Core i5 3570 with stock cooler
Mobo: AsRock z77 Pro4-M
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 660OC
PSU: Corsair VS650 650W
HDD: Hitachi 1TB 7200rpm

The only causes I can think of are that: 1) when I was building my rig I accidentally pushed a pin out of place on the front-panel molex connector and had to bend it back, and 2) That I had to slightly tilt my GPU in its PCIE slot to fit in my HDMI cable because there is a lip on the back of the case that prevented the cable from entering the HDMI port fully, although using the card in a different port didn't stop the freezing.

I know that this is probably an excessively long post, but I wanted to give you guys as many details as possible to help you help me.

I hope that these details will be useful and thank you guys in advance for your help, as I am getting extremely frustrated because of all these problems I'm having.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is the PSU a VS 650W or a VX 650W??

[flearider]

did you reseat the cpu heatsink ?and if so did you clean and reapply tim ?

[dmoll14]

Is the PSU a VS 650W or a VX 650W??

Definitely VS650, although it may be an APAC-only model, I'm not sure.

did you reseat the cpu heatsink ?and if so did you clean and reapply tim ?

No, I haven't as I didn't think that the issue could be heat-related, as I said in the original post. also, I just used the stock cooler with the tim pad, so I don't have any more to reapply if I were to reseat the cooler.

[heXuser]

Make sure to also turn off the IGP on i5 when you play games from the BIOS. Are you sure you are using the gtx660 and not the on board? There was an update Microsoft recently pulled that caused endless loops, freezing and restarting etc. Too many updates without restarting can cause problems also. Personally I prefer to Update with windows update, restart, install more windows updates, restarting again and then install rest of drivers one at a time and each time restarting to be on safe side.

After the above steps, I would start looking into hardware one at a time