Freeze & Soundloop during games, tried a lot already, included temps and such

[Zephyres]

Fix Update:

- Added the folder that contains my games to every possible exclusion within my virus-scanning software

- Ran the virus-software in Training Mode (Comodo Internet Security - CIS)

This seemed to fix the computer-freezes.

 

- Disabled MSI Gaming App OSD

This was causing a crash with the ''MsiGamingOSDx64.dll''

 

This seems to have resolved all my issues for now!

So the info below can be seen as nothing but legacy info.

 

Hello,

 

I'm desperately looking for some assistence with a probably game-related freeze/soundloop issue. Will do my best to keep this as concise as I can without missing any details, single-sentence tl;dr at the bottom; Basically I'll be playing a game and maybe running or jumping somewhere and the game will freeze and absolutely kill my ears with a soundloop churning through my headset.

 

At which point I'm forced to shut down my computer by holding the power button afterwards, and there are NO error messages, only a mention of an improper shutdown and the typical pre-startup ''how do you want to proceed with booting'' message after a forced shutdown. I've also tried waiting it out but it will be stuck in a loop forever.

 

Rig is an older custom system I sometimes upgrade that is now giving problems since the first patch for Overwatch came out. I thought the issues were gone but today after I silenced all the case-fans with screw replacements from Noctua and proceeded to test out the noise in a game my friend invited me to play, not even 10 minutes in I already froze once more. 

 

Kind of at a loss considering benchmarking reports no issues and I've already gone through troubleshooting as shown further below. Since reinstalling Windows, FFXIV and Overwatch haven't crashed just yet so I had false hope that all issues were gone, but it might not happen with those till a few hours in, is what I'm now worried about. I also can't risk this happening to me when I'm drawing, although that hasn't occurred yet.

 

My own suspects:

Considering Power Supply swap but it shouldn't be an issue I think?.. Feel free to recommend me a way to test this though, it's just about the only thing that I don't know how to check and I don't have a spare around. Also considered RMA'ing the 1070 because its brand new (has some coil whine when pushed but I already read up that it isnt damaging however) and may be related in some way, but the issue was there on my old card too so it seems like a non-issue.

 

Probably unrelated but today I tried a game I hadn't played before since reinstalling windows after getting the new drive, and plugged in my speakers for the first time again. (simple stereo)

 

Starting Rig where issues originate from:

Spoiler

 

NZXT Noctis 450 black & red (5 fans)

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Seasonic G-Series 650W
i5 6600k @ default settings (BIOS may be boosting it on it's own)
16GB RAM 2400 Corsair (2x8GB)
ASUSTeK Z170 PRO GAMING LGA1151
Dual-Monitor setup (Old TN Panel 19'' (1440x900@60Hz) + HP 23cw (1920x1080@60Hz)
2GB AMD R9 270X @ Factory Overclock

Samsung 850 EVO 250gb (OS)

Western Digital Blue 1TB (Storage)

 

 

Current Rig where issues persist even after reinstalling:

Spoiler

 

NZXT Noctis 450 black & red (5 fans)

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Seasonic G-Series 650W
i5 6600k @ default settings (BIOS may be boosting it on it's own)
16GB RAM 2400 Corsair (2x8GB)
ASUSTeK Z170 PRO GAMING LGA1151
*Single G-Sync Dual-Monitor setup (ROG PG278Q (2560x1440@144Hz) + HP 23cw (1920x1080@60Hz)

*MSI GeForce GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G @ MSI Standard Overclock (Gaming APP OC Mode)

Samsung 850 EVO 250gb (OS)

*Crucial 240 BX200 240gb (Storage)

 

*changes

 

Troubleshooting I've tried myself already;

Spoiler

 

- Drivers checked fully uninstalled cleaned and reinstalled,

- Different Videocards (Two entirely different brands)

- Different settings with the games,

- Benchmark testing my GPU and CPU, (Furmark3D & Intel Burntest)

