Games keep crashing/freezing

[Ninja Potatoe]

So I built my own PC about 2 months ago and I have been crashing in games ever since.

 

System specs:

OS: Windows 7 64bit

Mobo: ASUS Z97-A

CPU: i5 4460 stock cooler/clock and voltage

GPU: GTX 660 FTW stock clock

RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB (2x4GB) 1866 C10

PSU: EVGA 600W Bronze 80+

SSD: Samsung Evo 840 120GB with windows 7 and important programs such as Chrome

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB with everything else on it including games

 

What happens:

I play a game (FarCry 3, Smite) and everything runs smoothly for a few mins. Then, in FarCry 3, my fps drops and the animations look like they skip a frame, after that usually my game either freezes and I have to ctrl-alt-del and it unfreezes but then I have to do it again soon, and after a while my PC will just be REALLY slow and I can't ctrl-alt-del anymore or even close then game, I have to do a hard reboot. When the game freezes I can hear the HDD stop spinning as well as the GPU and CPU fans (temps drop), as well as robotic sounds. I would try to swap out parts to see what doesn't work but I don't have any spare parts laying around. I have seen many topics on many forums with people having crashes with the same card I have but none of their fixes have worked so far. Can't return parts (NCIX has only 15 days returns)

 

What I have tried doing:

Updating all drivers to newest version (including graphics driver)

Rolling back to a previous graphics driver that was reported as being more stable

Ran memtest and everything came out fine

Took my PC apart and connected stuff 1 by 1, but can't test it during games cause I don't have an other graphics card

Changed TdrDelay (wasn't there so I created it) to 4, then 30 (with reboots)

Bought a new fan to reduce temps, also increased the curve for all fans in the PC, so it spins faster at lower temps, which in turn gave me lower temps but an audibly louder PC and games still froze

Switched the SATA connectors on the motherfoard for the SSD/HDD/DVD rom

Installed MSI afterburner to increase the GPU fan speeds and turned up the max power limit to the card from 100% to 110%

Had a chat with customer support at nvidia which turned out to be useless as the guy took 5 minutes to respond and then said everything was fine

Changed PCI ports for the graphics card

Reinstalled windows (clean install)

 

I would very much like to fix it myself but the only other PC parts in my house are found in my dad's PC, and I would have to take it apart, pull them and then put them back. I'd also like to throw my graphics card out the window but I don't have the money for a new one and I don't even know if it's its fault. I'll bring it into a shop to have them look at it if I can't do anything myself but I'm afraid that it'll cost too much.

[DeViLzzz]

You can test that pc to see if it is a non graphics card issue by using the HD 4600 graphics on it.

Also you can test the psu with a multimeter to see if there is a problem with that.

[Ninja Potatoe]

You can test that pc to see if it is a non graphics card issue by using the HD 4600 graphics on it.

Also you can test the psu with a multimeter to see if there is a problem with that.

Testing the PSU is a good idea. Testing the integrated graphics... I don't think it will run farcry so I can properly test it.

[DeViLzzz]

Yes it will.  Just run the game at lower settings.