[Terror_666]

I recently had a strange crash where I got a black screen with a white square that was my mouse pointer. I had to do a hard reset and since then I have had a rather significant performance drop when running games (MW3 to Minecraft). I have reinstalled my drivers to no effect, my entire Windows 7 OS to no effect and I am out of ideas.

System Specs
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Intel i7 2600
8 Gig ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560

[black-wolf]

Terror use this to post your specs
http://static.techguy.org/download/SysInfo.exe
Initially it sounds like a PSU that is failing. Post the make and model of your PSU also.

[Terror_666]

requested specs.

PSU is Corsair HX 520w

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7 Processor Count: 8
RAM: 8173 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, 1023 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 49999 MB, Free - 6100 MB; D: Total - 149997 MB, Free - 37463 MB; E: Total - 276940 MB, Free - 3075 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., P8P67 LE
Antivirus: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2012, Updated and Enabled

[black-wolf]

You did a clean install of Windows?
You downloaded the mobo's drivers from ASUS and installed them?
Try running with one stick of RAM if problem persists switch sticks.
You can also run memtest86
http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20...+-4.20.iso.zip
http://www.digital-digest.com/softwa...0&ssid=0&did=1
Run for a minimum of 4 passes overnight would be better.

[Terror_666]

Yep clean install of Windows with all the newest drivers.
I will run Memtest overnight and report back.

Running on a single stick of ram might be a problem, how can you measure a performance drop is if you drop the performance.

[black-wolf]

If you have 2 4gb sticks you won't see must difference unless you are doing video editing or CAD work. If it's just gaming, internet and typical office apps 4gb will not even get maxed out.

[Terror_666]

Your right now that I think about it, I was thinking more high end MW3 than the low end minecraft where the problem is also visible. So yeah I will try that as well.

[Terror_666]

Mem test came back with 0 errors.
And the same performance drop appeared when running on either one of my mem sticks.
I think the problem might be in my graphics card memory but I don't know how to test that.

[black-wolf]

performance drop or a crash??

[Terror_666]

permanent performance drop
the performance drop followed a crash

[black-wolf]

Test your harddrive you can use the tools provided by the manufacturer
Hitachi/IBM
Seagate, Samsung, Maxtor & Quantum
Western Digital

[Terror_666]

I have done a quick scan with the WD lifeguard thing and all seems well.
I will do a full scan during the night.

[Terror_666]

I have done some more research and testing and it appears that the problem is in my GPU it will just for no apparent reason start running at a load of 99% stay there for a minute or so and drop back to normal.

[black-wolf]

Originally Posted by Terror_666

I have done some more research and testing and it appears that the problem is in my GPU it will just for no apparent reason start running at a load of 99% stay there for a minute or so and drop back to normal.

Then try running with the onboard graphics.

[Terror_666]

I don't have an onboard card so I swapped it out for an old card I had laying around (EN 8800 GTS) and the same problem occurred. Then when I swapped them back I set the BIOS options for performance in the ASUS BIOS interface at which point my machine would not even reach the POST, so I am thinking it might be that I have stressed the PSU to its limit.