Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Complex problem with new hardware

Mar 10, 2017 7:11AM PST

Hello,
Before I start I want to apologize for my English.
Two weeks ago I have changed some components in my PC - CPU, GPU, Motherboard and RAM. I wanted to test the capabilities of my new PC, so I ran a few games. Five minutes into the game and some of them are freezing and some just crash without an single error. I searched for a sollution, but none of them helped. Sometimes PC shows REFFERENCE_BY_POINTER BSOD. I found out that the problem may be caused by old drivers, so I used Display Driver Uninstaller to delete them ( yes - I should've done it earlier). Program told me that I should run Windows in safe mode, and I did just that. Another problem occured - after turning on PC my monitor had not received signal from my graphics card (monitor connected with HDMI cable to my GPU). I've also noticed that my GPU doesn't show this lines right after turning my PC on (ones from BIOS). I've managed to "repair" the problem by plugging HDMI directly to my motherboard. After deleting old drivers I wanted to check if my card works properly so I modified core clock in MSI Afterburner by +5 MHz. Even after such low overclock my graphics card became very unstable and it's failing to load up Chrome properly.
I've formatted my hard drive to reinstall Windows, but these problems still occur.
I've also ran GPU benchmark, but it does work great - without any errors.

Here are the parts that I've changed:

GPU - ZOTAC GTX 1050 Ti
CPU - AMD FX 8300
Motherboard - GIGABYTE 78LMT USB3 rev. 6.0
RAM - 8 GB DDR3

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Do these games always crash at the ssame place?
Mar 12, 2017 10:27PM PDT

NT

- Collapse -
Clarification v.4
Mar 14, 2017 10:48AM PDT

No, they tend to crash at diffrent places

- Collapse -
Answer
Make it simple.
Mar 10, 2017 7:20AM PST

Call the maker or supplier and begin the returns of what doesn't work.

That is, if new parts don't work right, send them back.

- Collapse -
Overclocking is well, unsupportable.
Mar 10, 2017 8:00AM PST

While you might think 5 is a small number, all bets are off on overclocking. Feel differently about that? Talk to the maker's support.

- Collapse -
Answer
PSU
Mar 10, 2017 7:23AM PST

What's the rating on your power unit in the computer?

- Collapse -
Answer
Power unit
Mar 10, 2017 7:39AM PST

My power unit delivers 500 watts.

- Collapse -
Unless it's single rail
Mar 10, 2017 10:52AM PST

then that's probably not enough for the hardware used.

- Collapse -
Is that continuous or max output?
Mar 10, 2017 10:52AM PST

there is a difference.

- Collapse -
The question
Mar 11, 2017 12:14AM PST

I find it weird that GTA V is working perfectly fine, but other games ( with lower requirements) just crash.

- Collapse -
yes, that's odd
Mar 11, 2017 6:47AM PST

That would indicate a software problem, most likely from the games. Are the less demanding games newer or older than the GTA V? Do you have the latest Direct X installed?

- Collapse -
It's a shame full details are missing.
Mar 11, 2017 7:03AM PST

Post was last edited on March 11, 2017 7:06 AM PST

- Collapse -
8 GB RAM with XP?
Mar 11, 2017 7:20AM PST

And maybe a single stick of RAM instead of matched set.

- Collapse -
BTDT
Mar 11, 2017 7:21AM PST

It does work. Worked better with XP-64.

- Collapse -
This was a common problem on older games
Mar 11, 2017 7:31AM PST
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh298349(v=vs.85).aspx

"This topic lists the available versions of the Common Control library (ComCtl32.dll), describes how to identify the version that your application is using, and explains how to target your application for a specific version. "

The way to "target" the correct one was to put in the same folder the game was in, or it would use the one supplied by the operating system and that one might not work correctly with it. The game would check it's own folder first.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-fix-comctl32-dll-not-found-or-missing-errors-2623188
- Collapse -
Haven't seen that error before
Mar 14, 2017 1:10PM PDT

Well, my games are not that old ( it is my first time seeing this problem), besides, when games do crash, I cannot see any error appearing.

- Collapse -
That symptom indicates...
Mar 15, 2017 11:23AM PDT

...an overheating component on the motherboard, most commonly the CPU. Check that it's fan on the heatsink is running, clean or replace if necessary. Also consider replacing the older thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink. Do not remove the CPU itself, they can be problematic to properly replace.

- Collapse -
Clarification v.3
Mar 12, 2017 12:44AM PST

Sorry for that empty reply - I forgot about one thing, my PSU delivers 500 watts at max, and it worked for 7 years straight, so I guess my PSU is weak.

- Collapse -
(NT) Clarification v.2
Mar 12, 2017 12:40AM PST
- Collapse -
Clarification
Mar 12, 2017 12:35AM PST

Well, I think that i do have the latest DirectX installed, although i don't know if my CPU supports gaming on DirectX 12. The games I've mentioned are being constantly updated and are newer than GTA. I forgot to mention one thing - inside the box with motherboard there was a disk with utilities, however I was not able to run it, beacause I have Win 10 installed and disk required Win 8.1 or lower to run.