PC Freezes Intermittently When Playing Games

Fergy1987 on 06/12/2018 - 10:36

Need a PC whiz to tell me where to start with a PC that works fine usually, but when playing games, it will play, then freeze for a couple seconds, then start again, then freeze, then start…you get the point. Its almost like its "buffering"

Anyone had this issue before and know what I should be looking at replacing first?

Runs a GTX680 Graphics Card and an i5 CPU with 8GB ram.

Any ideas are appreciated. Obviously I could just start replacing things 1 by 1 - but most likely cause would be the best.

Thanks

Computing

Comments

  • djkelly69 on 06/12/2018 - 10:41
    +1

    May be CPU-throttling - have you checked your CPU temps while gaming?

    • [Deactivated] on 06/12/2018 - 11:56
      +15

      He obviously did. It's freezing!

      • resisting the urge on 06/12/2018 - 13:50

        Cause won't be throttling.

        Cause will be over-heating.

        Both throttling and freezing are just symptomatic

  • daalinz on 06/12/2018 - 10:48

    My guess would be similar to @djkelly69 above. Probably temperature related throttling. If you had PC restarts around the same time I'd say it's power supply related. Maybe your fans are clogged with dust or need to reapply new thermal paste. You can also open up GPU casing and see if any heatsinks have slipped (had this on an old GPU before; heatsinks glued on chips) or if dust in fans as well.

  • HighAndDry on 06/12/2018 - 11:27

    Obviously I could just start replacing things 1 by 1

    Download stress test tools and see where the bottleneck is. No need to take any physical action first.

  • AdosHouse on 06/12/2018 - 11:33

    Are all the latest drivers installed?

    • Fergy1987 on 06/12/2018 - 11:35

      Yep all video card drivers updated etc.

      • AdosHouse on 06/12/2018 - 11:38

        When it unfreezes, are you in exactly the same place as when it froze, or is it like it kept playing while the video was frozen?

        • Fergy1987 on 06/12/2018 - 11:44

          Same place, almost like its paused and then starts again.

          • AdosHouse on 06/12/2018 - 11:48
            +1

            @Fergy1987: Interesting, I have heard of graphics problems where the video freezes but the game keeps going, but this is not the case with you.

            Download Prime95 and HWMonitor, run Prime95, and keep moving the mouse while also watching HWMonitor, look at temps, cpu usage, and clocks. See if it starts bugging out at a certain point.

  • Diji1 on 06/12/2018 - 11:37

    You might have another issue but a GTX680 is a very old video card same with CPU.

    Anyhow, the freezing issue sounds like a program is hogging CPU resources. This could be a program you normally have open like a web browser. Try closing all programs to see if it the issue is fixed.

    If not press control + shift + escape to open Windows Task Manager (you may need to click "more details" to get advanced view). Go to details tab and click the CPU column title twice to sort it by CPU usage highest at the top. Is there a program jumping up and down in the list other than System Idle process? This may be the problem. Sort by name again, right click the possible problem and right click it and choose open file location to find out what it is (if you don't already know).

    If you haven't worked out you can try going to the startup tab in Task Manager so you can choose what programs start automatically with Windows - disable all of them and restart and see if the issue persists.

    You can also try opening the Task Manager while you have the game running (if control + alt +shift doesn't work use control + alt + delete and choose Task Manger), going to details, find the game process called something.exe, right click it and choose priority -> Above Normal or High. Do not choose real time. High runs a slight risk of your PC slowing right down to the pointr of freezing if the other process that is nicking CPU also has high priority. The prioroty change is only temporary and will be reset next boot.

  • Tech5 on 06/12/2018 - 11:45

    I've had the same issue as you describe twice. One was because of thermal throttling on my laptop. The other was because 8gb ram on my desktop was not enough. Even if it only shows 6/8gb used or something like that, it will use more the moment you give it more ram. Sudden stuttering can suggest accessing page file on the HDD, which is a lot slower than storing it in your RAM

  • psyren89 on 06/12/2018 - 11:56
    +1

    Single or multiplayer games? If it's the latter and you're using wifi, you might like to investigate whether the connection is dropping to search for new networks.

  • Gandalf the Thrifty on 06/12/2018 - 13:18

    PCMasterRace

  • the Unforgiven on 07/12/2018 - 19:58

    how old is the thermal paste?

    is it a good PSU?

  • deniz on 08/12/2018 - 08:59

    Try unplugging and re plugging the GPU and ram. It might not help but it only takes a few minutes. Sometimes they come loose and cause issues especially if your bump or move your pc a lot. Have you tried turning the settings down aswell in games or did they use to run fine?

  • AlienC on 09/12/2018 - 01:44

    My bet is on thermal throttling.

    When I used to play on my pc especially during summer at my parents place it would overheat and stutter easily within minutes of loading up any game and this was back in 2008/9.

    Now almost 10 years later playing in the blue mountains a relatively colder and definitely much cooler climate my pc plays fine and the only constraints are the actual limits of my hardware i7-2600 and a GTX 1050 Ti.

    So when I try to play some demanding games above medium the frame rate drops and I get heavy "buffering" but if I keep it within its limits it is fine and thermals are fine because my place is pretty cool.

    So my first test would be to try everything on the lowest settings example turn everything off and everything on low maybe even set resolution to 800 x 600 etc and then slowly go up from there until it starts to do the buffering.

    Depending on your environment your pc might not be able to reach its potential due to overheating problems which is the major bane of any electronic system.

    heat = bad for electronics

    If it still buffers on the absolute lowest settings then you can count out the gpu and cpu and maybe check your network or other hardware incompatibilities.

    To be sure take your pc slowly apart give it a good clean with some canned air check the connection contacts and if you know how to replace or check the thermal paste.

    Then after everything is cleaned out put the bare bones pc together minus the gpu and check everything is running working fine then try the gpu and see how it goes from there.

    Honestly without troubleshooting in person then and there no one here can really know what the problem is but you can single out certain common identifiers and problem makers easily by doing a nice take apart and clean and rebuild slowly while testing all system hardware slowly piece by piece.

  • TheWoos on 11/12/2018 - 00:15

    Resolved this issue yet mate ? I'm almost certain its the 680 you have in that machine bud. It's from 2012 and waaaay outdated. Can you provide full specs please ? What game(s) are you trying to play when it freezes ? What is the monitor resolution and refresh ?

    Make & Model;

    CPU
    GPU
    PSU (Make and Wattage)
    Motherboard
    RAM (Incl. speed)

    Once you provide that info can you let me know your budget and i can recommend best upgrade path bud to resolve the freezing….

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join