System instability detected. Random crashes observed.
System instability detected. Random crashes observed.
Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well. I'm facing a strange problem with my new gaming PC setup. It has an i7 14700K processor and a Zotac RTX 4070 Ti graphics card. The system usually works fine, but sometimes the screen goes black unexpectedly, the fans spin too hard, and the PC freezes. It forces me to press the power button to shut it down. Music plays normally, but when I try to play games, the experience is disrupted. No sound issues, just visual and performance glitches. I've checked drivers, updated everything, and even stopped background apps, but nothing changes. This seems to happen only during gameplay. Anyone have any suggestions on what might be causing this?
What are the rest of the pc specifications? Are there any error and warning messages in the event viewer that could point to something? Are there any warnings in the device manager? Do you have another pc to swap parts with for troubleshooting? Or a friend that you can borrow a pc from? If so start with the 4070, test it in another pc. Then test another gpu in your pc. Do so with other components aswell. Another note is your cpu. Do you know about Intel's degradation issues on their Raptor lake series cpus? If you've bought it second hand then that's a huge risk it has permanently degraded by the previous user. Sometimes resellers scam people selling those cpus that got returned to them as new, mostly through Amazon it seems. Did you buy the cpu from Amazon? In any case I hope you've the latest bios and using Intel's default profile. Once you've found the suspicious component use your warranty.
You've been reviewing the event viewer, but the only notable event is the shutdown triggered by holding the power button. There are error messages like "Session PerfDiag Logger stopped due to..." with codes 0xC0000188 or 0xC0000035. Since your PC components are brand new, you suspect hardware problems rather than wear. You mentioned updating drivers and BIOS but don’t have another GPU for testing. It seems likely a hardware issue is the cause.
I haven't managed to verify a link yet, though the problem appears more frequent during streaming. When I play games casually, it's happened just a few times, but while streaming it seems to occur roughly every few hours.
Sorry for the oversight. Here are your full PC specifications:
- Graphics Card: Zotax RTX4070 Ti Super Graphics Card
- Storage: Crucial P3 Plus 2TB NVMe SSD
- Drive: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR5-6000MHz
- RAM: Intel i7-14700K
- Processor: Raptor Lake
- Motherboard: Gigabyte EAGLE AX Z790
- Power Supply: Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RX RGB AIO
- Cooler: Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RGB AIO
No device manager issues detected.
I still think the 4070 is the best bet. Maybe someone else can test it there for confirmation? It might also be a power supply unit since it spikes during gaming and streaming when demand rises. The AIO cooler could be underperforming. Could you share the CPU and GPU temperatures while under load? Also, run a memtest to check the RAM, review the SMART table on that Crucial drive, and let me know what you think.
Thanks for the advice. I might need to check if I can return my GPU under warranty. It seems like everyone around me plays on consoles, not desktops. I’ve installed Furmark, Prime95, and HWmonitor and performed several stress tests, but the problem still persists. I also connected my PC to a power meter to monitor its usage. Initially, running Furmark alone caused the screen to go dark in just five minutes, followed by loud fan noise. Normally, my PC runs quietly even during gaming. If I leave it like this, it restarts on its own after a while—no need to press the power button. I noticed something odd: power usage dropped sharply when the screen went black. Under Furmark alone, the system draws about 530 watts from the wall. When the screen turned off, it fell to around 210 watts despite the fans being very loud. After a full hour of combined tests, nothing changed—everything worked fine. HWmonitor shows my CPU reaching 100°C, which is unusual for a 14700K processor on a 360mm radiator. My GPU stays below 80°C and draws roughly 760 watts. I also reviewed the Event Viewer after the crash from the first Furmark test and attached a screenshot of the events around that time.
It's a BSOD, the display goes black during crashes, which often happens when the GPU fails. 0x133 indicates DPC_Watchdog_Violation, typically a driver issue rather than hardware failure. Recently many users report faulty Nvidia GPUs triggering ISRs that lead to this problem. If you share the crash dump files, I can analyze them. We'll first try updating the driver before assuming hardware is the cause. Just know, ISRs are normal and expected; the reason behind this pattern isn't clear. Check C:\Windows\Minidump for any saved dumps. If present, move the folder to Downloads (or use your desktop if needed) and compress it. Follow the steps carefully—Windows doesn’t allow changes there easily.
There is only 1 file in the minidump. Hope this is correct. Minidump.zip
Hmm... Didn't I read somewhere that the 572.xx drivers were causing BSODs some weeks ago, but hasn't that been fixed? Weren't that mostly on the 50xx cards? I've used the 572 drivers for awhile now on my 4060 and never experienced a crash. Although I've never installed the Nvidia app, just the drivers if that matters. If that's the case he could try find an older driver from december to try with in meantime, while waiting for Nvidia to fix their driver.