- memtest86+ my RAM,

- Temperatures well within bounds,

- Reseated components and even swapped slots

- Replaced a HDD with a bad sector with an SSD,

- Operating system fully reinstalled

 

IntelBurnTest (temps were great, no issues)

Furmark (Ran Stresstest, 1080 and 720 for a combined time of an hour (30m15m15m), temps did not exceed 73)

MemTest86+ (Two passes no issues)

HD Tune (ran full test SSD was fine no errors in any manner, my HDD had a bad sector, promptly replaced it with an SSD, later tested both again no issues)

 

 

BIOS version: VGA BIOS - MH-V330 - NV330MH.112 (MSI Live Update 6 reports this as up-to-date)Updated to version 1904, issue persists

NVidia Driver: 368.81 - 7/14/2016

 

Games potentially involved:

Overwatch (Several freezes, tried different settings, but seemed to work fine after reinstalling)

FFXIV - A Realm Reborn (Two freezes, but seemed to work fine after reinstalling)

Riders of Icarus (Just crashed half an hour ago when my friend tried to convince me to try it)

(Not sure if it's worth mentioning but I recently installed doom when the issue was already there and it froze midgame too but simply allowed me to kill the task, may be doom related)

 

Software I always have running even when gaming:

- Discord + Skype + Chrome (Youtube - Blogs - Forums)

 

Supplementary Info (Background software, Peripherals, etc.)

Spoiler

Background Software:

- COMODO Internet Security Premium ( Free Version )

- MSI Gaming APP

- NVIDIA GeForce Experience

- CCleaner

- Battle.Net + Steam

- Speccy (I like seeing my GPU temps, always below 72.)

- MSI Live Update 6

- Steelseries Engine 3 (My mouse, I have a headset for it too but dont use the sound-card that came with it)

 

Peripherals:

Noise-Cancelling Headset (plugged in directly)

Steelseries mouse (Software DPI)

Speakers (Sometimes plugged in beside headset in front panel)

Simple gaming keyboard

Drawing Tablet

 

Sometimes I draw, but I've never had any freezes;

- Paint Tool SAI * Photoshop * Wacom Tablet & Software

Bonus-Mention only because they are memory intensive.

 

 

 

Attachments:

I'll include speccy idle temps (GPU hovers there because the gaming app keeps fan off until needed and G-Sync dual/single-screen draws GPU)

And I'll include a DxDiag log

 

nothing out of the ordinary in my device manager btw

 

TL;DR:

Custom Rig, Freezing Issues with games, probably not driver related unless AMD and NVIDIA have bad driver(?), troubleshot components, replaced HDD>SSD, benchmarked without issue, reinstalled, issue persists.

 

I'm sorry that my first post has to be a request for help but I'm truly frustrated at putting so much work trying to fix this only for it to continue to haunt me like this. And please let me know if I missed any info or accidentally failed to follow a certain forum rule. I made a new topic as I've tried so much already. Any help is deeply appreciated and I'll try to reply within half a day at most.

Specs and Idle Temps.bmp

DxDiag832016.txt

Edited August 10, 2016 by Zephyres
Solved for now!

[Enderman]

Last time I had an issue like this was half a decade ago, and it was GPU drivers causing it.

Maybe try an older driver version?

[Zephyres]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Last time I had an issue like this was half a decade ago, and it was GPU drivers causing it.

Maybe try an older driver version?

I'll look into that, thanks for the suggestion, I'm not sure if it will help however because it froze on my old AMD as well - but worth looking into. I assume it won't conflict with the card being on the newer end though? Will be checking regardless.

[LabRat]

too many different sound drivers installed. disable or uninstall the ones you're not using.

[Zephyres]

28 minutes ago, LabRat said:

too many different sound drivers installed. disable or uninstall the ones you're not using.

