KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Duke23]

Interesting, I had run across a program for sandboxing but I never really used it. I normally just fire up a virtual machine for testing since I occasionally like to play with viruses I find on other people's computers. Trying to find out what all they affect, ways around any lockouts it imposes, alternate methods of removal, repairing the system to a usable state after a particularly nasty one, that sort of thing.

This was just in November / December of last year that I bought this RAM kit, maybe it was a Black Friday thing? I remember buying a few parts around that time. You're right though, I had forgotten that DDR3 has been around a while and it's "about that time". Pretty sure even the normal price for that kit was around $75 at the time now that I think about it.

[Warning, computer rant unavoidable]

I'd like to keep this computer a while but it's irritating me again. My system freeze just happened again for the first time in a while, and it turns out it's not KSP specific because this time it was during Skyrim (not related to my KSP ctds, those are gone and seem to have been caused by loading too much into memory by chance while already being close to the 32bit limit). After a hard restart I turned on all my monitoring software and loaded the game back up and NOTHING in this entire computer is getting above 55 degrees with Skyrim, RAM usage was well below the 32bit limit and VRAM usage was about 1.5gb. No overclocks, no viruses, PSU is overkill, and all my drivers are up to date except Realtek HD audio because it won't let me for some reason. This wouldn't irritate me near as much if I could just figure out what's causing it so I can replace / fix it! No error logs because the whole system locks up (but the monitors stay on and keep displaying the last frame, oddly enough). I think I'm going to run a full test on the RAM while I'm asleep to eliminate that and if it comes up clean I'm probably going to reinstall the OS. I have already tried reseating the RAM and the graphics card.

Should have just done the fresh install when I put in the SSD to be safe but I wanted it right then. If that doesn't help I guess I'll break down and buy a new motherboard, something in the Asus 990 series. Currently running an MSI 970a-g46 and I have never really trusted this thing to properly handle my FX-4350. Thing is, I was using less than 50% of the processor at the time so I don't see why it'd be overloading the VRMs or anything. I like fixing things but I can't fix that which I can't diagnose... Really hoped to put off upgrading the mobo but I might pull my hair out if I don't try it, and I lose enough of that in the shower every morning. But if you (or anyone) has another idea feel free to throw it out there. I wonder if my old graphics card messed something up in the motherboard, I can't remember if it ever did this before it. I had a Radeon 270x Gaming Edition literally catch on fire about a week after I bought it... It looked pretty cool while it was doing it though, and I have to give it credit for the fact that I was still playing Skyrim while it was on fire. I heard the sizzle and thought I was near a torch, then I saw flames in my computer case through the plexiglass and pulled the plug. I didn't worry about it too much at the time because it was as far away from anything except a case fan as possible and only managed to singe the nylon netting off one of my PSU wires, but it could have damaged something internal I guess. Crazy stuff. /rant

[Camacha]

If something has been burning you will need to treat everything attached as suspect. Things generally do not just blow up randomly without a reason.

Finding a fault is always a process of elimination. Start with the usual suspects and work your way down the list from there. Hard drives, software and GPU's break down relatively often and are easily (temporarily) exchanged or circumvented. CPU's almost never break without abuse and motherboards seem pretty sturdy too, while RAM and PSU's are somewhere in between. Of course, your system has had a beating with that card going up, so no guarantees. Putting high voltage on a CPU will kill it almost immediately, or leaves it working but damaged. You can get some pretty weird stuff when things get damaged. Ideally you are able to replicate the problem easily as this makes testing a whole lot easier.

I would start with the things easily and cheaply done:

- Eliminate any peripheral devices and internal devices not needed. Only attach your keyboard, mouse and monitor and remove anything non-essential: internal drives, card readers et cetera. The idea is to run the system as bare as possible to see whether the problem is in the core components. Of course, return anything that is on non-standard settings (overclock for example) to its default. Recheck, or better, reattach all needed cables to confirm they are correctly attached.

- If you have got an old HDD lying around, try to install the OS on there and see whether you still have the problem. A fresh installation on the SSD will exclude software faults, but not the hardware of the SSD.

- Test your RAM overnight with MEMtest. As a seperate test, take one stick out, see whether the problem persists, then switch sticks and do the same. If at all possible temporarily test with RAM from a system that is know to work without incident. After that you can test`with one stick to adhere to the bare bones strategy.

