I've been experiencing frequent crashes while playing games on my low-end PC, even though it's usually capable of running them. I plan to upgrade my hardware soon, but in the meantime, I want to get to the bottom of this issue. The games affected include Mortal Kombat 11, Roblox, Assassin's Creed II, and Far Cry 3, although Minecraft seems to run fine. My current specs are a GTX 750 ti, i5-2400, and 8GB of RAM on Windows 10 (version 2004). The crashes are quite unpredictable—sometimes I might experience three within 20 minutes, and sometimes there might be none for an hour. Recently, while playing Mortal Kombat 11, it crashes frequently when I'm loading into matches, and occasionally I see an error stating, "The Direct3D 11 device that was being used has been removed. Please restart the game." According to the Event Viewer, I also see an error (153) relating to my GPU, specifically indicating a problem on GPUID: 100. I've attempted to monitor temperature spikes and PSU usage, but haven't found any solutions. Using older graphics drivers sometimes leads to Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues. What should I do to stabilize my gaming experience?
2 Answers
Your crashes might be caused by either software issues, like outdated drivers, or a failing power supply (PSU). Check that all your drivers are up to date. If the software seems fine, it might be worth looking at your PSU to make sure it’s providing enough power to your GPU because that could lead to crashes under load. Sometimes swapping in a known good PSU can help troubleshoot that issue.
I hear you on the freezing during load screens! MK11 can be particularly buggy with updates. If you're running the latest Windows version, try rolling back a bit to see if that helps—it might fix some of the desync issues too.
It sounds like you're dealing with a pretty tricky situation here. First, if you haven’t done so already, try to gather dump files from your BSODs as they contain error logs that could help diagnose the problems. You can find them in C:WindowsMinidump. If you see any, zip the folder and upload it to a file-sharing service like Catbox or Mediafire, so others can help analyze them. Having multiple dump files can be really helpful, so consider changing your minidump settings to ensure you get more information in the future!
I’ve noticed similar issues—sometimes my games just freeze and then close. I checked the GPU power usage during crashes, and it went over 100%, but seems like it could mean something else.
Also, I got some games from... well, let’s just say questionable sources, so maybe that's a factor in crashing too!