So around dinner time today while playing Far Cry 3 the entire game just seemed to have frozen but the menu stuff was still animating, I could still hear the games music, and I could move my mouse around but it would not interact with anything when I clicked it. After a min or two of trying to alt tab, ctrl alt delete and alt F4ing with no response I had to do a hard reset of my PC by holding down the power button. This happened twice in about an hour before I just gave up playing thinking the game was glitching. Well an hour later while watching stuff on GB I alt tabbed to go look at something on my desktop and it happened there as well. Since then I have had to do it about 5-8 times and each time it locks up the same way.

I downloaded some software thinking it might have been over heating, but everything checks out fine. My CPU idles around 30-35 C and my GPU around 25-35 C. I have not been able to check it just before the system locks up, but even when in game and I alt tab to look at it, it doesn't go much beyond the above temperatures. I have also ran virus scanners that came back clean, made sure I had all the latest drivers, I checked the fans to make sure they were all still spinning and dust free as well. I hear no noises outside of the normal ones and windows is up to date. The computer doesn't act weird in any other way other then this locking up every couple hours.

I'm at the point now where I'm thinking of doing a format and reinstall of Windows but I really would rather not as it's a pain getting everything set back up. Everything in the PC is a few months old and I have not had a single problem until now. No idea if it matters or not, but here's what's in it:

CPU: Intel I7 3770K stock everything

GPU: Asus GTX670 DirectCU II

PSU: Corsair TX850M

MOBO: Asus P8Z77-V PRO

OS: Windows 8 64 Bit

Any ideas where I can go from here to troubleshoot this? I can't find anything on Google that helps.

the one command i usually use when all else fails, is windows button + L, it logs the user out, should work as long as your keyboard responds, which is easy to check by toggling capslock and seeing if your caps led lights up or not.

then you just log back into your account, usually the game is minimised by now, so it is easy to take care of.

regarding checking temps, you need a program that records your maximum temperatures, since they can drop pretty quickly when you tab out.

I recommend HWMonitor.

just have it running , and check in on it sometimes.

i'd wager that this is driver related, since it is a pretty new title.

@Devildoll said:

the one command i usually use when all else fails, is windows button + L, it logs the user out, should work as long as your keyboard responds, which is easy to check by toggling capslock and seeing if your caps led lights up or not.

then you just log back into your account, usually the game is minimised by now, so it is easy to take care of.

regarding checking temps, you need a program that records your maximum temperatures, since they can drop pretty quickly when you tab out.

I recommend HWMonitor.

just have it running , and check in on it sometimes.

i'd wager that this is driver related, since it is a pretty new title.

He said he's already checked his temps, checked his drivers, and that this has been happening outside of Far Cry 3...

On topic... I can't really think of much at the moment. Try doing a system restore. If you have a Linux distro handy, try booting that off of a CD or USB stick and see if it freezes - that way, you can narrow it down and make sure that it isn't hardware. If it isn't hardware, then you don't have much to sweat about, you just have a long day of backing up files, formatting and re-installing Windows, and then putting files back in their proper places.

I was going to guess it was overheating until you mentioned that it's not. Not really sure, could be faulty hardware. Could try what @believer258: suggested.

Alt-tab to see dynamic values for temperatures will not give a good indication on how warm it actually is since the temperatures will decrease dramatically when you do so. You need software that will capture a log, or an on-display monitoring. Also, have you tried Nvidia's recent WHQL Candidate drivers? You might want to check them out aswell if you haven't already, but uninstall your older drivers before applying the new one to avoid any future issues.

In no particular order:
1) Enter the bios and check the values from the power supply, make sure it's stable and -+5%.
2) If you use FireFox and it was running in the background for your FC3 lockup, switch to Chrome and see if the lockups happen again.
3) Are you using motherboard networking or audio from Realtek? Are those drivers updated and recent? Their stuff is known for conflicting hardcore with Nvidia's stuff, and sucking, and causing game and computer instability, lockups, crashing.
 
