System Randomly freezing and then crashing, please help!

[whiskey6685]

So my system is having randomn crashes and im not sure why. After an indeterminate amount of play time, normally a couple of hours, my system stats to freeze for a couple fo seconds repeatedly, normally with about 30 seconds between each freeze before finally locking up totally. The only way I can regain any control (mouse movement or anything) is to reset the computer at the terminal.

This has happened in Civ V as well, so dont think its AoW. Also I checked temperatures, and the system isnt overheating. My specs are below:

Case Coolermaster CM Storm Trooper
CPU Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® Sabertooth Z77: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, Thermal Armour
RAM 8GB Kingston Hyper-X Genesis Dual-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
GPU 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680
1st HD SSD M4 128gb
2nd HD 1TB WD Caviar Black
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Memory Card Reader Internal 52 in 1 card reader
PSU Corsair 850W TX850 V2-80 plus bronze
Processor Cooling CoolitEco II Fat Boy push/pull config liquid CPU cooler
Sound Card cant quite remember, its FX Blaster card i think
OS Windows 7

Any help would be very gratefully received, thanks

[Ron2K]

I know you've stated that a hard reset solves the problem -- but for how long? More specifically: does an overnight power-down result in a greater length of time before the symptoms reoccur than a hard reset?

My first suspicion is of a hairline crack on the motherboard; we've seen this before. Take a look through the linked thread and let us know how similar (or dissimilar) your problem is to the already documented case. (If you can't reach a conclusion from that, you should at the very least gain an idea of test cases for you to attempt.)

[StarBound]

Gonna go out on a limb here. Civ 5 I know crash on nvidia cards on dx11 after hours of play (8 hours?) but to me it sounds like a driver issue somewhere.

I assume your running one of the OC varients of the GTX680. Friends of mine had problems with their 560ti cards. After dropping the clock speed and the other increasing the voltage everything worked fine.

[whiskey6685]

Thanks for the replies guys,

Ron2K, read through your thread, but it doesnt seem to resemble the same symptoms. I only need to press the reset button and it immediatley powers back up and is fine for a while. Likewise, switching off overnight doesnt prolong the amount of time it takes to freeze.

My initial thought was overheating, as it would only occur during games, and at first id get freezes for 1 sec or so before resuming normal operation, this then goes on for about 5-10mins before locking up totally. I checked using NVidia utilities, temp sensors (as my case has a temp gage etc). WHich led me to think it was possibly a hardware error/software error.

@Starbound, thanks again, and yeah my second thought was the drivers, so i reinstalled them and still no joy. I will try reducing the clock speed on the cards as they were overclocked, see if that helps.

[whiskey6685]

I also checked the temp using Sabertooths Thermal Radar app

[hamin_aus]

Gonna go out on a limb here. Civ 5 I know crash on nvidia cards on dx11 after hours of play (8 hours?)

I have a 680GTX and have clocked almost 100 hours in Civ5 and have never had a crash... so that seems unlikely

Is your game on the SSD or the HDD Might be worth putting getting both of those thru a diagnostics tool to see whats up with them.

At this point all I can do is wish you luck

[whiskey6685]

@Hamin, thanks for helping also Yeah I thought the Civ5 thing might be a bit wierd, but it turns out that Civ5 Crashing games is one of the biggest complaints about the game, on the official Civ forums and elsewhere Guess youre just luckier than me

[StarBound]

But whats the other games that crashes with you? Admittedly the last time I played Civ5 was when I was running 580gtx and it crashed a few games.