PC crashes/restarts when playing most games

PC crashes and then restarts when playing most games. Have clean installed windows and drivers multiple times and temps on cpu and gpu are healthy. Crashes at random points depending on game normally after initial loading screen. Can play hearts of iron 4 on borderless but resolution is not 1080p. All parts in build are new except gpu which is from old build.

DESKTOP-DDGQ60S-(2023-02-10_01-49-41).zip

Check your memory with Memtest86. Let all four passes run. MemTest86 - Official Site of the x86 and ARM Memory Testing Tool

F22 Simpilot said:

Check your memory with Memtest86. Let all four passes run. MemTest86 - Official Site of the x86 and ARM Memory Testing Tool

No errors on all passes

I looked over your event logs and your system sure has a lot of errors. It seems like the Windows install is bad or the hard drive is bad.

Is your BIOS the latest? One error indicated the BIOS was limiting your CPU. It could be a BIOS setting.

That ASUS software that updates drivers I wouldn't have running. Uninstall that once. I'd rather grab the driver from their website directly.

I would make sure Windows update does not update drivers behind your back. How to Stop Automatic Driver Updates on Windows


Roll back your GPU driver, and install JUST the driver. Not the NVIDIA Experience crap.

F22 Simpilot said:

I looked over your event logs and your system sure has a lot of errors. It seems like the Windows install is bad or the hard drive is bad.

Is your BIOS the latest? One error indicated the BIOS was limiting your CPU. It could be a BIOS setting.

That ASUS software that updates drivers I wouldn't have running. Uninstall that once. I'd rather grab the driver from their website directly.

I would make sure Windows update does not update drivers behind your back. How to Stop Automatic Driver Updates on Windows


Roll back your GPU driver, and install JUST the driver. Not the NVIDIA Experience crap.

The errors I can see in the event log seem to be DCOM or related to me not having an activated windows license.

I updated the BIOS and adjusted the windows power settings and the cpu error doesn't appear anymore.

Cleaned gpu and audio drivers using DDU and reinstalled from website but the problem persists.

Would it be worth uninstalling drivers downloaded from the asus software and reinstalling directly from website?

Have checked windows install with SFC and DISM and have clean installed multiple times with no change.

Is there a way to check if the hard drive is bad other than chkdsk and S.M.A.R.T check

Cleaned gpu and audio drivers using DDU and reinstalled from website but the problem persists.

But did you roll back the driver to something else? It may make a difference.

Would it be worth uninstalling drivers downloaded from the asus software and reinstalling directly from website?

Maybe, but if it's the same of course it won't matter. I'm thinking there's some DLL or software interfering with the computer. If you type in dxdiag in search are all the drivers in each tab error free?

Have checked windows install with SFC and DISM and have clean installed multiple times with no change.

So by no change you mean the errors in the logs? Try not having anything else installed except base level stuff like drivers and whatnot and then try a game in Steam. On the surface it may be the RAM or hard drive, I'm not sure. Something is not right with your OS install given those errors. A bad hard drive or RAM could cause errors like that. But it would probably be random errors and nothing consistent like I see in the logs.


Hard drive testing software like Hard Disk Sentinel may help. But a thorough test is a write to the drive which is destructive to the current installed OS of course. Before doing that swap SATA cables and its connected socket or the NVMe socket first and see if the issue is present, but I doubt this is the problem. There's just something bad with your OS install. Some software or a driver could have done it. I don't know. It's hard to help fix stuff like this without physically being there.

Does the GPU even meet the game's requirements? A GPU test may be in order as well.

I'm pretty much throwing everything out there I can think of. It really is a process of elimination.

I'll look over your logs again.

F22 Simpilot said:

Go to search and enter services In services find the following three services and make sure they are on.

Network connections broker

Connected Devices Platform Service

Network List Service


Does the computer crash even not gaming? If so, try Safe Mode. Still crashes?

Check those services first before testing the HDD. Samsung Magician should have some insight to drive health. Since it's a 1 TB did you allocate 100GB of the drive? You do that for over provisioning for better garbage collection ability and longevity of the drive. With flash drives like a SSD or NVMe you over provision by at least 10%.


Note: An error in Samsung's 980 Pro firmware is causing SSDs to die. I'd check your drive right now tbh | PC Gamer

No errors in dxdiag

still crashes with nothing but drivers and game installed

Issue persists when using a separate SSD with an install of windows I know works on other systems.

GPU meets requirements.

All listed services are running.

Computer only crashes when gaming

10% of the drive is overprovisioned and samsung magician says the drive is healthy.

Games will play on lower resolutions that don't use 16:9 aspect ratio.

Try a different PCI-e port for the GPU once.

In BIOS, and just for good measure, turn off the CPU GPU if the option is present. There may be BIOS options that need to be set...

F22 Simpilot said:

Try a different PCI-e port for the GPU once.

In BIOS, and just for good measure, turn off the CPU GPU if the option is present. There may be BIOS options that need to be set...

No change on both