specs:
windows 7 home premium 64
cpu: core i7 920 @2.67Ghz
ram: 12GB RAM(Patriot PVT36G1600ELK)
mobo:MSI x58 Platinum SLI
Gfx card: EVGA Geforce GTX 660 Ti 2GB
power supply: Antec Signature SG-850 850W
sound: Xonar D2X
desktop running at 120 hz
I just upgraded to a new monitor. Its a BenQ XL2720Z 144hz. I was excited to try out some fps games since this is my first monitor above 60hz, but instead, my excitement waned because my games are crashing for an unknown reason. I tried to play Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and almost immediately, within 15 seconds, I got a black screen and looping audio. The driver crashed and recovered while the game was still going. I could hear the sound of the enemies killing me, but I was back on the desktop. I had to kill the game process and tried again, and again and again. It just kept crashing. So I google the problem and this problem was showing up a lot and plenty of solutions posted which I try and still the game crashes. If I try to play Half-Life 2 again without rebooting, when the game crashes again, the whole system locks up and I have to reboot with a power cycle.
I give up on Half-Life 2 and play Tribes Ascend. Its working. I played an entire 30 minute match, and 10 minutes of the next map when all of a sudden black screen. This black screen has no sound and didn't recover. I had to power cycle the pc to resume. That's two games that I have had problems with.
Before I got the new monitor I hadn't played those games in a very long time, so I don't know if this issue is new or not. Whatever is happening may or may not be related to the new monitor or especially the higher refresh rate which makes the card work much harder. I used to always play with vsync On on my old 60hz monitor because I hate screen tearing. Now I play with vsync off at 144hz since I can't see screen tears at this refresh rate. These crashes that require a powercycle are not generating minidump logs.
Its either the video card or the power supply. The video card is a refurbished that replaced a bad Geforce 570 HD earlier this year. The power supply is around 5 years old. I'm not sure which one is causing the trouble. Last time I had a bad power supply, I was getting actual BSODs. When my 570 HD was going out, it did a similar thing with black screen and NVidia kernel recovering, but more often and even while not playing games.
Things I've done so far:
reset my cpu to default clockspeed, from 3.3ghz to 2.67ghz
set the memory timings and clocks to the XMP profile instead of auto configuration.
uninstalled a 3rd party sound card driver and installed the official Asus driver from 2011(latest)
ran furmark for several minutes and didn't encounter the kernel crash. I think this rules out over heating. (or does it?)Why would HL2 crash in 15 seconds and furmark last for several minutes with no crash?
Things I have not tried:
another Gfx card
clean reinstall of windows 7
putting my old monitor back and playing at 60 hz
other games yet.
I need this pc to remain very stable since it uses Windows Media Center to record ATSC from an HDHomerun.