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Random computer crashes/freezes

Apr 1, 2015 7:28PM PDT

Hello everyone,

Lately, my computer started crashing after 5-30 minutes of activity. One day it was working just fine, but the next it started to have problems. It is homemade (put together by a friend of mine) and is about a year old.
What I did notice about the crashes is that it doesn't always crash when I'm only using my SSD. For example, I installed League of Legends on my SSD and my pc doesnt crash when I'm playing it. But I also installed Hearthstone on my SSD and then my pc does crash.
Also, to describe the crashes, sometimes the screen just goes black, and my screen shows it doen't get a signal, and sometimes the screen just freezes.

Specs:
AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor 3.50 GHz
8.00 GB RAM
64-bit, windows 7
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
1000GB HDD

Things I already tried:
- Updating drivers
- Check for malware with AVG and malwarebytes (no problems)
- CHDSK disk check
- Memtest86
- Probably something else but I can't remember anything I did

I hope someone can help me with my problem

-Bewker

Discussion is locked

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Re: crash
Apr 1, 2015 7:46PM PDT

This looks like a hardware issue, maybe heat, maybe a bad videocard, maybe power, or motherboard. Does Windows' event viewer tell anything useful?

Now ask your hardware expert friend to find the cause.

Kees

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Re: crash
Apr 1, 2015 8:07PM PDT

There are a lot of errors and warnings in the event viewer, but I have no idea what this all means. Sources are form Service Control Manager, PNRPSvc, EventLog, Wininit, WMI, Kernel-Power

Also, my friend is is out of the country at the moment. I messaged him earlier, and some of the things I tried were suggestions from him.

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Re: out of the country
Apr 1, 2015 8:32PM PDT

You did the easiest hardware tests: RAM and hard disk. A hard disk is very unlikely given the symptoms, a RAM error isn't very likely either, but it's good to have it excluded.

To check for a heat related cause: take the side cover of, point a fan to the interior and see if it makes a different. If not, the things I would do are:
1. reload Windows (just in case it's a software issue after all)
2. replace the PSU if it's borderline given what the hardware requires
3. replace the videocard

But since I'm not a hardware guy, I would only do #1 myself. For #2 I'd find a repair shop and wihile the are on it they can do #3 also. If the PSU has ample capacity, I might replace the video card myself. But that's me and for you it could be different.

Kees

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Re:
Apr 1, 2015 9:14PM PDT

Thanks for the tips, I'll respond later with the outcome.