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graphics driver keeps crashing, freezing entire pc

dlyop11
Level 7
Back in november i upgraded my pc. i replaced the mobo, cpu, memory and added a m.2 pci SSD. everything else stayed the same, including 2 gtx 770 4gb in sli which powers my triple monitor setup in surround. Prior to the upgrade, i never had any issue what so ever with my pc. so here is my current build:

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Gaming Motherboard
Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz LGA 1151 Boxed Processor
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Intel Z170 Desktop Memory Model F4-3000C15D-16GVR
GTX 770 4GB x 2 in sli
SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 256GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V5P256BW - OS installed
Intel SSD - for games
samsung 850 pro ssd - for games
bluray burner
corsair h100i
evga 1000w PS


here is what happens. i hear the sound of the graphics driver failing and restarting and get a pop up in the bottom right saying so. my game, or sometimes it would happen while surfing the web or watching youtube, would then freeze graphically and the sound would also freeze making that loud high pitch sound it does when it freezes. the entire pc, meaning i couldn't even move the mouse, would then freeze for about 4-5 secs and would do it every 3-4 secs. this made trying to restart almost in possible and often resulted in a hard reset.

i believe i narrowed it down some to a pci issue or a power issue. at first i also had a sound card in the very top pci x4, but i thought maybe it was conflicting with the pci-e ssd or gpus so i removed it. that helped some. i then went into power settings and turned off pci power management. this also helped some. i was now able to use my pc for longer periods of time and really only saw a crash while playing a game in full screen. i could play heros of the storm in windowed (borderless) for several hours before my pc started acting up. and i always knew when it was about to happen because the sound would start getting glitchy. i also play gtv 5 and fallout 4 and can only play them for so long before the graphics driver crashes. (for some reason, out putting video to my tv only for gta v and fallout 4 often would end in longer periods of play time before any issue appeared)

last night i was playing grim dawn with a friend and in full screen mode i couldn't last more than a couple minutes, but in borderless mode i was able to play for a couple hours, but sure enough it still ended up freezing.

and this does happen outside of games. i was on a site and had several windows open each playing a video(ahh the benefits of 3 monitors), and after like 20 minutes, this crash happened.

i have no idea why this is happening and its driving me crazy making this awesome machine almost unplayable. as i said, i thought it may be pci related as the skylake only has 16 lanes which are used up by the 2 graphics cards. the nand pci-e ssd uses 4 lanes but that is supposed to be on the z170 chip, and removing the sound card and changing the power management for pci have help but not solved the problem. i have tried old drivers, i've tried new drivers. you name i may have tried it, but please give me suggestions no matter how obvious it may be just in case i missed something. as i said, prior to upgrading i never had a crash and would leave my pc on for days or weeks at a time without ever getting a slow down.

i had my system overclocked but have since restored everything to factory settings. also this happens in sli surround, but if i select "activate all displays" which has sli disabled, i have yet to encounter this issue. i'm thinking it might have something to do with the many power settings on the mobo. does anyone have any recommendations on what to try? or which settings to look for to ensure sli works properly?

thanks
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4 REPLIES 4

kkn
Level 14
go back to last used driver for gpu.

i have tried that. i went all the way back to before i upgraded the pc. i don't believe this is the issue. the issue is a power issue, or what i'm starting to think is a memory issue.

etihad
Level 7
format!
i9 10900K @ 5.3GHZ | Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme | 32GB 8Pack @ 3600MHZ | 1.8TB HDD WD Raid 0 | H115iGTX | Sapphire 6900XT Toxic Extreme Edition| Samsung Pro 950 M.2 512GB | Asus ROG Swift PG279Q | Corsair RM850 | Kingston HyperX 500GB | Corsair 780T |

That's darn tricky sometimes. I had a problem that I thought was power or a video driver or the motherboard or the video card, turned out to be one flaky stick or RAM. in fact it did what you say your system does. also and I may sound a bit biased but I personally wouldn't use a Samsung hard drive, I noticed that samsung drives seem to have a higher failure rate than any other drives I have seen since Quantum.