# PC freezes up when playing games, 'static' across screen and sound



## RelevantToSome (Apr 30, 2012)

Hi all,

Been having some problems with my PC since it was first put together 6 months back, but recently it has become an almost recurring problem.

During games the system will often freeze up. This is accompanied with a series of 'static' lines dancing across the screen and the souns cutting out to a static whine. Usually, the screen goes black, then comes back on, although there is no longer any sounds. Sometimes it never recovers and has to be rebooted.

When it happens seems to be random. League of Legebds only had it happen when the game was really busy on screen. However Diablo 3 (Beta) did it from an options menu, and Super Monday Night Combat did it 4 seconds into game start. League has stopped doing it since I turned the graphics settings lower, butreally based on the spec below it shouldnt have any problem running at max settings.

My PC doesn't have a sound card - it is all done through the motherboard. I nearly always have last.fm (flash based music website) running in the background. My best guess is either there's a sound conflict, or, since the graphics card appears to reboot and League stopped doing it after fiddling with the graphics, there's a fault at the graphics card end.

The site I followed for building the PC did suggest adding a soundcard to prevent a conflict, maybe this is the end result of that?

I managed to get a quick video of the 'static' effect I mentioned when playing LoL. In this case, it never recovered.






Not the best quality from a phone but hopefully you can see the effect.

Please check this out and let me know if you have encountered something similar and know the fix. I really want to get playing these other games but the crashing is making it quite difficult!

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 8161 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570, 1280 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 57238 MB, Free - 9575 MB; D: Total - 953766 MB, Free - 853194 MB; I: Total - 953867 MB, Free - 829878 MB;
Motherboard: MSI, P67A-GD53 (MS-7681)
Antivirus: ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5.0, Updated and Enabled

Many thanks!


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## Tanis (May 30, 2006)

Hi and welcome to TSG.

Based on your post (I cant access the vid from work due to restrictions on my network) I would start by looking at the graphics card then after that the power supply.

1) Exactly what make, model and wattage is your power supply.

2) What are you system temperatures like both at idle and under load? User HWMonitor to check, take a screenshot of the HWMonitor screen with the PC just sat at the desktop doing nothing, then leave it running and start a game, run the game for a few minutes then exit and screenshot HWmonitor again, post the two pictures in a reply here.

3) Are all you drivers fully up to date, WHQL certified drivers not beta ones.

4) Onboard soundcards (part of the motherboard) are decent nowadays, personally I don't really think there is a need for a dedicated soundcard unless you are doing sound editing or similar type work. Conflicts shouldn't be an issue.


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## RelevantToSome (Apr 30, 2012)

Thanks Tanis.

1) Corsair TX750M 750w
2) See attachments
3) Everything is up to date, no drivers are beta.

I am more convinced it is the motherboard sound that is causing the issue. Whenever a USB connection is unplugged or plugged in, various programs suddenly have their sound levels altered (they all go much quieter). This also happens when starting certain games - everything else has its sound dropped without me doing anything.

Thanks for any help.


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## black-wolf (Aug 8, 2008)

Tanis must be offline. Your 12v is showing only 8.1. Check your voltage in the bios. If it is not showing close to 12v your PSU is bad.


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## Super-D-38 (Apr 25, 2002)

The sound thing... Win 7 has an auto volume reduction feature if it detects other communication. I have no idea what it thinks is communication but that could be the reason for your auto volume drops. 

I can't remember how I found it, but had to mess with it when I was using Team Speak with World of Warcraft.


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## Tanis (May 30, 2006)

black-wolf said:


> Tanis must be offline. Your 12v is showing only 8.1. Check your voltage in the bios. If it is not showing close to 12v your PSU is bad.


Yup, I sometimes don't get on much at the weekend and it was my anniversary this weekend, so thanks.

@ OP
Your +12v rail is showing low but if it was only 8v ish I would expect some real problems with the machine, might be worth double checking the voltages in the BIOS as that is more accurate. Also, really could do with seeing all the temps etc just for confirmation.


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## Maglor (May 8, 2012)

I can remember when my games started to freese and my PC started to reboot.
The Fan on my Graphics card was broken.
So when i started to play a game, the Graphicscard overheated and started showing me all kind of weird things in game.
Maby you could check that to.


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## RelevantToSome (Apr 30, 2012)

Hi again, thaks all for the assistance so far.

I've attached some new screens of HWmonitor following no use and then a few minutes of furmark on its highest settings.

I also checked the voltage in the BIOS which read as follows:

CPU Core Voltage 1.232
CPU I/O Voltage 1.248
System Agent Voltage 0.920
DRAM Voltage 1.472
3.3v 3.328
5V 5.003
12V 11.968

Thanks all.


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## Distance12 (May 15, 2012)

Hi guys,

i just put up my PC recently, and experienced same problems.

I'm using Corsair TX650M 650W modular 80 PLus PSU.

My PC runs quite smoothly, until i start playing Diablo and it just freezes everytime.

i'm using 

AMD FX4100 on Asus M5A78L-M LX

with the PSU above.

PLease advise.

Relevant to some, i hope you dont mind me adding onto your thread as well, as i was googling on what could i do and your post came up.


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## RelevantToSome (Apr 30, 2012)

Ok by me if its the same problem as in the video - if its not it may get a bit confusing trying to analyze a seperate problem!

I've had some help on the MSI forums about mine and am trying the fixes at the moment (new vbios, changing settings with Afterburner). Slow progress but there's hope.


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