PC freezing issue! Is it the video card?

[JuganD]

Hello everyone! After spending a lot of time in searching why my PC is freezing i still can't find the exact reason. Two months ago i bought a new video card - MSI Geforce GTX 750 Ti Overclocked 2GB. I bought this exact video card not only because i liked it, but because my PSU is older and does not support PCIe cable to plug it in the card for additional powering. After finding out that the video card doesn't require a lot of power and simply drawing power from the slot is enough, i bought it. Some time after that i started playing some of the new generation games (Witcher 3, Assassin's Creed Unity, etc) i experienced freezing (its not only freezing inside games). It is happening once in about 4-5 days, my PC just freeze with a buzzing sound from the speakers, not very loud one, and the only way i turn off the PC is to power it off. 

 

Can the video card be the reason of this?
I ran few tests and benchmarks and got no errors at all. Each benchmark for about 15-20 minutes tested the GPU, CPU, hard drive, RAM and even network data transfer.

My latest thoughts was that my PSU is simply failing to power up the card once it reach certain point (although the benchmark should've made that happend?).

 

Here are my specifications:

PSU : FSP AFX-400PNF - 400W

                                             uh its from the old two channels powering, tho it should have enough voltage (right?)

MB  : ASUS P8B75-V LGA 1155 Intel B75 SATA

CPU : Intel® Core i3-3240 CPU @ 3.40GHz

GPU : MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti Overclocked Twin Frozr Gaming 2GB GDDR5

RAM : KINGSTON 2x2GB DDR3 1333Mhz

HDD : HITACHI HDT7205032VLA360 ATA 320GB

OS   : Windows 8.1 Pro (newly installed)

 

Any help will be really appreciated, started to panic!

PS: Seems that exiting Starcraft II cause same freezing at Win7 and Win10 (preview), but not on Win8.1?!

[Praesi]

Could be RAM. Run memtest 512mb each.

[JuganD]

Could be RAM. Run memtest 512mb each.

I ran a full memtest few minutes ago (the bios version booted from USB). No errors were found. Used http://www.memtest.org/ this program.

And thanks for the fast replay!

[Praesi]

I ran a full memtest few minutes ago (the bios version booted from USB). No errors were found. Used http://www.memtest.org/ this program.

And thanks for the fast replay!

You have to run the test for several hours. Start memtest, run the test with 512mb RAM. Repeat that till you have all RAM in your PC covered. 4GB=8xmemtest@512 at the same time.

A PC dont use all your RAM at the same time. You have to test all of it to be sure.

[shibbs]

What driver version are you using for your video card? 

[JuganD]

Sorry for the delay, i ran full memtest for 5 hours, nothing came out. I was waiting for the freeze to happen again so i can record the sound. https://clyp.it/mospuq2n

@shibbs I am using the lastest nvidia drivers.

[Praesi]

Could be anything. Impossible to say.

Run prime95 again and check the event protocoll after a Freeze.

Its possible the PSU is the Reason, but there is only one way to find out.

[don_svetlio]

I'm 50% sure it's the PSU - FSP have very low quality units and this one doesn't appear to have 80+ cerification - if it's old (2-3 years) caps might have degraded quite a bit to the point where they are unreliable. Test with a different PSU if possible.


EDIT: Make sure all drivers and windows updates are also installed. I remember having 2 hard crashes in a similar fashion in Witcher 3 before I updated my driver to the latest one. It could also be a corrupted save file (like mine) but that would only explain things inside games. Check the SMART chart for your HDD to make sure it isn't dying.

[JuganD]

So hey again guys! I didn't post anything for a week because i was testing if the video card is faulty. So week ago i physically took out the video card from the PC and switched to the integrated intel hd graphics 2500 and until this very moment i haven't experienced a single freeze!

 

The problem seems solved, tho i keep thinking if there is a chance that the PSU is causing all this. GTX 750 Ti only needs 60W of power, but the PSU is 5-6 or more years old and i'm still not sure if it supplies the card with enough power to run normal.

PS: Today I inserted the card again just to test with different drivers. I was always using the latest nvidia driver, but i still have hope that it might be a driver problem .

 

EDIT: Thanks to don_svetlio for bringing the Witcher 3 example. Did a test with the game with couple different drivers and finally decided to uninstall all other nvidia features (phyics, 3d, etc) and leaving only the graphics driver. I haven't got any crashes until now! Thank you all for helping me solve this case!