PC Tech Been dealing with random Crashes and Restarts in the last week almost daily

[HGLatinBoy]

My system is pretty old

 

4670K @ 4.0 GHz 

 

MSi Z87 MPOWERMAX MB

16 GB DDR 3 Corsair Vengeance @1600 MHz

GTX 970 MSi GPU
And a Corsair 750w Power supply

 

 

A while back my PSU was borked and would cause system failures whenever  I'd start playing games. This board suggested I replaced the PSU so i went with the Corsair back in December of 2017 . It's not that old of a PSU so I'm doubting that's the issue. That seemd to solve it.

 

I also just recently in the last few months replaced my C: drive with a 1TB Samsung SSD. Those are the more recent hardware changes. So i don't know what can be causing the issue.  

 

Crashes seem to be happening while Im doing multiple things. Talking on discord, playing a game, and watching something on Netflix. I don't know if its purely software or if its failing hardware.

Any tests i can run would be very helpful.

 

Cant afford to do a whole system replacement but anything that can be used in a new system I dont mind changing. I'd just hate for it to be Ram, CPU, or MB failure

 

A fault there would lead to an entire system rebuild. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Start with running MemTest to determine if the RAM is failing.

[cusideabelincoln]

Unfortunately you probably have a lot of work ahead of you because you can't rule out software issues.  Specifically, Windows Security Updates have been breaking things since September.  In my particular circumstance I had to rollback (and by that I mean that nooooooooooo I couldn't just use System Restore I had to actually manually uninstall the update) the updates (and actually pause them too until I know for sure they fix the issues) because my VPN client on two different machines just stopped running.  The .exe would launch and then immediately crash with no warning messages of any kind.  Also Launchbox did the same exact thing.  And after googling the issue, the update also broke multichannel sound for other people, would cause the Start menu to malfunction, and made WiFi adapters stop working.

 

After you troubleshoot a few other hardware issues, I would go to your Windows Update History and start uninstalling them them from newest to oldest around the time you started having these crashes.  Although you should probably google to see if anyone else is having the issue first with similar hardware to yours.

 

Then don't rule out video drivers.  Nvidia has been known to release drivers that will literally blow up your card.  Also the 970 is getting pretty old and low on their priority list, and we can't forget that the split VRAM situation of the card means they actually do need to provide extra code for it which perhaps they borked or forgot about it or just don't care anymore.

[Bitgod]

Could be the OC too.  You're not doing a crazy OC, but after years of use, it can start getting poopy.  I lost my 3770k OC after 5 years, don't know if it was the CPU or mobo.  Just lived with stock speed for a while until I replaced it with a Ryzen 3600.

[HGLatinBoy]

did the memtest and after 3 hours no errors to report. You guys think replacing the PSU could do the trick again? It sucks if thats the issue since it only lasted 2 years. I also dont mind upgrading to a rtx 2060 in case its the GPU giving me issues. Any other parts means i need a new mb+cpu and Ram combo

 

I haven't tried the Windows update roll back but yes I had issues with it and my GF's wifi adaptor stopped working. 

[Bitgod]

How often does it crash?  Is there anything you do than can cause it to crash, for the sake of testing?  It's probably not GPU, though that's a nice excuse for an upgrade.  But TBF, a mb/cpu/ram starts around the same price as the video card.  The GPU upgrade would be nice, but doesn't help if the computer is crashing.  Course, still don't know if it's SW at this point.  But if you get a new mb/cpu/ram, then you'll probably be doing a fresh windows install anyway, so that'll take care of that.

[HGLatinBoy]

Usually when playing gw2 and watching youtube/netflix is when it happens.

[Spork3245]

14 hours ago, HGLatinBoy said:

did the memtest and after 3 hours no errors to report. You guys think replacing the PSU could do the trick again? It sucks if thats the issue since it only lasted 2 years. I also dont mind upgrading to a rtx 2060 in case its the GPU giving me issues. Any other parts means i need a new mb+cpu and Ram combo

 

I haven't tried the Windows update roll back but yes I had issues with it and my GF's wifi adaptor stopped working. 

 

The PSU should still be under warranty if it’s only been 2 years.

[Bitgod]

Just had windows try to do an update and fail, got into a loop where I couldn't boot up until it finally powered off.  Then it booted and reverted back, seems ok at the moment.  Yay MS.

[AbsolutSurgen]

You could try removing your GPU and using your MBs onboard graphics for a few days to see if that helps.

[HGLatinBoy]

So I ran the mem test and after a few hours I got no errors. I reverted back my geforce  drivers to July version. So far only 1 restart so I don't know if that was the issue or if there's an underlying issue I'm not aware of that has been mitigated by the driver rollback. But for over a week it seems no random restart. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Maybe format your computer?