Budget gaming PC, crashing regularly

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum so firstly I'd like to thank you in advance and please excuse my ineptitude!

I've trawled through hundreds of forums and web pages and typically most of what I have come across is not exactly what my issues are here and now....so I'm reaching out to you folks who know what they are talking about!
I found a useful post here a few days ago (Windows 10 lag spikes/freezes with event errors) and is very similar to what the troubles I am having are.

So, please excuse me if I ramble a bit here.

I like doing a bit of light gaming from time to time and have used the Microsoft Surface from my office so very used to low res games (I play World of Tanks and some of the older Hitman games etc, all played on the lowest graphics settings). After doing some research and seeing you can buy an older PC and upgrade the GPU, I decided to buy a HP Elite 8300 CMT and found a used Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1050Ti OC graphics card. The two went together pretty well and all seemed good.

Until I found it froze up regularly, sometimes (often) completely crashed and restarted after a time.

I have been playing Mafia 3 and Sniper Elite 4 and especially in Mafia, it regularly completely crashes when you are pushing a couple of buttons at the same time (as you tend to do).

I'm really quite green on this, so I'd appreciate your input.

From the post I mentioned above, I've also stopped using Chrome, this also froze the PC multiple times per day.

My system specs are attached from a download I did earlier today from DxDiag. Probably there is a lot of irrelevant stuff in there.

Many thanks, I look forward to hearing from you.

First off I see that your PC is 'old' with a 3rd gen Core i5 CPU so have you checked that the CPU is not clogged with dust and overheating? Ensure all ventilation components are clear. e.g. Fans, vents etc.
Second you say it is a budget gaming PC so has it been overclocked? This alone can cause instability but if you have a dusty CPU the problem is magnified and make CPU overheating worse.

Hi Wiganken, thanks for the prompt reply.

I have checked the dust situation and seems relitively clear although I'll give it a good dust out today with a compressed air can I have. The fans are pretty clean, I checked them a few weeks back.

Apologies I wasn't very clear on the history of the machine, the PC I bought wasn't a gaming PC, it was a standard ex-lease (I think) computer from a computer recycling company. So no I don't believe it has been overclocked.

Is there a way or a program to tell me what the CPU tempature is so I can monitor it when it gets laggy?

Cheers

Have a look at CPUID . The CPU-Z is freeware but I am not sure it shows CPU temperatures.
Also search the internet for "CPU test software" (without the quotes) and you will get quite a few hits to choose from.

Also it could be the GPU overheating so test that using GPU-Z Graphics Card GPU Information Utility , another free program.

CPUID HWMonitor does show CPU temps, it is free to use. Look on the left hand side of the page, version 1.41 .

HWMONITOR | Softwares | CPUID

Thanks wiganken and Hackett,
Apologies for the delay in responding, I've been down with sickness for the past few days.

I have opened up the case and given it a good blow down with compressed air can, there was a little dust build up but pretty clean to be honest.
Next I downloaded the CPU-Z software and the CPUID HWMonitor; both confirmed the CPU temp was not high (max so far of 49 degrees C. The GPU temperature has been max so far of 41 degrees C and the fans haven't even started.

However it has crashed again while closing a game and I have found the Event Viewer and downloaded the Critical and Error events and attached them. Not sure if these help, I can't understand the language I'm afraid but someone here should be able to I'm sure.

I also changed the power supply lead and plugged into a different outlet as the lead was originally plugged into a multi box.

I didn't mention above also, but the screen regularly goes black for maybe 5 seconds, it looks like its going to crash, then it reappears and looks like nothing has changed.

Anyway, hopefully some of this makes sense to you!

Cheers

Maybe your drivers need updating? You cannot rely on Windows update to update drivers because device manufacturers may have stopped supporting old devices. It may be that your old PC has devices that have lost support and are now struggling with latest versions of Windows 10. Even if they are still supported they could be out of date. There are free tools to check for and update drivers and one of them is Download Driver Booster - the best free driver updater for Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista & XP. . There are other tools that do this but you'll have to search for them.

Thanks very much, I've downloaded this driver booster and run the updates, there were 23 that were out of date!

After restarting etc, I ran a game for a few hours and didn't crash, however it occasionally stuttered in audio and screen resolution when I was loading or saving the game. Not a biggie though.

Will keep you posted!

- - - Updated - - -

It has done it again, it crashed this afternoon when exiting a simulator game.

Thanks for your help so far, not out of the woods yet...

Suggest you check the driver dates for each device in Device Manager. I'd start with the "Display Adapter". If a device is no longer supported the driver update process will not find any updates and you may find you have extremely old drivers. In my case I was having display problems and I discovered my graphics card drivers were over 3 years old and in that time Windows 10 had been upgraded 3 times and updated numerous times. This meant that the 3 year old drivers supported a version of Windows that was nothing like the current version. I changed the graphic card for one that still receives driver updates, ensured the updates were installed and that fixed it.

The only other thing I can think of is a developing hardware fault but that could be anything.

If that doesn't help I am sorry to say I have nothing else to contribute.