Computer crashing...

[Hicks12]

Right in the last few months ive been having some issues with my system, basically this is what will happen:

Be playing games for hours (or literally minutes...) and then while im in game my pc will randomly display black screen for a second and just stays on but dead (i.e everything on skype and everything is DEAD but power to system still running), having to force it to reboot it then does POST and then bluescreens before windows logo, i then have to turn it off and try again it will BSOD again and again. If i leave it for like a few minutes off it then provides me with a boot error, seems my f60 SSD gets kicked off the boot list after these crashes, i then put that back in the list by loading a preset list i had and then it works fine.

Now the annoying thing is that its mostly random, it hasnt happened while at desktop or browsing at all but it will sometimes happen a day a part of a week apart or when im gaming for 20minutes or 5 hours.

Ive tried to narrow it down and i think its either the driver for my gpu is bad, which im not sure is the case as ive tried 4 different versions now and they havent fixed it...

This is the BSOD report The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000116 (0xfffffa8008424010, 0xfffff8800ff11ae4, 0xffffffffc000009a, 0x0000000000000004). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 092311-13416-01.
http://www.carrona.org/bsodindx.html#0x00000116
this was an interesting google search, "Since Vista, the "Timeout Detection and Recovery" (TDR) components of the OS video subsystem have been capable of doing some truly impressive things to try to recover from issues which would have caused earlier OSs like XP to crash. As a last resort, the TDR subsystem sends the video driver a "please restart yourself now!" command and waits a few seconds. If there's no response, the OS concludes that the video driver/hardware combo has truly collapsed in a heap, and it fires off that stop 0x116 BSOD."

That could be why i get a black screen and its unresponsive? Now the temperatures shouldn't be the problem as its under water and there are no leaks. The gpu has never hit more than 31C load so it really shouldnt.

I have just double checked those temps and something caught my eye.... i basically have my gpu outputing via dvi to my monitor and hdmi to the a/v receiver for audio, the way nvidia does it requires me to have it "duplicate" my monitors display or else it wont let audio go over... stupid really but anyways, ive noticed that on the desktop with firefox open and av receiver on my gpu is at max clocks! Basically power save hasnt kicked in at all, seems gpu load is 10-15% all the time but as soon as i turn off the a/v receiver the power save kicks in and it drops from like 700/900/1400 to like 300/150/800.... odd? and as soon as i switch it on again its max clocks immediately.

Another thing that i dont recall seeing before (its possible it might have but i dont think so), my fan controller that i use for pumps and fans (rated to >20w each channel, ensured that it was correct for pumps first). Well last night the most recent crash i noticed my pumps were off?! They were set to max on the fan controller however i noticed the display was quite dim(has lcd/led display what ever ) and it took numerous times of turning the dials down and back up, eventually the pumps started to turn but it sounded like almost trying to turn over an engine when its cold etc, struggling and eventually got there and each time i tried i could see the display dim and then the pumps gave up it went bright again but was fine when they were running. I have even replicated the dimming just now by turning one pump off and back on, i have a feeling its possible that my PSU is on its way out? As its possible its struggling to keep a constant voltage and supply it properly and that meant that while gaming it killed the pumps (i can never hear them as im on skype with headset) due to lack of power and they never kicked back on so there was no cool water and the gpu eventually went.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, and rebooted and that would also explain why waiting a minute or two helps?.

Would you think thats the most plausible cause? i dont have huge amounts of cash available however i have set aside plenty for a new rig next month so im able to scrounge some more for a new psu if its needed. I have no alternative gpu so cant test it... .

Any other suggestions/things to try? i will try it under furmark for awhile to see if i can replicate it as its so random .

edit: forgot to say, i get NO graphic corruption just a simple black screen...

[blueball]

Could well be PSU given other issues you are seeing. Scan have PSUs at around the £20 mark if you needed something to test. Was going to say I have a Thermaltake SilentPower 680W in the cupboard I could sell but given you can get new ones for about £20 there isnt much point.

[Phage]

Sounds like PSU to me. But this may shed more light.
http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

[kalniel]

GPU issue or too low northbridge voltages IMHO.

[Hicks12]

thanks for the replies guys, phage that software is actually useful which i wasnt expecting . Apparently its my graphic drivers, says that all 4 crashes within the last 2 weeks were most likely cause by version 285.27... its odd as i actually changed that driver half way through i swear, so bit of an odd one but im going to a much older driver as the 280 was always a problem gone to 275.33 so lets see if that causes any problems.

Ive ran furmark for 2 hours on max stress and was still browsing the web but no crashes... still doesnt let the psu off the hook yet as in games its alot more random in terms of power required where as furmark basically forces to keep at max. Will be interesting to see if it crashes again, hope not but

[Hicks12]

right i hope i dont jinx this but my pc hasnt crashed since updating to the new drivers for bf3, so hopefully it was just a combination of crappy drivers and sc2 exploiting something .

Thanks for your help guys!

[CakeBoy]

Thanks from me too, I had not come across Resplendence before. Very handy.