Yellow-ish crash during games

[phoenix_2000]

Heya,

I've got a long-time problem with some of the games i've been running on my windows machine.
When i play a game, my screen goes black for a moment, and then shows me an (usually) yellow screen with some light grey vertical stripes on it.
I can't seem to figure out what exactly is causing the problem: switching my graphics card from an Ati card to an NVIDIA seems to increase the stability, but it still crashes.

There's nothing in the windows logs, except for an "unexpected shutdown" because i have to reset it using the power button.

I only run steam when playing a game, with exception of battlefield 3, thanks to battlelog.

This is what i tried so far:
- reinstalling windows
- reinstalling the graphics drivers (using a driver cleaner)
- running a CPU and GPU stress test for a few hours (both at once)
- keeping an eye on my tempratures using a second screen. It's usually around 50-60 degree's during games, and i believe around 80 when doing the dubbel stress test
- a memory test, using windows build in tools
- resetting the BIOS (everything, not just the time. had to do that to fix another bug)

Sometimes it crashes after 5 minutes, and sometimes i can play for days in a row (figure of speech that is, not litteraly :))

It seems to happen more often on some games (left 4 dead 2, minecraft) then others.

The only things i still have to test are my power supply (which i doubt tbh) and my motherboard, but i don't know how to test that one.

[mjdodd]

Thgis can be a difficult one! as you know but you have looked at one area that seems to me still to be a possibility. A ,number of items and especially the processor have shut down facilities that do not appear on the logs if they get too hot; You note that the temperature under a stress test is 80°C and whilst that is still within boundaries it is a bit hotter than I would like. Are all your fans working, are they all clear of dust (mobo also clear of dust) and are all the vents in the machine clean and are all the heat sinks clean. Depending on what your ambient temperature is it could be that some componenet (memory chip) is closing down because of heat problem. I live in a fairly worm place and many clients have had this type of problem, not easily tyraced but ALL above precautions taken (even moving the computer away from walls to allow better ventilation has cured some of them.
M

[phoenix_2000]

Hello MJDODD,

I did consider the heat to be a problem, so i bought a seperate processor cooler and installed that one.
It did reduce the tempratures, especially during games.

Right now i have a bigcase with a processor cooler, one cooler on the top (blowing out through some holes), 1 on the back and 1 on the side.
I also removed the side cover,and made put the case on the floor horizontal (so i can look straight in my case)

I didn't check all of the coolers, but i can hear my graphics and processor cooler, and feel the top one since it blows against my feet.
I'll check the other ones, and blow out some dust tonight, and i'll let you know when it occurs again.

[mjdodd]

I suspect a moderator may need to deal with the latest post!!
M

[phoenix_2000]

flagged. Let the banhammer fall.