My computer has been crashing, (almost only whilst playing cod).

Not a bsod, just a still of whatever was on the screen at the time;
and the sound turns into a nasty high pitched mess.

Now what I naturally assumed, was that either my GPU or CPU was overheating.
I'm no computer wizz, (despite wishing I was ).

It started crashing in cod, in ffa servers only. Which I assumed was because of the large amount of constant shit going on, from explosions, to tracers, to debris.

At first I would get through about one and a half ffa maps,
not I'm lucky to get through 3-4 minutes.

I have now started crashing in SD servers, barely able to make it 5-6 rounds now :<.

Using catalyst control, I put my gpu speed up to 100%, and decreased the speed of both the
"Gpu clock" and "memory clock" speeds to minimum. (My thought was if the GPU was overheating, this should stop it ).

No avail, so yesterday I was sitting in BIOS, checking my cpu tempz. And w0ah. my cpu temp was 95 degrees. IN BIOS...

So today I bought some thermal paste, cleaned off the left overs of my old thermal compound (using a credit card), and then applied a necessary amount. straight away cpu idle temps are down to 50~.

Having thought all was well, I jump in a pub sd server, 6 or so rounds in, boom crash.

I will also add, whilst the crashes are not exclusive to playing cod, 99% of the crashes are when playing cawd.

No crashes in Wow, or any other random game I happen to play.

I've had crashes using chrome, and VDJ, (but veryyyy rare)



Now my questions are:

1)
a) Is my cpu just plain ****ed.
b) if so is there a way to test said ****edness.


2) If neither of the above apply... What da fark can a poor innocent wide eyed Moose such as myself do to pin point said problem.


specs:

i7 930 (factory default settings)
HIS HD6860
6gb 2000mhz ram
58x-ud3r mobo

Are you running downloaded os?

No, whilst not legitimate, this was installed via cd. However i have run this setup for almost a year now. With ZERO problems until now :<

Have you checked what temps you are getting under load?

Have you recently changed graphics cards? I read somewhere that a clash of drivers can do said problem.

Did you happen to see a temperature for the GPU?

It's been very hot lately, are all your fans on? Is your GPU/CPU and case fans all working fine?

Have you tried doing a dust clean? If not take a look and see if it's dusty and give the old bitch a clean.

Edited once, 9/12/11 - 3:14pm.

Done a dust clean, all fans are working fine too

Same GPU as always, my gpu is going from 40 degrees idle, to 60 odd underload. Which is nothing new

And I'm not sure how to check CPU temps under load I have been using HWmonitor pro, but the temps seem unreliable, as it said 60 degrees under load, then 5 minutes later my BIOS told me it was 95 idle :/

That's normal, nothing to worry about.

same issue i have atm, usually with a new game with decent graphics.

it was a overheating issue, as if i stick a fan next to the side of my computer the issue goes away.

You've probably already checked this but it could be a driver issue maybe?

Karma thinks its a harddrive issue. I will post back regarding the success of undisclosed methods of un issuefying my harddrive.

Try another hard drive, trial and error really, but karma already told you that