PC keeps freezing in GPU-intensive games

[PeKa]

My Problem:

Pretty much everytime I start a game that's somewhat graphics intensive (happened with Battlefield 1, modded Fallout 4 and Hitman so far), my entire PC freezes and I have to restart it by either hitting the physical reset button or just holding down the power button until it shuts off. Any audio playing, either of the game itself and e.g. Youtube running in the background shuts off as well. There are about 2-3 seconds of the game's FPS dropping to an abysmal level (<5 FPS) before this freeze happens. I tried Super-Alt-F4'ing the game as soon as I see the frame drops, which worked, but the PC still froze one second later. After the restart, I can usually play the same game that caused the freeze without any problems for as long as 2.5 hours (I haven't tried playing longer). If however I shut down the program and open it again later, the same problem arises. However, this problem does not happen if I use less taxing programs such as League of Legends, MS Office, Chrome, TS3, etc. I can also have the problematic games running in the background without a problem.

My OS:

Windows 10 64-bit, version 1803

My Setup: 

NVidia GeForce 980 Ti FTW Edition from EVGA

Intel i7-5820K CPU

MSI X99A Gaming 7 MoBo

2x8 GB RAM (not sure who that is from)

1000 Watt PSU EVGA

Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB (770 GB used)

My BIOS Version:

American Megatrends Inc. H.B0, 02.11.15 (I can see that this is pretty old, I don't know how to update it though)

Software running:

As said before, I usually have Chrome and TS3 running in the background at all times, and as soon as I open a game like BF1, FO4 or Hitman and have it in the foreground for a minute or so, the problem arises.

Error Messages:

None. None at all, the PC just stops working.

Screenshots:

Obviously none of the problem itself, but I included a screenshot of the Event Viewer, where there is a critical error, but I am not sure if that got in there because of the freeze or because I pressed the reset button.

Solutions I tried so far (might get updated):

Turning it off and on again (obviously).

Updating my GPU drivers.

Reverting my GPU drivers back to a version where the problem didn't occur.

Turning off OC Genie in the BIOS.

 

I'm open to all suggestions, any help is greatly appreciated!

[Loadent]

No joke. What is your CPU overclock at? I have 2 5930k and a 5960x. X99 likes to crash a lot if overclock is a smidge too high. More so if using XMP profiles+overclock

[PeKa]

On 10/7/2018 at 8:20 PM, Loadent said:

No joke. What is your CPU overclock at? I have 2 5930k and a 5960x. X99 likes to crash a lot if overclock is a smidge too high. More so if using XMP profiles+overclock

I just use the "OC Genie" that comes with the motherboard. AFAIK, that one really doesn't push anything even near its limits, but I will try turning it off and just going base clock speeds to see if it helps.

 

EDIT: So I turned off OC Genie and XMP, and so far no freezes happened. I'm still going to keep this post open for a few days in case the problem returns, but if this was really it: Thank you so much!

 

EDIT 2: Turns out, it did after all not solve the problem. Hitman just crashed the PC again.

Edited October 8, 2018 by PeKa