- Swap out the GPU for another one, any one that will fit, or use the IGP and see whether the problem persists.

- See if you know anyway that will let you swap out his PSU for a day. Did I see you mention you have a decent A-brand PSU? That is a prerequisite for a problem free system.

If you still have problems at that point you might want to take a look at the motherboard and CPU. If you worry about the VRM's or other components, you could either clock down your system or put airflow directly on it. If the problem disappears, something funky is going on there. Beyond that it gets hard to test things without actually swapping out the motherboard and CPU.

With some logic and a methodical approach you should be able to identify the source of the problem I have collected a stack of old parts just for these purposes over the years, it is very useful to have some stuff to swap and test with and for example an old GPU typically costs hardly anything at all.

Interesting, I had run across a program for sandboxing but I never really used it. I normally just fire up a virtual machine for testing since I occasionally like to play with viruses I find on other people's computers. Trying to find out what all they affect, ways around any lockouts it imposes, alternate methods of removal, repairing the system to a usable state after a particularly nasty one, that sort of thing.

Virtual machines are very doable for tasks like that, but normal desktop performance for anything but the lightest tasks is not what I would call optimal or even very workable. A bit of browsing or messing about is fine, but when you start running Photoshop in a serious manner or doing other productivity related tasks, the additional load becomes annoying and counterproductive.

[Duke23]

Thanks for the response. I have tried different configurations trying to pinpoint it but not much luck so far. I'll continue and use some of the suggestions you gave. Of note:

-my PSU is a Corsair Builder series CX 750, it should be more than capable.

-problem persists between hard drive and SSD with the same install.

-seems to happen more often when I'm gaming with two monitors connected as opposed to one, but it's usually several days apart so it's hard to tell. I can't replicate the problem other than start up a game and wait (for days).

-the graphics card was a manufacturer defect. I ran a Radeon 260x OC for a couple months before and my GTX-760 ever since with no problems, at least nothing like that. The Radeon cards have their own set of issues in general...

-I did the Windows memory test last night and it showed nothing wrong. I was going to use a third party program on my flash drive but something happened to that drive and it needs to be reloaded.

-I have run SFC and it also came up with nothing.

Problem is most of the spare parts I have laying around are older because that's mostly what I still work on for friends, sadly. Athlon64s, P4s and Core2Duos, DDR / DDR2 RAM, IDE hard drives, etc. I do still have the 260x though as a backup. For what it's worth I disconnected my DVD burner when I installed the SSD because I thought it came with a cable and didn't buy one I have a gut feeling this is a problem with the motherboard but I need to confirm that somehow. It happens sometimes within 12 hours and sometimes waits a week or so. Seems to be mostly when gaming, very rarely when watching a movie or converting a video, never just idling or browsing the web which makes it harder to test for with any certainty. ("it's working, but did I wait long enough to be sure?" lol).

The thing with this motherboard is that it doesn't have the best track record (the model, not mine.) from what I understand it wasn't originally made to run any 125w processor, they changed something in the revision model to allow it but warned strongly against any overclock to the cpu whatsoever if you're running an FX-4350/8350. That to me makes it questionable but at the time it was a great price, I wanted the thing up and running ASAP, and I planned to upgrade several components within the year anyway, that being one of them.

Again thanks for the tips, I'll take it under advisement and continue my search. I still want to replace this motherboard even if it's not the problem, so I can do a teensy weensy overclock

You're very right about the VM too, pretty much anything other than using file managers and word processors is annoying. I tried to run Win98 in one for an old game I was having trouble with and it was painful at best.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Duke23

[Camacha]

-my PSU is a Corsair Builder series CX 750, it should be more than capable.

Make and model seem fine, albeit a fair bit of overkill That just leaves the possibility of this unit being faulty.

-problem persists between hard drive and SSD with the same install.

That excludes hardware failure on the storage front. Software problem in the installation still possible.

-seems to happen more often when I'm gaming with two monitors connected as opposed to one, but it's usually several days apart so it's hard to tell. I can't replicate the problem other than start up a game and wait (for days).

I am not sure what to make of that now, but maybe with some more clues this will tell us something.

-I did the Windows memory test last night and it showed nothing wrong. I was going to use a third party program on my flash drive but something happened to that drive and it needs to be reloaded.