Will disable the extra ones  Thanks for the suggestion, also found a bios update from very recently so I'm now at version. 1904, will combine your suggestions and test things out again, for I found an older NVidia driver marked stable too

[Zephyres]

So I figured I'd give my computer a good long day to prove itself today, all was going well until just now my entire computer decided to freeze -> Immediate black-screen -> Reboot in one go. I'd been doing the usual, playing a game with some websites on my other screen, in voice chat on discord.

 

So the issue remains despite uninstalling NVIDIA 3Dvision & HD sound, ensuring latest BIOS updates and trying a different driver version.

 

Only that it now seems to actually reboot my computer on it's own.. rather than simply lock-up in a freeze.

[LabRat]

stop with the voice chat shit and try again.

[Zephyres]

4 minutes ago, LabRat said:

stop with the voice chat shit and try again.

it happens regardless of whether I'm active in a voice-call or disconnected from the server though. I mean I can try without discord running whatsoever and I will, but It doesn't make sense to me how it would send my computer into a reboot. But thanks for the suggestion! Just really scratching my head over this because based on specs I think I should be doing fine in both rig configurations.

[LabRat]

check and see if windows reinstalled all those drivers that you disabled.

next thing I would do is disconnect that second monitor for a while.

[Zephyres]

1 hour ago, LabRat said:

check and see if windows reinstalled all those drivers that you disabled.

next thing I would do is disconnect that second monitor for a while.

They haven't, and I'll try that tonight and tomorrow and report back. Also ensured I have the latest windows updates and checked for other ones as well. But regarding that everything seems fine. Though you and others are free to share thoughts if anything else pops up that might help, thanks again!

[Deagon]

8 hours ago, Zephyres said:

 just now my entire computer decided to freeze -> Immediate black-screen -> Reboot in one go.

PSU failsafe sounds like.
The way to test to see if your PSU is damaged is to borrow another, hook everything up like you always would (including keyboard, mouse headset, etc), and run the game that always freezes it.
Everything you have plugged in may be drawing too much power, the card will only draw 150 at max, but depending on your setup you may be hitting near or over your 650 mark. Another good way to test this, is to get a wattage plug meter and observe the wattage when doing everything as you normally would. 

[Zephyres]

6 hours ago, Deagon said:

PSU failsafe sounds like.
The way to test to see if your PSU is damaged is to borrow another, hook everything up like you always would (including keyboard, mouse headset, etc), and run the game that always freezes it.
Everything you have plugged in may be drawing too much power, the card will only draw 150 at max, but depending on your setup you may be hitting near or over your 650 mark. Another good way to test this, is to get a wattage plug meter and observe the wattage when doing everything as you normally would. 

Well psu is a few years old, I can't really borrow one but local store friend will let me buy one and send it back if it doesn't fix it. Any recommendations on something that might last me a good few years? I don't plan on making any upgrades on the system anytime soon with this new card. Specs in original post.

 

Do you think it could have anything to do with my motherboard that I should test for?

 

Thanks a lot for thinking with me on this!

 

 

(tomshardware seems to say this would be a reliable one https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IKDETOW/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1465753130&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=750w+psu&dpPl=1&dpID=51VBQdIVkOL&ref=plSrch) 

[Deagon]

I doubt it's your motherboard, it sounds mostly like something with the GPU or the PSU, because of the visual freeze, i think GPU, because of the hard crash, i think PSU is having too much power drawn from it. From your other tests it can be reasonably concluded that most likely the GPU is fine. If you have an IR thermometer, take a manual reading of the GPU with it once it crashes. (if it is way hotter than your pc reports [like 10-20 degrees celsius hotter] the GPU is probably the issue). Also take manual readings of the rest of the pc if you can, this will help narrow it down. 
Always happy to help post back if you need more help or these don't work.

