Crash to Desktop and/or BSOD

[Raist]

may be a longshot... but I've recently experienced some bizarre issues with my system.

Double-check that your sound/video cards are seated snugly in their slots--check your RAM as well. Things can creep a little loose during the heating/cooling of your system (expansion/contraction theory) if they aren't snug fittings. They can also be more susceptible to oxidation on the contacts as well--especially if your area frequently suffers from high humidity. The simple act of removing/refitting can sometimes remove some of that buildup and result in a cleaner contact. Unwanted resistance can be crucial with the really low voltages we deal with these days.

My 5870 has one h3ll of a cooling system on it (Vapor-X OC edition), and it literally was creeping out of it's slot slightly at the back edge. There's a clip there to prevent it from coming out and all, but it just wasn't snug enough. It was just a matter of time before it would creep out enough and then I'd start getting weird corruption periodically on screen. If I let it go too long, I'd see gold vertical bars on a black background start flashing on screen, then intermittent flashes of black screen, then a full on system freeze. Went in and rigged up a little support system by literally tying the card to the side of the case that the motherboard is mounted on. There's a few holes on the top edge of the card... I simply ran some twine through it, and lopped through a cut-out in the case and tied it just tight enough to keep the card snug in the slot. I know.. bizarre McGuyvering... but it's worked so far.

My Xonar DX sound card also has an issue with it's power connector. It is actually a plug that accepts the old floppy disk power connector--and as usual, the connectors don't fit that molex very snugly, and there's no locking clip. I had to use some cable ties to keep that thing from coming loose when I jostled the case around. So, may want to double check your power fittings on devices as well while you are in there.

Last but not least, make sure your cooling is working properly. Many apps come with hardware now to monitor their temps--if not, should be able to find something online. I've got a small program for my laptop that can read the temp of each of my CPU's cores as well as my nVidia and post them in systray if I want (I just do one CPU core and the GPU though, so it doesn't fill the notifications area). It's called RealTemp, and is completely free from techpowerup. Getting it to load automatically in Win8 was funky though... wound up doing it via a scheduled task. Don't have t worry about flipping back and forth to check temps either--it tracks the min/max of each one you monitor. I can just mouse over the numbers in my systray and balloon help pops up to show my GPU min/max, and it breaks out my 4 CPU core temps. A double-click opens the interface and it shows the min/max of each CPU core and other stats.

[Rexxus]

may be a longshot... but I've recently experienced some bizarre issues with my system.

Double-check that your sound/video cards are seated snugly in their slots--check your RAM as well. Things can creep a little loose during the heating/cooling of your system (expansion/contraction theory) if they aren't snug fittings. They can also be more susceptible to oxidation on the contacts as well--especially if your area frequently suffers from high humidity. The simple act of removing/refitting can sometimes remove some of that buildup and result in a cleaner contact. Unwanted resistance can be crucial with the really low voltages we deal with these days.

My 5870 has one h3ll of a cooling system on it (Vapor-X OC edition), and it literally was creeping out of it's slot slightly at the back edge. There's a clip there to prevent it from coming out and all, but it just wasn't snug enough. It was just a matter of time before it would creep out enough and then I'd start getting weird corruption periodically on screen. If I let it go too long, I'd see gold vertical bars on a black background start flashing on screen, then intermittent flashes of black screen, then a full on system freeze. Went in and rigged up a little support system by literally tying the card to the side of the case that the motherboard is mounted on. There's a few holes on the top edge of the card... I simply ran some twine through it, and lopped through a cut-out in the case and tied it just tight enough to keep the card snug in the slot. I know.. bizarre McGuyvering... but it's worked so far.

My Xonar DX sound card also has an issue with it's power connector. It is actually a plug that accepts the old floppy disk power connector--and as usual, the connectors don't fit that molex very snugly, and there's no locking clip. I had to use some cable ties to keep that thing from coming loose when I jostled the case around. So, may want to double check your power fittings on devices as well while you are in there.

Last but not least, make sure your cooling is working properly. Many apps come with hardware now to monitor their temps--if not, should be able to find something online. I've got a small program for my laptop that can read the temp of each of my CPU's cores as well as my nVidia and post them in systray if I want (I just do one CPU core and the GPU though, so it doesn't fill the notifications area). It's called RealTemp, and is completely free from techpowerup. Getting it to load automatically in Win8 was funky though... wound up doing it via a scheduled task. Don't have t worry about flipping back and forth to check temps either--it tracks the min/max of each one you monitor. I can just mouse over the numbers in my systray and balloon help pops up to show my GPU min/max, and it breaks out my 4 CPU core temps. A double-click opens the interface and it shows the min/max of each CPU core and other stats.

Performed a Linpack Test, and CPU stability is confirmed.

Core Temp runs at around 23.2C idle and 28~ at load. No Soundcard exists on my system - using onboard sound (After a couple rigs, I seldom bother with wasting a PCI slot on one).

800W PSU - I haven't overclocked anything, and even if I had - wattage shouldn't be an issue.

I've always imagined re-seating cards to be one of those old wives tale type fixes (Blowing in the cartridge..), but I'll give it a try and perform a few more runs of the game to see if it has any direct impact.

[Rexxus]

Well. Had to shut down to do the re-seat and ensure everything was nice and snug. After logging back in, I played consistently for the next hour or so without incident. I'm skeptical the fix had anything to do with touching the hardware, but since things are working properly now - I'm not apt to complain.

If a moderator would be so kind as to lock this topic. Should the issue return, I will simply start a new thread and reference this one (unless it gets filed away in an unseen corner).

Thanks.