MEMtest is pretty much the program you want to use. Leave it running as long as possible, preferably for at least 10-20 iterations - but more is better. Not finding errors does not necessarily mean they are not there, but testing for a good amount of time makes it increasingly unlikely.

I have a gut feeling this is a problem with the motherboard but I need to confirm that somehow. It happens sometimes within 12 hours and sometimes waits a week or so. Seems to be mostly when gaming, very rarely when watching a movie or converting a video, never just idling or browsing the web which makes it harder to test for with any certainty. ("it's working, but did I wait long enough to be sure?" lol).

These kinds of problems are always hard to solve. Did you try to provoke the problem by fully loading either your processor or GPU artificially? Good programs for this are respectively LinX and FurMark. You could maybe leave those running for a while and see what happens, combining them if they separately do not yield a result.

[Duke23]

Make and model seem fine, albeit a fair bit of overkill That just leaves the possibility of this unit being faulty.

Yes, I was trying to be prepared. I figured in the future I'd overclock the CPU and also possibly XFire two graphics cards with overclocks of their own. It turns out though, that if you just get a decent graphics card from the start, you don't really need two.

That excludes hardware failure on the storage front. Software problem in the installation still possible.

I'm going to go ahead and reinstall my OS just to cover my bases. I'd be happy if that's all I have to do for now.

MEMtest is pretty much the program you want to use. Leave it running as long as possible, preferably for at least 10-20 iterations - but more is better. Not finding errors does not necessarily mean they are not there, but testing for a good amount of time makes it increasingly unlikely.

I will be running that one very soon, I got my flash drive working again with that on it.

These kinds of problems are always hard to solve. Did you try to provoke the problem by fully loading either your processor or GPU artificially? Good programs for this are respectively LinX and FurMark. You could maybe leave those running for a while and see what happens, combining them if they separately do not yield a result.

I did actually. I did a full burn-in with Furmark and the CPU was stress tested for a while with S&M (I think). Both seemed to be working flawlessly. I was thinking earlier maybe it's none of this and something in the registry, which is why I want to go ahead and reinstall the OS to see if it helps. I wonder if one of the old GPUs didn't uninstall "everything" properly? With the 260x I could directly trace system crashes to it, based on clock speed changes and frequency of the crashes. Above a certain core clock and it would go on the fritz, and any memory clock increase was bad news.

[Camacha]

Did you use Driver Sweeper between the two video cards? As drivers tend to be messy installs and only partial uninstalls, it seems to be good practice to double up and run Driver Sweeper to be sure. Though a fresh install is even better of course. Since you have two hard drives you could do a Secure Erase, restoring your SSD to box fresh performance I just did one the other day, unfortunately I did not have an installed second drive around, so I had to fiddle around with a bootable Ubuntu USB installation.

And yeah, one good card is generally better than CrossFire or SLI. The latter tends to be a bit noisier and, even worse, has some performance and reliability issues. Great if it works, a pain if it does not.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Camacha

[Duke23]

I'm not sure that I did. I remember running something to that effect after uninstalling the old card but I'm not sure if that was the one. Have you seen gains in performance? I thought that was only for older systems like XP.

I remember seeing some benchmarks for crossfire in particular where the initial numbers looked great but user experience was about the same or worse because it was spitting out duplicate frames and other random junk.

[Camacha]

Dear lord, this software is kicking my ass. After struggling with it for two days I finally managed to convince it to install into the sandbox without objecting too much. It was installing very slowly as usual - and sure enough, well over 1,5 hours into the process I managed to knock the computer while fiddling with some cables in the back, so I had to reboot.

Oh well. It is repairing the installation right now, I think I will head to bed and leave it to it. Good thing I have another couple of big suites to install in the next couple of days!

I remember seeing some benchmarks for crossfire in particular where the initial numbers looked great but user experience was about the same or worse because it was spitting out duplicate frames and other random junk.

A smooth experience across both cards is apparently hard to do, people are still complaining about micro stutter and other annoying phenomena.

Have you seen gains in performance? I thought that was only for older systems like XP.

It is not so much about performance as it is about old registry entries, .dll's that got left behind and stuff like that. Switching video cards, especially when switching brands too, can notoriously cause some weird problems.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Camacha

[Duke23]

Dear lord, this software is kicking my ass. After struggling with it for two days I finally managed to convince it to install into the sandbox without objecting too much. It was installing very slowly as usual - and sure enough, well over 1,5 hours into the process I managed to knock the computer while fiddling with some cables in the back, so I had to reboot.

