PC freezes, have to manually turn power off

[helpimrubbish]

Ok well 1st time here and 1st time i have needed help to sovle an issue i cant seem to solve!

my specs of my pc are as followed : Q6600 running at 3.30ghz, 4 gig ram, radeon 4800hd series, cooling = watercooled. power supply is top notch. also running Windows 7 64bit.

Ok my problems have just started to come back, awhile ago when i used to play World of warcraft i had crashes everytime i loaded the game up these crashes would lock out my system, i had to turn it off by holding my powerbutton :/. i finally got around it after fully updating my system drivers ( my g-card ) mainly was casuing the problem.

so 8 months later, im stuck in the same boat all my system is up to date, all of the windows patches are installed and downloaded graphics are up to date etc, but i seem to be getting my system hang ups when im playing games, i cant play any BFBC2, WoW, Left 4 dead, or anything, i can sit on the internet on the desktop for hours it seems to be when ever i try and play a "game" i get my system crashes.

I recently downloaded some window updates 3-4 days ago so ive gone back through and unistalled the updates i downloaded and installed but with still no luck, i have even gone ATi's website and downloaded the drivers from there.

Any help or ideas why this is happening would be great, anotehr thing when i go into my event viewer i get this :

Critical, "Source Kernel-Power" Event ID 41 Task Category (63) The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

presumming this is caused as i switch it off by the power button?

 

[Mark56]

The Kernel Power event ID 41 was recorded because of a manual shutdown as you have correctly presumed. Are there any other errors recorded that might relate to the system freezing?

Freezes in general are often caused by faulty memory, among a few other things, drivers, faulty hard drive or malware. As this only happens when you are playing games, which pushes the memory quite hard then memory is the prime suspect. Run through this guide to see if it helps.

Power off the PC and remove the mains connection, always touch the metal of the case with your hands to avoid any static electricity from causing component damage. (On laptops ALWAYS remove the battery before removing or replacing memory modules). Remove all your memory modules. Clean the contacts with a soft rubber (up and down not from end to end) then insert just one module and reboot to test for any change in performance. Repeat this for every module one at a time. Obviously if you only have one module this cannot be done, but you should still remove and clean the module and reseat it and test.

If you only have one stick download this to test it. http://www.memtest.org/

You need to scroll down the page until you see the three blue screenshots. Just below is the list of downloads for Memtest86+ V4.10. Click on Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)and save to your desktop, When the download is complete right click the file and select Extract Here and burn the image to a CD. In windows 7 right click the extracted file, select Open With, then select Windows Disc Image Burning Tool then follow the prompts. For all other versions of windows (if you do not have an ISO burner) download this free software. http://www.isoimageburner.com/

Boot the PC into the Bios setup and set the CD/DVD drive to 1st in the boot sequence. Insert the disk in the drive then reboot and the disc will load into dos. Leave the test to run through at least 5 cycles.

The memtest will not be 100% accurate but should easily detect any major faults.

 

[Miltongina]

I had same problem of freezes check my temps and they were pretty normal, check Power Supply Manually with a Multimeter and was +12V, I use another HDD and install windows on it but same problem and then after running PC for a while it got froze and my Monitor screen was green, had that before with a customer, so the problem was the 1 of 2 rams went bad, I ran the pc with the good ram and no problems but when I put the bad 1 on froze again, removing the bad ram of 2 banks and leaving the good ram on bank0 solve my problem, no my desktop is running perfectly with no PO or freezing at all.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Take a look at "Reliability History" (type in search box). Click on errors and share the details.

 

[DelJo63]

I second the comment on running MEMTEST -- games will use large amounts of real memory and stress your pagefile. Flaky RAM is deadly