Posted this at Toms Hardware but to no avail.....can any of my fellow duders help me with this?

Hello, I put together a new gaming pc back in November, and ever since then I have been encountering issues. I thought my first GPU was defective due to the low performance (MSI R9280x, sold it and actually made money on it), so replaced it with an EVGA super clocked 770 2 gigabyte. Still lower than expected FPS. I notice this the most in Battlefield where very similar systems would be getting at least 30 + FPS on average, but again, all games seem to under perform given my specs.

I recently reformatted, still get temp (20,30 second) crashes, lockups,ect, with a SLIGHT improvement on FPS (I also was experiencing FPS stutter in many games which seemed to cut down after reformatting). I recently ran Memtest, after 20 passes no errors came up on the CPU or RAM. Also ran multiple tests on my hard drive, still nothing came up. Today I took apart and rewired my system,thinking maybe something was connected wrong, nope. So Im running out of options, either it has to be my motherboard or PSU?? How do I go about figuring this out?

GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3P AM3+ Motherboard

AMD FX-8320 Vishera 3.5GHz (4.0GHz Turbo) CPU

Rosewill Green Series RG630-S12 630W PSU

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) RAM

EVGA Superclocked GTX 770 2GB DDR5 GPU

Windows 8.1 Pro OS

Just had a similar problem. Check the temps on your GPU and CPU when they're at %100. You can use Prime95 and Furmark for the CPU and GPU respectively.

Check mobo settings in bios as well

Does your motherboard have an integrated graphics chip? I ran into a similar issue when I first built my rig, turns out some games were trying to run using that instead of the video card. Disabling the on-board graphics through an option in the bios fixed it.

Hi Bigboss,

Can you check whether you have installed up-to-date video drivers and ensure you have provided your video card with power.

Also provide us with what video settings you're using in battlefield and the performance you're getting and also any other games you're experiencing the same issue with and their settings.

All drivers are up to date,including mobo bios, running at 1080p, max setting in bf4, 4x aa. Card is hooked up correctly. Haven't checked into the intergtated graphics thing.

Install a program that will let you monitor your GPU usage stats (MSI afterburner). Once that's up and running play a round of something then check what your usage looks like.

First off I would boot clean. Not safe mode mind you but go through your start up and make sure there is nothing but the essentials booting and running in the background. Disable Steam, UPlay, Virus program all that jazz. Make sure your monitor is being represented correctly in device manager. Generic is fine but also look under the properties of your display to make sure it's corresponding correctly. I use a television through hdmi but it shouldn't make a difference. Get rid of any proprietary utilities that may have come with your motherboard. In fact don't run any of them because they tend to be garbage. Example is Virtu MVP. If there is a integrated gpu on your processor disable it in device manager. Is it only when gaming that it crashes? Or does it crash through normal use such as surfing the net etc. Does the card have a bios switch? If so is it set for a overclock? If it is then switch it back to normal mode and see how it runs. Also pull a stick of ram and run with 4 then if it's fine try the other stick. Give us a bit more hardware info as well. Don't leave out things like harddrive, monitor etc. Good luck.

Didn't find any option to disable integrated graphics in bios, so I'm assuming I don't have any.Closed any major background processes while playing BF4, nothing changed. Ran MSI afterburner, RAM usage stayed at about half, GPU usage hovered around 70 %, gpu mem usage around 1900 MB,GPU Temp at about 60 *c. My pc doesn't crash while gaming, typically while on the internet, all open apps while crash for about 20-30 seconds. I have a 1 TB Western Digital Hard Drive. I have a Dell S2340M Monitor.

Check yoru device manager. Look under display adapters. Then look for something to do with AMD. Then disable it and see what happens. Did you pull a stick of ram?

Nothing under display adapters besides my graphics card. Tried each individual stick of ram, really didn't notice any difference.

It sounds like the only thing left is to start RMA'ing parts. Everything should be under warranty, it will just be a pain in the ass. I would start with the motherboard.

Have you updated Windows 8.1 to the Update Version, including all available compatibility updates? Usually Windows tries to install video card drivers automatically when a fresh Windows is detected which could potentially lead to driver conflicts when attempting to install them manually. While I don't necessary think this is the issue you are experiencing you can always try to use DDU (display driver uninstaller) which will completely remove your display driver. Make sure you read through the documents before using it. If nothing works I think you need to start thinking about return merchandise authorization (RMA).

Basically this.

This is the biggest flaw of the PC Master Race - when you encounter a problem and you simply have no idea how to solve it anymore. I have torn a many hair out in the past trying to figure out why in Gods name something is crashing, or locking up, and then you find out that your ram just fucks up when it's in the DIMM 3 slot for some reason. It's infuriating to say the least.