Oh well. It is repairing the installation right now, I think I will head to bed and leave it to it. Good thing I have another couple of big suites to install in the next couple of days!

Sounds like about as much of a headache as I'm having lol. Best of luck.

It is not so much about performance as it is about old registry entries, .dll's that got left behind and stuff like that. Switching video cards, especially when switching brands too, can notoriously cause some weird problems.

Sorry I guess I kind of ran that all together. I meant have you seen performance gains from using secure delete on the SSD? I thought that was only for (older) systems that don't support "trim".

[Camacha]

Sorry I guess I kind of ran that all together. I meant have you seen performance gains from using secure delete on the SSD? I thought that was only for (older) systems that don't support "trim".

Ah. TRIM should indeed mitigate the problem a lot, but nothing beats a fresh disk Speeds should be restored to optimal performance, though the result is comparably smaller than when used after a non-TRIM system. I figured that since you have the other HDD already available, it is probably little trouble.

It is a bit of a personal preference, I must admit - and I can be a bit fussy about these things - but I would recommend it if possible. A clean slate for a fresh start.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Camacha

[Duke23]

I see. Nothing wrong with being fussy when it comes to computers, that can save you a lot of trouble. Just curious, do you work on them for a living? I'm just a self taught nerd, I guess I learn something new every day... I spent a lot of time in my childhood screwing up computers and had to learn how to fix them too because no one was going to do it for me, found out it was kind of fun. Ah but that all started back in the dark ages of DOS and Win3.1

I can't seem to avoid trouble on this project though, I give up for now. I tried to reinstall the OS but now for some unknown reason Windows says it can't set itself up on my hardware. Sigh. I even tried the msoobe trick but that failed, so I just reverted to my backup. It won't let me over provision now even after a forced TRIM so I did it manually in disk manager and it tells me I have just a bit less space than recommended that I can shrink. I guess this could be solved by doing the secured erase, something I couldn't really do easily with a non working partition earlier. Something I did do was take the time to go into the registry and BIOS to enable AHCI. I didn't think it would make much difference but I saw notable gains in the benchmarks for the SSD and, well, inconsistency on the internal HDD. It changes every time while the SSD stays about the same (I read that it could make a small difference with them as well). Now that I think of it, I wonder if AHCI being disabled is the reason it couldn't install? lol. I should really think these things through, but I guess half the fun is trial and error. Another day maybe. A computer that works 99% of the time is better than one that works 0%.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Duke23

[RogueMason]

Hey guys, I was wondering if I could have some input. I'm completely new to building computers, so I barely have any idea what to do. However, I have managed to draw up a list of stuff that I think is alright. However, I want to be absolutely sure that they'll all work together, so, uhh... here I am

Anyway, here be the list. Everything here is from Amazon UK:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

MSI Z87-G45-GAMING ATX Motherboard (Intel Z87, 4x DDR3, DVI, HDMI, 6x USB3.0, GBE LAN, LGA1150 Socket)

Intel i5 4690 Quad Core CPU (3.50GHz, 6MB Cache, 84W, Graphics, Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, Socket 1150)

Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II OC 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D, Display Port, 192-Bit, SLI Support, Nvidia 3D Vision Surround Ready)

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL9 XMP Performance Desktop Memory Kit Black

Cooler Master Hyper 412s Tower Cooler for CPU

Corsair CX750 Builder Series CX 750W ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Bronze PSU

WD 1TB 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive - Caviar Blue

Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 Midi Case

TP-Link TL-WDN4800 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter

Creative Blaster Audigy Fx 5.1 PCIe Sound Card

LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x SATA Half Height Internal DVDRW Drive - Black

The primary use will be gaming. I've selected the 750W PSU because of my intention to upgrade from the GTX660 at some point down the line; it gives me wiggle room, I believe.

I've put the parts into PCPartPicker, and it's saying that everything is compatible, but obviously it's good to get input from others. I don't want to spend nearly £1000 only to discover that something's gone awry somewhere.

Of course, I've also picked out a monitor, keyboard, and speakers (already have a mouse). I'm not concerned about fan noise (anything will be quieter than the rickety cooling pad my laptop is sitting on now!) and I've got enough space for the case. Also, overclocking is a no-go for me; I don't like the sound of it.

