Intensive activity causes crash

[Tut]

I've been having an issue for the past 4 months or so while playing games or doing intensive activities.

 

The computer will completely lock up, with absolutely 0 responsiveness. Sound completely glitch out, and play the last half second or so on repeat. I have absolutely no clue what is causing it. I wiped windows clean thinking it was a software issue, but that is not the case. I have tried to find error logs, I have no idea where to look. Event viewer yields no helpful results.

 

It recently picked up on frequency, happening during less intensive activities. Currently, my PC has crashed during a render in Aftereffects, gaming in DayZ, PUBG, Dark Souls 3, and more recently it has crashed in Overwatch and Hearthstone. I play a lot of League of Legends, and it has never crashed during League.

 

If anyone could help me identify the cause of this issue or help me find error logs, that would be insanely helpful.

Nothing is overclocked.

 

Here are my specs, all of the drivers are updated and current:

• CPU
  Intel 4790k
• Motherboard
  Sabertooth Z97 Mark S
• RAM
  16GB HyperX White Fury
• GPU
  Gigabyte 980ti Reference
• Case
  Corsair White Air 540
• Storage
  2TB HD, 240GB SSD
• PSU
  Corsair RM850
• Cooling
  Corsair H80i
• Keyboard
  Corsair K70 RGB
• Mouse
  Razer Naga Hex
• Operating System
  Windows 10
• Sound Card
  Sound Blaster Audigy Fx (I do not use this. Currently using onboard audio.)

 

[MoonlightSylv]

Is anything overclocked?

[Tut]

1 hour ago, ShadowTechXTS said:

Is anything overclocked?

Nothing is overclocked.

[Tut]

1 hour ago, CUDA_Cores said:

First try unplugging everything that is unnecessary for your computer to run. Unplug your video card, all your drives except your boot drive, all your RAM except one stick, and reset all overclocks. We need to find a baseline here and getting down to the bare minimum will help us do this.

Ok. Will do as soon as I get home from work tomorrow and will post results.

[Tut]

On 6/10/2017 at 1:04 AM, CUDA_Cores said:

Also to add:

 

Run memtest86, run a CPU burning program. Stress test the bare minimum hardware that is currently plugged into your computer to eliminate errors.

Sorry for replying so late, but just ran the memtest an AIDA64 stress test overnight. Stress test came out without the PC crashing. Memtest said that it passed and there were no errors. Only things connected were my peripherals, CPU, 1 stick of RAM, and my boot disk. Gonna try a stress test with GPU now.

[Tut]

I think I figured it out. The PC would intermittently freeze with the GPU in the case. These freezes would corroborate with the CPU throttling due to overheating. Taking the side panel off of my case stopped this issue, and stopped the freezing. I assume my fan solution is ineffective at cooling my CPU and GPU. The inside of the case gets much too hot, and I will adjust the fans to get some better airflow before running my next few tests.