Most recently I've ran into this with Wolfenstein and man it brought back a lot of nasty memories. To this day that game isn't patched and simply does not work for a lot of people unless they install some shady .exe fix from a user (which I finally did so I could enjoy the game I paid money for)

Hmm your power supply is just barely enough in my opinion, is that new as well? I wonder if it perhaps can't put out enough amperes and volts and you are effectively underclocking your pc. You could try to check your bios and see if the numbers are what they should be, or try out a different power supply (If you can afford it I would recommend a quality power supply e.g. this Corsair.)

I think his PSU is fine for a single 770 and an 8320, it definitely meets the minimum requirements for a 770. Plus, he stated that his machine isn't crashing under load while gaming, it crashes while just using Windows. If the PSU wasn't enough then the issues would be happening under load, not while mostly idle.

If you have interegrated graphics their will be a dvi, vga or hdmi connector already in the back besides the ones from your graphics card. I have similar set up as you accept a 8350, 7950 and a different MOBO, and i was having trouble with low fps for a long time (no crashes) but just recently i noticed it had to do with msi afterburner's fan program and how i had it set up. Now things are working much better.

As far as crashing while on the internet, are you getting BSOD or are they just crashing? It could possibly be a bad hard drive. Do you have anything overclocked? Cpu etc? I tried to overclock my 8350 and could never get the temps right and it would work for a while then start crashing randomly. (i'm on air cooling though).

The 8350 doesn't have integrated graphics.

Rolled back my drivers to make sure there was no conflicts, no dice. Pretty much did all that was recommended, no changes. I really don't want to RMA my stuff but If I have to I guess that's what needs to be done.

Bumping this to see if anyone else wants to chime in. Still having the same problems as before have just been trying to ignore them but I'm getting completely sick of it.

have you checked windows system logs to see if there is any problem being reported here?

Did you RMA? That's the only solution I can think of.

Did you ever check thermals? What is your case/cooling like? The 970 boards can have some problems with the northbridge getting too warm and throttling. Try and put a fan right on that (zip tie it if need be) and see if that fixes the issue, or at least makes it better.

Check for bulging capacitors. Ones that have tops that are slightly swelling or look like they've leaked. Thing that sucks is you may have crappy caps in your power supply. Good luck trying to spot those without taking it apart. :(

I'd also try reseating your heatsink. Pull it off. Remove the thermal paste, and redo it. Remount the heat sink. Maybe it's getting hot and throttling.

If your heatsink is on there good and proper, try turning off Cool and Quiet in the bios to disable CPU throttling.

Seconding checking the temperatures, especially under load. Something like http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html will get the job done. Getting any error messages with the crashes/lockups? If not, note the times they happen and check the windows event viewer logs for anything weird around those times.

I've had this same issue before. In my case the motherboard's auto-detected voltage and timing settings for the RAM were incorrect. Going into the BIOS and manually configuring those settings to match the RAM's specifications fixed the issue.

That was quite some time ago though. These days you may want to try going into the UEFI and selecting an XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile) for your RAM if it has one. Or if the XMP is already selected, drop it down to a standard profile.

Same, I had very similar issues with the PC I built before this one, I basically got an i5 750 and a socket 1156 mobo the day they were available in stores here. Made sure the ram I ordered was on the QVL from the motherboard manufacturer, eventually figured it was either the RAM, mobo, or cpu since those were the only things I couldn't test. Spent a good 3 days messing with ram timings in the bios, in the end I just went and bought a second pair of sticks, never had an issue since. Was incredibly hard to trouble shoot, made me really appreciate how hard that shit can be for a non-crazy person who doesn't have 4 PSUs and a bunch of video cards just laying around the basement etc.

It give enough wattage but there's a lot more to PSUs than quantity. I don't think the PSU he has is exactly fantastic. If RMA's don't work, I'd encourage a PSU upgrade. I don't get why people cheap out on them. Get a corsair. It'll likely never fail you and if it does RMAs are easy and they have a good warranty to boot.

I honestly haven't heard good things about Rosewill's PSUs.

That said, I think the RAM is the most likely cause. RAM is a bitch, any little thing goes wrong and your PC can do a million different things. Mine caused random power resets of my PC for a while before it got to the point that it was resetting every few minutes and my PC was useless. I popped out the RAM and it was fine. Check the BIOS settings for your memory.

It's that or the mobo that I'd put my money on.

Never did this before, can anyone give a quick gist of how to do that?

@bigboss1911: This wouldn't cause the significant frame issues you're seeing. It would just cause the RAM to run at 1333MHz instead of 1600MHz or 1600MHz instead of a higher frequency. Take everyone's advice and RMA your components.