CPU keeps freezing randomly. Randomly won't boot fully into OS

[sublimed]

Hello, I am new to posting on the forums; however, I have resolved issues here in the past, before.

I recently upgraded my computer from an e6400 to an e8400. In doing so, I also upgraded my GFX card from an 8800gtx+ to a XFX GTX 280 xxx edition. Things were fine until the computer decided to randomly start hard locking (sometimes the screen would still display on the monitor, but no response from any peripherals. Other times the screen stays on, but seems to be getting no signal from the video card.)

If this annoyance occurs during bootup, the computer would just reboot. I reinstalled Windows 7 Ultimate N, rewired the power supply and reseated the heat sink, and the random reboots during bootup have seemed to stop. YAY

...not

During the Windows 7 install on a formatted HD, the computer froze once. 2nd attempt of install went just fine. When I got into Windows, first thing I did was install the 196.75 driver from nVidia. I tried rolling back to the .26 driver version on the previous windows install, so I decided to go ahead and go with the newest version with the new OS install.

For the most part, this freeze seems to primarily occur when I play a video game (WoW, to be specific) for about 4-15 minutes. Although sometimes I can get lucky and have it run for 24 hours.

So it seems the computer is much more reliable to boot into Windows, but I still cannot play games. I have actually tried troubleshooting many different devices:
Swapped out the PSU
Swapped out the GPU (used a GTX 260)
Swapped out the RAM (ran memtest x86 through 3 passes on all the RAM)

Under heavy load, my CPU never gets hotter than 56c, mobo shows 36c

I have also tried running many different diag tests.
Ran and passed tests on all the following using a Geek Squad MRI disc:
mobo, processor, memory, hard drive, graphics, all the cached memory, etc.

The GTX 280 did show the PSOD (Pink screen of death) a couple times, but not until after the problem really had established itself for a month or 2.

My current setup that I'd like to keep (lol):
eVGA 680i SLI mobo
6 gigs of RAM
XFX GTX 280 xxx edition graphics
WD SATA HDD 500gb
Windows 7 Ultimate N (x64)

I will be glad to provide feedback on anything you need as far as the computer specs are concerned. Thanks in advance for any troubleshooting support.

 

[crazyguy1292]

Hello Sublimed,

I had a similar problem a couple days ago, and i think that you're problem might just be a driver issue like mine was. The driver version 196.75 has been removed from nVidia's driver download page, as it was causing fan issues.What is probably happening to you is that your card is getting too hot, and as it raises in temp. the fan on the card isn't responding to the temperature increase. I also tried to rollback the driver version, but for some reason it didn't work.

I would suggest going to nVidia's driver page and downloading whatever the most recently certified driver is for your 280 (as of today, 196.21)

Hope that works for you.

 

[raybay]

We second the suggestion on the driver...
Also, I would run Memtest again, on only one module at a time... at least four hours each or seven passes... Be sure you are using the current MemTest...
Also remember that too much cooling is as problematic as too little...
You have already noted where you were and what you changed... I assume you had no problem until you changed up the system... so there is the place to start, it seems to me.