Okay, I posted some stuff about random crashes in all intensive games awhile back (mostly random "STOP"s, nothing determinative of cause via reading the dumps), and there was some argument over what was causing the issue. Since then I have upgraded my GPU for the hell of it, and I am currently borrowing memory and a PSU to verify if the problem was with those components. I have reinstalled several times over this process, and I use win7 enterprise from my school.

Anyways, it was annoying but MANAGEABLE.

---- RECENTLY shite HAS GOTTEN WEIRD ----

Now that I am playing a few odd nights (more like every night) of tf2, my computer is going absolutely crazy.

I see:
softcrashes (crashtodesktop) generally within minutes of playing
softcrashes with graphics artifacts generally within minutes of playing
BSOD crashes generally within minutes of playing
sometimes randomly when I start windows my windows thinks its not legit ("THIS IS NOT A LICENSED COPY OF WINDOWS" in the bottom corner), or alternatively (but never at the same time) my anti-virus says that it doesn't recognize my client ID and turns off
I crash often (like every 15 minutes) from firefox 5
I crash occasionally while using media players

I rarely, if ever, crash while idle or word processing (no media, no browsers, no games)
I can play without errors for hours if incredibly lucky, but these days i generally have a crash that requires restart (soft with artifacts or BSOD) within 30 minutes

---

The simple answer seems to be that there is something wrong with my CPU/mobo as they are the only components that haven't been switched out, but considering the bizzare errors (above bolded) that I have been seeing, I thought I should seek some advice yet again...ANY IDEAS WTF IS WITH MY MACHINE, or how to verify with what I have now? (availible = 2 PSUs, 2 GPUs, 2 sets of RAM, 1 mobo/cpu)

(all benchmarks for CPU/GPU/RAM run as they should considering my hardware [it is possible I overtested my CPU (prime95, etc.) back in the day and latent errors from heat damage are causing this??? I am running my cpu at stock...], no errors on memtest86)

What kind of porn are you running?


I've been having problems crashing out and having to restart my computer (usually once per night) and I've started getting 'windows failed to start' errors. I also get these:

softcrashes (crashtodesktop) generally within minutes of playing
softcrashes with graphics artifacts generally within minutes of playing

But those aren't that frequent, maybe once every 5 sessions (and the crash to desktop is recoverable).

I only mention the similarities in case this is something common among the TF2 community. I've been chalking my issues up to a video card and maybe a hard drive with some corruption.

Are your FF crashes actual crashes or hangs? My FF hangs occasionally, some sort of conflict with AV that other people have experienced. I'll completely lose internet access, unable to manually kill in task manager, and have to reboot.

Hopefully some of the other guys can chime in too, it sucks to be w/out a computer for TF2. I'd be bouncing off the walls.

All FF crashes are softcrashes and recoverable

well with the problem your describing it can be over heating, failing drive or faulty O/S install caused by the disk itself although unlikey is possible, mobo or cpu.do you check to see what your temps are at if you dont know install this little tool and it will help

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

if its not a over heating issue,check your system logs and see if anything shows up in there cause the only thing left is the hard drive cpu and mobo,and if nothing in the logs point you in the right direction you may want to replace the drive first as they are fairly cheap

also another tool that may or may not help is windows advance system care has a tool that can scan the OS for any issue

http://www.iobit.com/advancedsystemcareper.html