Brace for lots of information (and some questions throughout):
My computer has been running completely fine for the past 2 months or so since I built it, but I've recently been having problems with it while gaming (while the computer is under stress). Sometimes games would crash with looping sound, sometimes the computer would slow down or crash and the audio would get stretched out (imagine a sound file playing 10-20x slower than normal), and it has became quite a problem. No problems doing everyday tasks on the computer. I can play video games on high settings for a while, but eventually, BAM, the computer will do something like what's mentioned above.
I had a buddy help me try and troubleshoot the problem, and I've tried the following so far:
Checked for viruses with Microsoft Security Essentials, no threats detected.
Disconnect all extra internal hard drives.
Downloaded and installed latest video card drivers.
Ran MemTest, no errors.
Ran Prime95 (CPU Stress Test) and monitored the temperatures.
Temperature (Start): 67 degrees Celcius
Temperature (5 mins): 85 degrees Celcius
Temperature (10 mins): 85 degrees Celcius
Temperature (15 mins): 87 degrees Celcius
Temperature (20 mins): 88 degrees Celcius
Temperature (25 mins): 87 degrees Celcius
Temperature (30 mins): 81 degrees Celcius
Temperature (Peak): 90 degrees Celcius
Good computer performance throughout test, 0 errors, 0 warnings. Is this temperature okay? It feels like it might be a little high, but since no problems happened during the test, I pretty much ruled out the CPU as part of the problem I'm having.
Ran FurMark 1.10.5 (Video Card Stress) and ran into some trouble after running the test for a while (Results below, also tried replacing my current video card with the video card from my old rig and running the same tests for comparison purposes)
OLD GPU - ATI Radeon HD 4850 (800x600 Burn-in Test)
Temperature (Start): 45 degrees Celcius
Temperature (5 mins): 65 degrees Celcius
Temperature (10 mins): 65 degrees Celcius
Temperature (15 mins): 65 degrees Celcius
Temperature (peak): 66 degrees Celcius
FPS Min: 22
FPS Average: 23
FPS Max: 27
Low FPS, but the computer ran smoothly throughout the test.
OLD GPU - ATI Radeon HD 4850 (1920x1080 Burn-in Benchmark)
Temperature (Start): 45 degrees Celcius
Temperature (5 mins): 65 degrees Celcius
Temperature (10 mins): 65 degrees Celcius
Temperature (15 mins): 65 degrees Celcius
Temperature (peak): 66 degrees Celcius
FPS Min: 9
FPS Average: 10
FPS Max: 11
Even Lower FPS, but again, the computer ran relatively smoothly throughout the test.
CURRENT GPU - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (800x600 Burn-in Test)
Temperature (Start): 45 degrees Celcius
Temperature (5 mins): 82 degrees Celcius
Temperature (10 mins): 82 degrees Celcius
Temperature (15 mins): 82 degrees Celcius
Temperature (peak): 82 degrees Celcius
FPS Min: 75
FPS Average: 92
FPS Max: 95
Great FPS, ran smoothly the whole time, temperature was quite a bit higher than my old video card though.
CURRENT GPU - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (1920x1080 Burn-in Benchmark)
Temperature (Start): 45 degrees Celcius
Temperature (5 mins): 82 degrees Celcius
Temperature (peak): 83 degrees Celcius
FPS Min: 45
FPS Average: 45
FPS Max: 46
Runs perfectly fine at first, then at some point the screen suddenly begins stuttering (comparable to watching a video that constantly needs to buffer. Smooth for a second, buffers, smooth for another second, buffers.. etc). Stats above were prior to the problem suddenly appearing. Closing the program at this point does nothing to fix the stuttering, symptoms would typically continue until the drivers crash and recover, or until the computer is restarted. (Only did this a few times). After that, everything would run smooth again.
At this point I'm almost certain that it's a problem with my video card, since after using an older video card in my system for a while I've had no trouble with crashing during games and such (just much lower performance), but now I'm not really sure what to do.
Is this potentially a cooling problem with my GTX 680 video card and/or rig? (Should I look into adding additional fans to my rig? room for 1 more 140mm fan, could add some type of fan into an open pci slot too. Or should I even look into water cooling my rig? Would it even do any good at this point?)
If it's not a cooling problem, what other causes should I investigate? Should the brand and wattage of my PSU be okay for this rig? (Don't have a higher wattage PSU to test in my rig). Is the card probably just defective and should I try to RMA it?
Tried to be as thorough as I could about this, but now I'm looking for more expert help about what I should do next. :smile: Let me know what you think, and if you need any other information, I'll try to get it to you as quickly as possible! I want to try and get this all sorted out before a lan event I'm planning on going to which is only a few weeks away.
SYSTEM SPECS
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Motherboard: GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K
Video Card: EVGA 02G-P4-2680-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Power Supply: XFX Core Edition PRO850W (P1-850S-NLB9) 850W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
RAM: G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2
Hard Drive: Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F90GBGT-BK 2.5" 90GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