5) Good luck :(

What GPU driver are you using? I installed the beta driver that Geforce recommended for FC3 and it froze my machine to a black screen although I was able to move the mouse cursor. I had to roll everything back to a system restore point, really messed me up. Not sure if it has to do with Windows 8 or what, but if you have this installed try rolling it back to a more stable driver.

crusader8463 said:

I have not been able to check it just before the system locks up, but even when in game and I alt tab to look at it, it doesn't go much beyond the above temperatures.

Devildoll said:

regarding checking temps, you need a program that records your maximum temperatures, since they can drop pretty quickly when you tab out.

@believer258: i told him to record his maximum temp, not look at the temps after he has tabbed out of the game.

having the latest available driver does not eliminate the concern of it being a driver issue.

if he can move his mouse around it shouldn't be driver related though.

it could be the harddrive acting up, check it's smart status.

Don't give up on your pc bro

If it's not overheating, I'd check the ram, maybe a bad stick.

See how much registers in the BIOS, maybe it's off, or if you have multiple sticks just try running them one at a time to see if anything happens.

@Devildoll: @believer258: @ajamafalous: @FritzDude: @SomeJerk: I literally just got done doing a format and reinstall of Windows 8 when it happened again. At the time of the crash the only thing I had was Chrome installed and I was trying to download some other things. Sadly I think this is some kind of faulty hardware at this point. I'm going to try and run some tests on my SSD and see how that goes. One question I have though, I have an extra 2 TB hard drive that I'm using to store games I don't play often, movies, tv etc. If I were to unplug my SSD and try to install windows to that other one would it delete everything on there or just install next to it so I can still get to that stuff after?

@crusader8463: oh you have an ssd? is it by any chance a vertex 3?

ive had a couple , and one of em froze the computer but you could still use the mouse, and would sometime cause bsod's.

that got resolved after i flashed it.

@crusader8463 said:

@Devildoll: @believer258: @ajamafalous: @FritzDude: @SomeJerk: I literally just got done doing a format and reinstall of Windows 8 when it happened again. At the time of the crash the only thing I had was Chrome installed and I was trying to download some other things. Sadly I think this is some kind of faulty hardware at this point. I'm going to try and run some tests on my SSD and see how that goes. One question I have though, I have an extra 2 TB hard drive that I'm using to store games I don't play often, movies, tv etc. If I were to unplug my SSD and try to install windows to that other one would it delete everything on there or just install next to it so I can still get to that stuff after?

You could make a new partition on it and install Windows to that.

@Devildoll: It's a Crucial M4 128 GB. From what I can find online there's no way to test them so the only thing I can think of is to do as @believer258: said and try to make a partition on my back up drive and try running windows from there and seeing if it does the same thing. Also, looking at that newegg page makes me really sad/mad. I paid $250 for that mofo a year ago and it's down to $94. :(

Any suggestions on good programs to run tests on the hardware? Only one I know of is the RAM tester memtest 86+, but I can never figure out how to get that thing to work.

@crusader8463 said:

@Devildoll: It's a Crucial M4 128 GB. From what I can find online there's no way to test them so the only thing I can think of is to do as @believer258: said and try to make a partition on my back up drive and try running windows from there and seeing if it does the same thing. Also, looking at that newegg page makes me really sad/mad. I paid $250 for that mofo a year ago and it's down to $94. :(

Any suggestions on good programs to run tests on the hardware? Only one I know of is the RAM tester memtest 86+, but I can never figure out how to get that thing to work.

I've used Spinrite at work to test hard drives, but I don't know if it works well on SSD's and I don't even know if it costs anything.

EDIT: Nevermind, I looked up the Wikipedia article and the creator of Spinrite said that there's no point in using it on an SSD.

@crusader8463: memtest 86+ is pretty easy nowadays.

you just download the usb install,

start it up, and run the install, after that, all the software is on this stick, and the stick is made bootable.

you just have to make sure the stick has priority in the bootorder, and it will start running instead of windows ( when you start your computer), as long as you have the stick plugged in.

regarding the ssd, take a look around crucials website to see if they have any diagnostics software, otherwise, hdtune might be able to tell you something about it's s.m.a.r.t. values

@believer258: Ya, that seems to be the conscious of what I can find while googling. There's no way to test SSDs. This is going to be a nightmare to try and figure out.

