Unofficial Computer Issues Thread

[Krik]

So 2-3 days ago I was playing ArmA 2 with a friend, which always sort of pushes my computer to it's max, and then my computer made a ****ing horrible sound like someone ripped the sound card in half or something. Simultaneously, the screen went completely white and locked up so I turned it off and figured it may've overheated since it will occasionally do that with ArmA 2. Since then it's been happening more and more frequently and today it happened after I closed Hitman Blood Money and started browsing the internet, neither of which are hard on my computer. I'm guessing it's a graphics card issue but I'm not entirely sure what it is which is why I asked the ever-wise TW off topic section.

 

[Kevlar]

Check for dust would be my first suggestion. Loud sounds coming from inside could also be caused by a fan hitting something although that should really only happen if you were just putting the computer back together and forgot to clear wires out of the way or something.

GPU could also be on its last leg if you are getting artifacts when doing anything GPU intensive.

Edit : Just looked at the other thread and see your using a laptop so can't be number 1 (although still would have dust if it is old most likely).

 

[Krik]

Sound came through the speakers, dust is a possibility.

 

[Splintert]

CPU overheated.

The sound is because the decoder failed and that noise got sent to the speakers, just before the system crashed.

To verify, look in your system event logs at the time of the crash.

 

[Krik]

Figured as much, shouldn't be 80F here in December.

 

[Splintert]

Try undervolting. I was able to decrease my CPU's voltage by .125 without losing any stability or performance, yet decreasing temperatures by over 10C.

 

[Krik]

Switched chargers and the problem seems to be gone, i may've been using the fried charger.

 

[Splintert]

That's a bit odd, unless the charger was doing some kind of spike your laptop would just switch to battery without issue.

 

[Krik]

No battery.

I guess if people use it this can be the thread for technical issues.

 

[Splintert]

Okay I've been unable to solve an issue I've been having for 3 weeks now.

Every time I play a game that utilizes my GPU at 100%, after an undetermined amount of time it will toggle power for the whole system. I've pretty well determined that it is a power supply issue. This morning I moved my GPU to the PCIe slot further away from the PSU in an attempt to make it stop blowing hot air into the PSU's fan. Needless to say, it didn't work. So, I come for 2 things: what is a high quality ATX power supply that I can replace this one with and what can I do in the mean time to try to prevent system crashes from occurring (other than simply not playing games)?

 

[Fehnor]

This seems more like a heat issue than a power issue. Use an air duster or two on the GPU, and make sure the fan isn't blocked by any debris.

 

[Splintert]

It took me 3 weeks of intense GPU/CPU cooling methods to realize that isn't the case. GPU maxes at 50C and CPU doesn't breach 65C.

Here's an interesting bit of evidence:

隐藏

The 12, 5, and 3.3v are all reading horribly undervolted values. It's my understanding that they should at least be close to what they're supposed to be.

 

[Jace]

What's the point in a thread which aims to contain all of the computer issues? Just so someone with a similar problem (who wouldn't be able to spot it in the title when peeking into the forum) would need to trawl through tons of unrelated posts to see if someone had come up with a solution?

Or is there something I'm missing here?

 

[Krik]

Could always just search in the thread, 90% of these things are just named "Computer Help!" or something along those lines anyway.