PC experiences frequent crashes following the recent GPU upgrade and case change.
PC experiences frequent crashes following the recent GPU upgrade and case change.
Hey everyone,
I recently upgraded my PC to a GTX 4090 and had to upgrade the case as well because of its size. Nothing else changed much.
Once the new PC was set up, I installed NZXT CAM and ASUS Armoury crate for RGB lighting control. I hadn’t done that before since my Cerberus case was already full.
After turning it on, I immediately tested the performance in Blender, my main tool, and was very pleased with the improved render times. Everything seemed to function perfectly.
But then, while playing Avatar, the whole system shut down instantly—no blue screen, no graphics issues, just a black screen and all lights except the case power LED went out. I restarted and blamed Ubisoft. After that, it ran smoothly for hours, but then it crashed again. So I stopped playing Avatar temporarily.
When I played CS2, I experienced random crashes every day, though they didn’t stop after a while. A friend suggested cleaning and reinstalling the graphics drivers. I did that, and CS2 only crashed once after about two weeks. That was strange. Now it happens more often when playing other games. In Path of Exile, I get a crash every 2–3 hours; sometimes I can’t finish an area because it keeps freezing there. Ascend, on the other hand, crashes after just 15 minutes of playtime. So it became my benchmark.
I ran Prime95, Furmark, and heavy Blender rendering for around 30 minutes each, and everything proceeded normally. I checked with CAM—temperatures were within range. Everything seems to be working as expected.
Then last night, I tried the DISM Windows cleanup routine, which detected some corruption and completed without errors (that was a first).
On Ascend, I managed to play the tutorial and was satisfied, but after about an hour of play, it crashed again.
I’m unsure what else I can do. If it’s the PSU, GPU, CPU, RAM, or temperatures, it would crash during stress tests too. But it didn’t. It only crashes most often in a game that isn’t as demanding. Even in PoE mode, nothing unusual happened—no major issues. It wasn’t like my build could handle 1 million Fireballs per second. It was just during leveling.
Help tom’sHARDWARE—I’m your only hope.
Hey, thanks for your reply. That was my initial reaction too. But why does it crash during games but not during Furmark? I have a new benchmark going now. Path of Exile boss fight, always the same character. It worked with one, failed with another. Now I’m trying to figure it out. My PSU is a Silverstone ST1200-PTS and it’s 3.5 years old.
Edit: I just fixed my DirectX install and it finished the boss fight. A bad DirectX could also be the reason for not crashing during Blender renders or Furmark, but I’m still not sure. I’ll keep you updated.
Edit2: It crashed again.
Edit3: I ran the 3DMark Free demo twice in a row and it didn’t crash.