[Zephyres]

22 hours ago, Deagon said:

I doubt it's your motherboard, it sounds mostly like something with the GPU or the PSU, because of the visual freeze, i think GPU, because of the hard crash, i think PSU is having too much power drawn from it. From your other tests it can be reasonably concluded that most likely the GPU is fine. If you have an IR thermometer, take a manual reading of the GPU with it once it crashes. (if it is way hotter than your pc reports [like 10-20 degrees celsius hotter] the GPU is probably the issue). Also take manual readings of the rest of the pc if you can, this will help narrow it down. 
Always happy to help post back if you need more help or these don't work.

Didn't have access to anything like that sadly, they sound really useful though so may have to get one at some point hah!

I ended up buying the powersupply listed in my previous comment and I'll be testing on it today and for at least a few days, will report back when I know more, thanks!

[Zephyres]

PROBLEM IS NOT RESOLVED, issue persists.. Just locked up while playing  ffxiv:arr again..

 

Videocard was replaced already during the issue, did not fix the issue, can't be an ssd issue, already checked and swapped.  Now after swapping the PSU the issue still persists.

 

Problem is back to being a full freeze with audio loop, no error messages and no auto reboot. Honestly. I am at a loss here. There are no bad temps either, GPU was hovering 67-68 and the rest well below 40 or even 30.. Will leave it running Memtest86+ for a few hours. But really lost here.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Zephyres
Typos

[LabRat]

what power supply did you buy?

how many sound drivers are installed?

is the sound on the monitor enabled?

does the board have on-board graphics?

[Zephyres]

16 minutes ago, LabRat said:

what power supply did you buy?

how many sound drivers are installed?

is the sound on the monitor enabled?

does the board have on-board graphics?

 

On 05/08/2016 at 4:48 PM, Zephyres said:

(tomshardware seems to say this would be a reliable one https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IKDETOW/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1465753130&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=750w+psu&dpPl=1&dpID=51VBQdIVkOL&ref=plSrch) 

I only use my on-board audio. I only installed the card Driver and geforce experience. I left out all the 3D and audio stuff. So I only have my on-board drivers up for audio. I checked my BIOS and everything seems fine, checked the switch for it to automatically detect gpu for monitors and forced it to use gpu only.

 

I also blocked the monitor audio the moment I saw there was an option for it

[Zephyres]

Dunno if this helps, but running memtest now for at least two hours so I'm on my phone. I guess what bothers me most is that tests keep coming back negative. I'll shine a light around my motherboard but I doubt I'll find anything blown up..

[LabRat]

what I was getting at is removing the card and using the on board graphics for a while to see how things go with the machine. there will be things you can't do, but there will be things you can do.

 

are all your old games patched? are all your games patched?

and do you have any mods installed, and do any of those mods interfere with the games?

 

got another motherboard lying around?

 

the main drive....... reformatted on this motherboard?

[Zephyres]

17 minutes ago, LabRat said:

what I was getting at is removing the card and using the on board graphics for a while to see how things go with the machine. there will be things you can't do, but there will be things you can do.

 

are all your old games patched? are all your games patched?

and do you have any mods installed, and do any of those mods interfere with the games?

 

got another motherboard lying around?

 

the main drive....... reformatted on this motherboard?

I can try that, but I don't think I can play many games like that to test anything, and my pc seems to work fine when I'm just using it to do anything that isn't a game, I'll try reinstalling a few games as well to rule applications out, but after upgrading cards to see if that would fix the issue a new game I tried freeze me too. 

 

I don't use mods in my games

 

I do not, I bought this Z170 PRO GAMING one as a long term investment.

 

After upgrading videocard I still had the issues, I reinstalled to see if it would fix it, but it did not. In the process the drive was completely reformatted in the proper manners.

 

My thanks for continuing to try and help me out, LabRat. After the memtest finishes up I'll see if I can work with your suggestions, it's been running for about 40m now 

Edited August 6, 2016 by Zephyres
I should say freeze, not crash

[LabRat]

trying to eliminate software before saying your motherboard may be at fault.......... did you ever check the BIOS to see what the speed of the pci-e slot is? usually it's set to auto.... but if you can set it to 100 and try stuff out........ and then maybe a little less for a test.?

you eliminated the cpu heat as a cause?

ever do a cmos reset?

