Computer crashes under heavy graphics load

Hey 10forums. I've been having this issue for a long time and i've been trying to get it figured out. Whenever i play a graphics intensive game (Or any game really). My screens go black, audio cuts out, and my fans spin up to 100%. Only way to recover is to restart the entire computer.

This happens for almost every game i try playing. I have tried updating drivers, reinstalling games, updating windows and utilizing every built in error checking tool, and nothing. None of the games i play have any form of error message come up. or have any crash log files anywhere on the HDD. However a couple games recognize something happened and ask me to boot up in safe mode.

Anyone have an idea for the next step to take?

There are log collectors used in another Ten Forums room.
Run each V2 and DM and upload results directly into this thread:
BSOD - Posting Instructions

Update the specs in the "My Computer" section:

System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums
In the left corner below in your post you find 'My System Specs'.
After clicking it you can find a link a little below that says 'Update your System Spec', click on this link to get to the page where you can fill in your system specs.
System Info - See Your System Specs - Windows 7 Help Forums

Include PSU. cooler, case, peripherals and anything attached to the computer by wired or wireless (mouse, keyboard, headset, printer, xbox, USB wireless network card, etc.)

zbook said:

There are log collectors used in another Ten Forums room.
Run each V2 and DM and upload results directly into this thread:
BSOD - Posting Instructions

Update the specs in the "My Computer" section:

Caledon Ken said:

It very much sounds like your system is over heating.

Open case, ensure good airflow. May need to remove dust. If you use compressed air hold fans with a pencil so they don't over spin and try not to force dirt in deeper. Does your case have filters?


You can get a tool like CPUID HWMonitor. It will show you temps on CPU and should give you graphic card temps as well.

System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums
In the left corner below in your post you find 'My System Specs'.
After clicking it you can find a link a little below that says 'Update your System Spec', click on this link to get to the page where you can fill in your system specs.
System Info - See Your System Specs - Windows 7 Help Forums

Include PSU. cooler, case, peripherals and anything attached to the computer by wired or wireless (mouse, keyboard, headset, printer, xbox, USB wireless network card, etc.)

It's not a bsod so i didnt think to do those steps. I will do them and follow up

I have ran the temperature monitors open in another monitor and it doesn't look like it's an overheating issue.

What does Reliability History show,there should be at least one entry with "unexpected shutdown".
What do the pages in "dxdiag" indicate?
Did you use the driver data,given in :dxdiag>display page to download it,or a later version from the maker's site only and then use Display Driver Uninstaller [DDU],in safe mode to uninstall and then install the new one?
Does the Display Adapter in device manager give any faults,the most common being 'timeout detection and response"[TDR],the default setting is two seconds,shown in milliseconds,after which the adapter stops and the only effective action is to restart.

Caledon Ken said:

It very much sounds like your system is over heating.

Open case, ensure good airflow. May need to remove dust. If you use compressed air hold fans with a pencil so they don't over spin and try not to force dirt in deeper. Does your case have filters?


You can get a tool like CPUID HWMonitor. It will show you temps on CPU and should give you graphic card temps as well.

I've never had that happen. My expectation is that the (Intel) CPU would throttle rather than locking up the PC. If that turns out not to be true, I'd be mildly disappointed.

The last hard locks I've had were in a Web browser. Edge, but I don't recall whether I've had one with the Chromium version. The machine was not heavily stressed at the time.

One suggestion to SparkyLite: downlaod and run FurMark. (FurMark > Home) It's primarily a GPU stress test. On those rare ocassions when I experiment with overclocking my GPU, FurMark will crash almost instantly if I've gone too far.

You aren't OC'ing your CPU or GPU, are you? I see that you're using a CPU with an unlocked multiplier (I7-3770K).

@Caledon Ken My PSU is sized proportionally. This started happening after a ~yr of no hardware changes. PSU is maybe 4-6yrs old. I opened up my case and everything looks fine. Ill take one of my massive fans and put it beside the PC with the case open to supercool it and see if that makes a difference.

It happens anywhere at the main menu to 20minutes in. Yesterday when i tried CSGO it crashed immediately after entering the game (Didn't even get in the map), but just now it worked fine for 5minutes before i manually quit.


@bobkn I have tried CPU stress tests and GPU stress tests previously while troubleshooting this problem. For the sake of it i ran FurMark again and nothing happened. I also just ran the Passmark CPU test and nothing happened either However apparently my CPU rating is 7000 while other identical CPU's are 10,000. Might be just because its old? And no i am not OCing anything. I did have evga precision a few months ago and played with the fan settings, but i have since reverted the settings back to default and uninstalled.


@Joe Reliability history shows that windows had an unexpected shutdown, which i presume is me hitting the power button after the screens went black. Nothing else was shown. Pages in dxdiag show nothing out of the ordinary. I always used NVidias page to download the latest driver. The display adapter in device mananger shows no errors



Also just for the sake of it, i ran a stresstest on both the CPU and GPU, task manager recorded the average usage for bothing being between 80% and 100% for 5 minutes and nothing irregular happened.

I use openhardwaremonitor
With it you can set what you want to see on the taskbar and on the gadget. It also record the max and min values.






If the fans begin to spin loud, the temperatures can be reaching high temps.

Did you run disk check (chkdsk c: /f), System file check (SFC /scannow) and a memory test?