@crusader8463 said:

@believer258: Ya, that seems to be the conscious of what I can find while googling. There's no way to test SSDs. This is going to be a nightmare to try and figure out.

So I Google'd your issue and found this, which led me to this, which, if you scroll down mentions "power cycling a drive" and then for that person it seems to have worked.

Sounds like as good a place as any to start.

I hate to be the partial bearer of bad news, but my laptop was doing this hard freeze thing where everything would freeze except the mouse when I booted from sleep or hibernation. Finally RMA'd it. They replaced the motherboard :\

@believer258: Will give it a shot.

@murisan: I really hope it's not the MOBO. That thing was a pain in the ass to put in the case and I don't even think I have the box for it any more.

@crusader8463 said:

@believer258: Will give it a shot.

@murisan: I really hope it's not the MOBO. That thing was a pain in the ass to put in the case and I don't even think I have the box for it any more.

Well, you'll probably have a better picture once you try a different HDD for a main drive. I hate troubleshooting for hardware though.. hope you can find/fix it soon.

I'm sorry. I had this same problem for a good long while and I could never figure it out. It sustained through mutliple formats and windows installs, it stayed after switching out my overheating GPU and RAM.

It finally stopped after switching out my motherboard. HINT HINT.

@TobbRobb:@murisan: @believer258: @Devildoll: I don't want to jinx myself here, but after finding some kind of update for my SSD on the Crucial website and installing it it seems to have stopped. It's been a little over an hour now with no lock ups and it was doing it every 20-30 min before I installed it. Will keep my fingers crossed.

@crusader8463 said:

@TobbRobb:@murisan: @believer258: @Devildoll: I don't want to jinx myself here, but after finding some kind of update for my SSD on the Crucial website and installing it it seems to have stopped. It's been a little over an hour now with no lock ups and it was doing it every 20-30 min before I installed it. Will keep my fingers crossed.

I hope you solved your issue. I'd say that if two or three days pass and you have no issues, then you're good to go.

@crusader8463: That's a good sign. You can't really jinx yourself with hardware :) I think I found a piece of software that can test Crucial SSD health, but that seems unnecessary if the update fixes it.

@believer258: @murisan: If you don't hear back from me in a day or two it worked. That or it didn't work and I'm doing this somewhere.

@crusader8463: Whaaaat? I implore you to update us in a few hours if everything's fixed. Then I can close this tab for the SSD utility I have opened.

@murisan: It's been a few hours now so I think I'm good. Since it started I couldn't go 20-30 min without it locking up so this seems good. Thanks for all the help and I will update if it goes to hell later.

@Devildoll said:

the one command i usually use when all else fails, is windows button + L, it logs the user out, should work as long as your keyboard responds, which is easy to check by toggling capslock and seeing if your caps led lights up or not.

then you just log back into your account, usually the game is minimised by now, so it is easy to take care of.

WIN+L is lock, not log out. All it does is throw up the password screen for either someone else to log in or so someone doesn't hop on your session while you are away from your keyboard. You are still logged in. It's been like that since Windows XP.

Did it work before on W8 or did you just move up to W8? I've had nothing but hell getting my new build working with W8, I'll be buying a W7 disc tonight on newegg as soon as my paycheck comes around. A bummer because I love W8, but the driver support especially for my mobo seems awful for W8, for the time being.

@TyCobb: yeah i guess lock would be a better word for it.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

Did it work before on W8 or did you just move up to W8? I've had nothing but hell getting my new build working with W8, I'll be buying a W7 disc tonight on newegg as soon as my paycheck comes around. A bummer because I love W8, but the driver support especially for my mobo seems awful for W8, for the time being.

It only happened after running on W8, but I had used it fine for a month or so before it just started out of nowhere the other day so I honestly have no idea what caused it to suddenly act up. I left it on downloading stuff last night and all day today and when I came home from work it was still going fine so it looks like my SSD just needed some kind of update.