I think that covers everything. Please, give me input; I've probably done something wrong or missed something out, somewhere

[Elthy]

The GTX 660 doesnt need much power, you wont need a PSU with more than 400W. If you want to upgrade you can take a PSU with just over 500W, it will be enough for all High-End GPUs.

Also you should use RAM without a high heatspreader (you wont need it anyway), is limits the compability with most CPU-Coolers (not sure about 412s though).

Your CPU choice is suboptimal since you have a Z87 Mainboard and a CPU Cooler but no K CPU. You could go up for the i5 4670K or you just take the cheapest Mainboard with an 8X chipset and the cheapes i5 4XXX Quadcore and invest the remaining money in a better GPU.

[RogueMason]

Ok, thanks. I've swapped the CPU, RAM, cooler, and, on a less important note, the case:

Intel Core i5 4670K @3.4GHz

Corsair 8GB DDR3 RAM

Cooler Master Hyper TX3 Evo Tower cooler

Sharkoon BD28 ATX case (Blue)

Everything else remains the same as in the last post I made. PCPartPicker, upon closer inspection, didn't completely like the last build, but this one seems all good (although they don't list the new case, it's slightly bigger than the Antec one I had beforehand), and it's coming in £50 cheaper too mostly because I swapped the case. I'm sticking with the 750W PSU; after looking around, there are folks recommending that power for the GTX 770, which is the card I reckon I'll be upgrading to eventually, so I'm erring on the cautious side

Again, input would be good

Edited June 23, 2014 by RogueMason

[Elthy]

I'm sticking with the 750W PSU; after looking around, there are folks recommending that power for the GTX 770, which is the card I reckon I'll be upgrading to eventually, so I'm erring on the cautious side

Those guys are telling bull**** (or they calculate with two GTX 770), you will NEVER need more than 480W (even OCed and with Furmark) for that card. The GPU vendors recommend more power since the cheapest/worst PSU that can only hold its rated power for 1sec has to work...

Also i have no idea why you stick to such small CPU-coolers, for OC you could use a bigger one like the Thermalright Macho or the Alpenföhn Brocken 2, there is enough space in that case.

[Duke23]

I'd have to sort of go with Elthy on this one. I'm not a professional, expert, etc but I'll tell you what I'd do for what it's worth, and everyone can feel free to give me an evil look. If you're 100% sure you're not ever going to overclock, I'd personally go with a cheaper mobo, the non K processor if it's cheaper, use the stock CPU heat sink (If I'm not mistaken that CPU does come with one -- hey, get those pointy sticks away from me!) and use the cash you saved to get a GTX-760 or better. I also agree that you don't need the 750w PSU, I'm sure you'd be fine with a 500 or 600 and even that is giving you a fair bit of wiggle room. Unless you do start running more than one GPU, which I wouldn't recommend anyway for gaming. But I can't say anything really because I have the CX-750 as well; I got a deal on it and I figure it's never a bad thing to have more power than you need, just be aware for budget's sake.

I'd also skip the sound card for now since most motherboards these days seem to be more than adequate for normal use. It might not be studio quality but you can always upgrade later if necessary. I have that same HDD and it's solid but I'm also partial to the 250gb Samsung 840 Evo SSD I just bought, it blows any HDD out of the water so you might want to pick one up in addition to the HDD if it's feasible for your budget. Even if you're going to wait a good little while to overclock (I like to keep my options open) I'd still use the stock heat sink for now but still get the K processor and the good mobo of course, and when you're ready to experiment go for a liquid cooling system. But that's me. There's nothing to be scared of with overclocking you just have to do a little research, use common sense, and watch your temps and overall stability. In most cases if you screw it up bad enough the computer will just shut down and you start over with lower settings no harm done.

Speaking of the GTX-760, Camacha if you're reading this I'm crossing my fingers that I just fixed my problem. I was coming up with nothing for a while and then I had a freeze with KSP, Skyrim, and Netflix each running alone within a couple days, so next thing on the list was to look closer at the GPU. I ran Display Driver Uninstaller (the successor to Driver Sweeper? Some sources say Driver Fusion is) and you were right, I still had some residual R9 stuff hanging around. I used it to uninstall EVERYTHING and I'm going to put it through its paces in the next few days and see what happens. I know I just recommended the 760 but I can't blame the card for my own negligence and even with the crashes (assuming it was GPU related) I'm happier with it than I was with the R7-260x OC and the R9-270x Gaming put together.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Duke23

[RogueMason]

Alright, thanks guys, I think I've got an idea of where to go from here

[impwarhamer]

Hey guys, about 6 months ago I decided to upgrade from my old laptop to a proper desktop.

