Computer hardlocks when gaming

[dmetherton1]

Within the past month my computer has started to hard lock when gaming. It seems to only do this for intensive games such as skyrim and older games such as settlers 7. All drivers are up to date, I have cleaned all dust from case and components, and have ran ATI tools.

When running ATI tools and scanning for artifacts it hard locked at 11 min 11 sec the error report was as following

5:30 Error
6:00 Error
6:35 Error
7:45 Error
8:56 Error
10:00 Error
10:38 Error
10:45 Error
11:00 Error
11:11 (Crash white screen)

the graphics card temp reached a max of 77 C while maintaining an average of
75 C

I mainly need to know if I need a new graphics card and if not how to fix the problem.

my computer specs are as followed

CPU
Intel® Core™ i7-2600K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/8MB L3 Cache) )

RAM
8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair

Graphics Card
AMD Radeon HD 6970 - 2GB - HIS IceQ X Turbo - Core: 900MHz - Single Card )

Motherboard
ASUS P8Z68-V LX

Power Supply
( 800 Watt - Standard )

Hard drive
500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

Operating System
( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - 64-Bit )

 

[Jad Chaar]

Temperatures are fine, power supply is substantial enough. Try uninstalling the drivers with this tool: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/catalyst-uninstall-utility.aspx
Then install 13.1 (stable release). This will clean up any errors caused by previous releases. The card is at stock speeds right now? Also what are ATI tools?

 

[dmetherton1]

Uninstalled and reinstalled driver. Crashed again.The card is at stock speeds right now. ATI tools is a overclocking utility but my only use with it was for artifact scanning.I have never overclocked this computer.
I also used OCCT to stress test the gpu and power supply, I ran each for an hour with no problems.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Uninstalled and reinstalled driver. Crashed again.The card is at stock speeds right now. ATI tools is a overclocking utility but my only use with it was for artifact scanning.I have never overclocked this computer.
I also used OCCT to stress test the gpu and power supply, I ran each for an hour with no problems.

Hmm. Try running FurMark for a few hours and see if it crashes your PC.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Run this tool overnight to stress your GPU and see if it crashes: https://www.techspot.com/downloads/5098-unigine-heaven-benchmark.html
If your PC doesnt crash, then your GPU is fine. If it does crash, you may need to RMA the card.

 

[dmetherton1]

Just ran FurMark, it crashed in 28 seconds and AMD recovered. Reran burn test again and this time black screen no recovery at about the 30 second mark.

Does this mean I need to RMA Card?

 

[dmetherton1]

If I do need to RMA card, what are the top reasons these problems occur and how can I prevent it with the next card?

 

[Tmagic650]

RMA= Return Material Authorization. Each company has their own return procedures and time limits. Contact the place where you bought the video card for return instructions... Video cards can fail for many reasons

 

[Jad Chaar]

The card is the issue. Do what Tmagic said.