[LabRat]

this is from newegg...... lot of problems from what I scanned through .....

 

"We appreciate the feedback you have provided on your ASUS experience. I'm sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing. What are your hardware specifications? Is your CPU, memory, and power supply all in the qualified vendor list? Make sure to update to the latest Chipset driver Management Engine Interface Version11.0.0.1172. For optimal system compatibility flash UEFI to version (1901). extract the file to a fat formatted usb stick. Then navigate in bios to the tools menu and use the EZflash utility to do the flash. Let your system update the firmware as needed. Do not power down even if your system sits with a blank screen for 10 minutes or so. When updating your UEFI please make sure to wait for the firmware to update after the board restarts following the flash. This can take a couple of minutes after the board restarts. The board should be left alone during this process. You can locate your chipset drivers and BIOS at our online Help Desk: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z170-PRO-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/. If you need help with any technical questions or general inquiries, please contact me directly at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160740788. "

[Zephyres]

8 minutes ago, LabRat said:

trying to eliminate software before saying your motherboard may be at fault.......... did you ever check the BIOS to see what the speed of the pci-e slot is? usually it's set to auto.... but if you can set it to 100 and try stuff out........ and then maybe a little less for a test.?

you eliminated the cpu heat as a cause?

ever do a cmos reset?

Oh don't get me wrong I really appreciate your help, no sarcasm anywhere. I'm ok with tech but this stuff is a bit out of my league 

 

When I first put in the card I put it into the second pci-e slot, where my original card was due to my cooler taking a lot of space. I still had freezes then so I swapped my fan configuration and put I to the "faster" pci-e slot 1. Its still set to auto though so I'll give that a look when I get the chance!

 

And I might reapply some thermal paste but considering its idling at 32 and maxing at 42 it should be fine. I can try resetting the cmos though! 

[Zephyres]

25 minutes ago, LabRat said:

this is from newegg...... lot of problems from what I scanned through .....

 

"We appreciate the feedback you have provided on your ASUS experience. I'm sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing. What are your hardware specifications? Is your CPU, memory, and power supply all in the qualified vendor list? Make sure to update to the latest Chipset driver Management Engine Interface Version11.0.0.1172. For optimal system compatibility flash UEFI to version (1901). extract the file to a fat formatted usb stick. Then navigate in bios to the tools menu and use the EZflash utility to do the flash. Let your system update the firmware as needed. Do not power down even if your system sits with a blank screen for 10 minutes or so. When updating your UEFI please make sure to wait for the firmware to update after the board restarts following the flash. This can take a couple of minutes after the board restarts. The board should be left alone during this process. You can locate your chipset drivers and BIOS at our online Help Desk: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z170-PRO-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/. If you need help with any technical questions or general inquiries, please contact me directly at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160740788. "

I'll probably be contacting asus support on Monday, but everything checks out really, and bear in mind I've used this rig for years without issues, only since overwatch came out and the time period after it had its first major patch (Ana) did I start having these issues =\ 

 

I'll check the chipset drivers as well, I replied to your other message as well by the way

[Zephyres]

Updated chipset, cleared CMOS, ran MEMTEST86+ for just under five hours with three passes and zero fails.

Turned off GPU rendering in Discord and turned on Legacy Audio in Discord (It was making stutters on my 144hz screen)

 

Will report back when I know more, provided that issue happens again in the weekend I'll contact ASUS and see if they have any recommendations, I should still be in warranty.

 

Edit: Still freezing, yup.. yup. FFXIV:ARR again, problem seems entirely related to running any modern/demanding game. 1070 is brand new though. Will see what ASUS suggests and otherwise I'll just check with MSI to RMA the 1070 perhaps. Just feels weird to do it considering the issue started with my AMD R270X and now persists with my NVIDIA 1070.