I did a hole bunch of research and asked advise from my friends on what to do, but in the end i decided to purchase what looked like a fairly good deal pre-built instead of building one myself since I get very nervous doing that sort of thing.

Anyway, I have since been recommending this computer to other people as i think it's quite good value, but it would be nice to see what some of you more experienced people would think.

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyberpower-Desktop-Processor-Graphics-Windows/dp/B00C72IR5O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384290906&sr=8-2&keywords=cyberpower

I guess i just want to know if it was in fact a good deal and if i should be recommending it since i don't know that much about hardware

[Camacha]

Everything else remains the same as in the last post I made. PCPartPicker, upon closer inspection, didn't completely like the last build, but this one seems all good (although they don't list the new case, it's slightly bigger than the Antec one I had beforehand), and it's coming in £50 cheaper too mostly because I swapped the case. I'm sticking with the 750W PSU; after looking around, there are folks recommending that power for the GTX 770, which is the card I reckon I'll be upgrading to eventually, so I'm erring on the cautious side

Again, input would be good

Please do not fall for that nonsense, I have explained what is going on there not too long ago.

I guess i just want to know if it was in fact a good deal and if i should be recommending it since i don't know that much about hardware

Be sure to check out what parts you are actually getting. Typically, these kinds of systems give you decent equipment in places they can and need to advertise, but go with the bare minimum in all other places. So you get, for instance, a very simple motherboard and a fairly weak PSU. This means that any type of upgrade in the future will be more expensive than usual, as you do not only need to upgrade the part itself, you also need to upgrade the parts it relies on. That being said, it is a non-K chip, so that means no overclocking and which is typically another way of working the budget. The video card will play KSP nicely, but is not a monster. If what this system can do is everything you will ever need it is fine, but if you want the option of upgrading you will need to do some homework.

Maybe getting someone to build your system for a small fee is an idea?

[Elthy]

Building a PC is like Lego, with instructions even a child can do it. The only thing where you can break something is inserting the CPU in the socket.

I guess i just want to know if it was in fact a good deal and if i should be recommending it since i don't know that much about hardware

I checked the price for the parts and building it on you own would save 60£, even with a brand mainboard and PSU. 60£ Would be a huge improvement in graphics or a SSD...

[Camacha]

Whelp. Wop.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Camacha

[Camacha]

Well, it is time for my own intermittent problem: my video driver keeps bumming out at random moments. I have tried forcing it by loading the GPU, but that does not trigger it. Sometimes it happens three times quickly, sometimes it takes an hour or so. I am running down the list of potential problems/fixes, but so far no luck. Waiting for the next time it happens take a little while.

[Kinglet]

My Macbookpro won't recognize its wifi module. I will do a System Management Controller reset. Hope it works.

[Camacha]

Well, it is time for my own intermittent problem: my video driver keeps bumming out at random moments. I have tried forcing it by loading the GPU, but that does not trigger it. Sometimes it happens three times quickly, sometimes it takes an hour or so. I am running down the list of potential problems/fixes, but so far no luck. Waiting for the next time it happens take a little while.

Allright, progress. After trying quite a few other things I finally swapped my GPU out for an old HD4670 I have lying around. Sure enough, two days in and stil no problems. Though it is hard to say anything definitive, this - coupled with the problem behaviour I observed - points strongly towards the GPU being the culprit.

Now that I know where to look I can work on fixing the problem with a little more focus. More people seem to have the problem, but there does not seem to be a definite and universal solution.

[Duke23]

You didn't have a gtx-760 like me did you? Although my full system crashes seem to have stopped since following your advice on thoroughly cleaning the drivers, I did get a display driver crash that was provoked the same way. As in basically doing nothing. I was watching Netflix and had KSP in the background. Seems that others have fixed the problem by going to an older driver or updating the card's BIOS if I remember correctly. Eh, at least with this bug I can still save everything and restart on my own terms.

I swear, they don't make graphics cards and drivers like they used to... Okay maybe I'm lying to myself. I seem to remember my old GeForce 4 crashing all the time while playing Morrowind, lol.