system instable and I don't know why

[mwthomas10]

Hello all,

 

So my rig is unstable and I don't know why.  It started acting funny earlier today, and it crashed once as I was typing this post. My specs are in my signature so I won't type them out here (trying to get it posted fast before it crashes again.  Heres my super unscientific log:

 

1st crash: was watching youtube and all of a sudden my computer stopped outputting a display to my monitor, however the audio from the video was still playing which tells me that my computer was still turned on and successfully posted and in windows.  After checking all my display cables rebooting my monitor and checking the power delivery to my GPU i waited for a while and then turned off my computer by holding the power button.  I turn it back on and my mobo post screen tells me that overclocking failed and that I needed to reset my clock speeds and such in the bios however I never overclocked anything.  I save (no settings changed) and exit my bios and my system boots into windows just fine so I start looking into it.

 

2nd crash:  My system was just idling while I was out of the house and I got home and it was turned off so I turned it back on and got the same mobo post screen message, so I went into the bios and this time I disabled the XMP profile on my RAM (now running at 1333 instead of 2133) and I booted into windows and have been running for just a few minutes while typing this post.

 

I will keep updating with future crashes if they continue.  Could my first crash have been because of the RAM?  Have I potentially fixed it by removing the XMP profile?  If not what else could be the issue and what can I do to fix it?

 

EDIT: 3rd crash:  10 minutes after originally posting this,  my whole system froze and showed the same frame from the youtube video I was watching and was stuck in an infinite sound loop of the sound form the exact instant it froze.  Keyboard and mouse were unresponsive and this time my mobo showed me the post code 02 which means "AP initialization before microcode loading".  I booted up my system and did not get any post screen message just booted straight into windows and immediately reopened Chrome and started typing this edit.  

 

What does that post code mean? (im not good with BIOS lingo)

 

Thanks for any help!!!!

[DolphinOps]

check to make sure that all the components are properly plugged in and reseat your ram

[mwthomas10]

check to make sure that all the components are properly plugged in and reseat your ram

i re-re-checked the plugging everything in and reseated my ram, right after booting up after doing this i got my 5th crash.  Monitor said it was not receiving a signal but  mobo said I was fully posted into OS, all fans were still spinning as they were supposed to be, but the display was gone and my audio was stuck looping the audio from the exact moment it froze.

 

Rebooted and instantly crashed again. I got the exact same thing, except my audio was continuing to play as it should be.

 

Perhaps its a GPU issue?

[Avcoor]

Well it looks a lot like what happened to an old 660Ti I had. No display but computer still ran, I even considered it dead for about 6 months. I don't know exactly how I fixed it but it came back after I cleaned the outputs and cleared the CMOS.

I'm not sure why but it worked.

[mwthomas10]

Well it looks a lot like what happened to an old 660Ti I had. No display but computer still ran, I even considered it dead for about 6 months. I don't know exactly how I fixed it but it came back after I cleaned the outputs and cleared the CMOS.

I'm not sure why but it worked.

wait so you cleared CMOS on your mobo and cleaned the display outputs? I just tried that, it didn't work for me .  it only happens to me when I am putting stress on the gpu

[Avcoor]

Yup. I cleared the CMOS and cleaned the output contacts with isopropil alcohol. I somehow don't think it's related to the revival of my supposedly dead card.

It was a miracle.

[mwthomas10]

Right I solved my problem, thank you to those who responded.

 

The trick for me was to hit the reset button.  Yes.  The magical reset button.  Don't know why I hadn't done this earlier but after about 3 hours of straight troubleshooting I decided screw it, hit reset, and now it works.  I believe I know why it worked too.  I had a different problem previously when trying to overclock (have since decided its not worth it) and to solve that I had to alter a few Windows Registry files.  I am guessing I had accidentally screwed one of my edits up which caused my graphics output to be unstable because hitting reset sets windows to its default state so my Registry edits were undone.

 

Hope this helps anyone who faces a similar issue!