Hard Crashing, potential hardware issue? Help needed

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ddineeno

Member
Over the last few weeks i had been growing more concerned about the performance of my pc, it seems as if it has been degenerating, more frequent desktop crashes while gaming, and simply a worse standard of gaming.
Completely disregarding this i thought it would be a great idea to mod my skyrim with enb and about 100 mods, despite the load order being fine and no errors, i was getting crash after crash (mostly to desktop, 2 full pc crashes) and concluded my PC (which is r9 270x 2gb, FX 6300 6 core 3.5ghz, 8gb ram, 450 corsair power supply) just couldn't handle it and that was that, i've left modded enb skyrim alone completely.

Since then the two games i've played (fallout 4 and gta iv) i have experienced issues with, F4 one or two desktop crashes, but this morning on GTA IV i got 3 full pc crashes, one where it crashed as if to the desktop, but then froze on the desktop, i had to hard reboot, the next time the screen went black and computer completely froze, so hard-reboot, after this i updated my drivers, headed back in, and got the same crash, screen black, but the computer turned itself off, like it just couldn't take it anymore, and everytime i rebooted the pc, a very disconcerting noise occured, like screeching tires but obviously quiter.

I have assumed its nothing to do with the games, which is why im asking this here and not on the specific games forums. I checked the inside of my PC, and it is a VERY dusty, dust seems to have solidified over the GPU fan (i assume its the gpu fan, its a little one just above the gpu), completely blocking it, or 3/4 of it atleast. My opinion is that the dust build up (17 months worth, i've neglected it in this respect, never cleaned it out), has caused heating issues especially for the GPU, this combined with the intensive enb settings and mods caused a further issue (which could have been avoided had i cleaned my pc). But im not an expert i know relatively little about PC hardware so for that reason i need help.

But i am stuck as to how to find out what really is the issue, any feedback would be much appreciated, and i hope i provided enough detail, if not just ask anything else, cheers
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
have you clean the pc? apart from that clean installation of drivers would be something else you could try
 
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ddineeno

Member
im taking the pc to my local pc guy tommorow for him to clean it, as i want it done properly and the only thing i could use is a hair dryer which is not very suitable. I will do a clean install tommorow after it has been cleaned and get back to you with an update on my situation, thanks.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
You say the cooler is above the graphics card? GPU coolers are usually part of the graphics card and on the under side. E.g. these photos http://tinyurl.com/hc6d4y8

If it looks something like this: http://i1079.photobucket.com/albums/w512/grjr/forums/fx8350_1.jpg (a small metal heatsink with a little fan stuck on it) it's probably the CPU cooler

Testing system stability with modded Skyrim is a bad idea. Any crashes you get are more likely due to the mods than your system. So even if you fix the problem you might still get crashes with a modded setup. Stick with unmodded games, and use stress/benchmark tools like Valley:
https://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/valley/

To monitor your temperatures for CPU and GPU, use something like HWinfo (which you can pair with Rivatuner if you want an on-screen display). Make it record temps to a log file too. Note that ENB makes OSDs misbehave or not work with Skyrim quite often, so another reason to use other games and stress tests to check stability. http://www.overclock.net/a/how-to-use-rivatuner-afterburner-on-screen-display-and-more

There are guides on how to clean your PC on the internet. Cans of compressed air are quite useful and not too expensive. Make sure to read up and take necessary precautions to protect your equipment and yourself.
EDIT: was typing this before you posted you were going to get someone to do it for you.
 
Last edited:
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ddineeno

Member
Oussebon said:
You say the cooler is above the graphics card? GPU coolers are usually part of the graphics card and on the under side. E.g. these photos http://tinyurl.com/hc6d4y8

If it looks something like this: http://i1079.photobucket.com/albums/w512/grjr/forums/fx8350_1.jpg (a small metal heatsink with a little fan stuck on it) it's probably the CPU cooler

Testing system stability with modded Skyrim is a bad idea. Any crashes you get are more likely due to the mods than your system. So even if you fix the problem you might still get crashes with a modded setup. Stick with unmodded games, and use stress/benchmark tools like Valley:
https://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/valley/

To monitor your temperatures for CPU and GPU, use something like HWinfo (which you can pair with Rivatuner if you want an on-screen display). Make it record temps to a log file too. Note that ENB makes OSDs misbehave or not work with Skyrim quite often, so another reason to use other games and stress tests to check stability. http://www.overclock.net/a/how-to-use-rivatuner-afterburner-on-screen-display-and-more

There are guides on how to clean your PC on the internet. Cans of compressed air are quite useful and not too expensive. Make sure to read up and take necessary precautions to protect your equipment and yourself.
EDIT: was typing this before you posted you were going to get someone to do it for you.
Click to expand...

Yes its the CPU cooler not GPU, i have no idea when it comes to the hardware even in my own pc sadly. I used MSI all the time but uninstalled it for modded skyrim as i was aware it might not run properly, i will get it back and do as you suggest after i've had my pc cleaned, thanks
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
As far as I know, MSI Afterburner only monitors GPU temps and not the CPU, so you might need something else that does that. Let us know how it goes.
 
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ddineeno

Member
Oussebon said:
As far as I know, MSI Afterburner only monitors GPU temps and not the CPU, so you might need something else that does that. Let us know how it goes.
Click to expand...

i went ahead with the tests:

so my CPU 1 usage was at 90%, and the temperature 80 degrees celsius
the other CPU's 2-6 were at usage levels between 60 and 90 %, fluctuating , this was immediately as the game starts (gta iv, the one i got the hard crashes with)

my gpu temps and usages were fine (all below50 %)

so, is it the cpu? do you want more precise results? i can get a screeshot or something if you need
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I don't know AMD CPUs well, but that sounds quite hot. Whether it's heating enough to the point to cause a thermal shutdown I can't say.
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
You might also test your RAM and your hard disk, especially since you say it's getting worse...
 
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