Vista64 keeps freezing

[Stef@n]

Hello,

I've been using Vista Home Premium 64 for about 4 months now. Since about a week and a half i've been experiencing random freezes. The freezes occur mostly when the system has high(er) loads (but not always) and take about 5 to 15 seconds.There isn't a specific service running which seems to cause the freeze or any high cpu usage at the time of the freeze.

I've tried several tests to determine if it might be hardware failure of some sort:

* Ran Memtest for 8 hours straight: no errors
* Ran CpuBurn for 4 hours: no errors
* Ran SuperPi: no errors

During these tests I experienced no freezes at all! I also have a separate partition with Ubuntu installed on it and this works flawlessly. So I think hardware failure is out off the question.
I also looked on the internet for any similair problems but couldn't find any that would solve my problem.

I suspect the recent update from Microsoft a week ago, because after the mandatory reboot the problem started. But uninstalling the update had no effect.

Does anybody have a clue what's going on on my system?

Thanks in advance!

[heatlesssun]

Any overclocking?

[ryan_975]

I just had this problem on my system. Turned out to be a failing hard drive. Took me a week to figure it out because it was so intermittent. Then finally I got a solid read error and started getting BSODs.

[Stef@n]

Any overclocking?

Nope! System is running stock as we speak. I've tried to overclock my Opty when I first got it, but it wouldn't scale very high. So I left it at stock...

[Stef@n]

I just had this problem on my system. Turned out to be a failing hard drive. Took me a week to figure it out because it was so intermittent. Then finally I got a solid read error and started getting BSODs.

If it is a failing harddrive then why don't I experience the same problems when I'm running Ubuntu?

[ryan_975]

If it is a failing harddrive then why don't I experience the same problems when I'm running Ubuntu?

Different OS, maybe handles I/O a bit differenlty. Maybe it's a specfic spot of your hard drive's platters that are failing. I'm just throwing that out there as a possible since I went through this just last week and spent all of last Monday dismantling my RAID0 array and reinstalling everything back on to the remaining good drive. Samsung still hasn't replied to my RMA request. :mad:

[Stef@n]

Different OS, maybe handles I/O a bit differenlty. Maybe it's a specfic spot of your hard drive's platters that are failing. I'm just throwing that out there as a possible since I went through this just last week and spent all of last Monday dismantling my RAID0 array and reinstalling everything back on to the remaining good drive. Samsung still hasn't replied to my RMA request. :mad:

That might be true. Any tips on how I can really determine that it's a failing harddrive?

[Demon10000]

That might be true. Any tips on how I can really determine that it's a failing harddrive?

Enable SMART and watch the results at POST.


I had a similar problem and it turned out to be a bad video card. I believe it was actually the video RAM.

Thing was, most applications ran fine. I figured it if could run through 3DMARK, that would test the video system well. Even 3DMark passed. Only one game had problems.

Finally called into EVga and they diagnosed it as a RAM issue and sent me a new card. Everything worked fine after that.



I'm not sure how accurate your tests would be. If your system is just locking up for a few seconds, would it generate an error in the programs you are using to test, or would it just pause the program too?

[ryan_975]

Enable SMART and watch the results at POST.


I had a similar problem and it turned out to be a bad video card. I believe it was actually the video RAM.

Thing was, most applications ran fine. I figured it if could run through 3DMARK, that would test the video system well. Even 3DMark passed. Only one game had problems.

Finally called into EVga and they diagnosed it as a RAM issue and sent me a new card. Everything worked fine after that.



I'm not sure how accurate your tests would be. If your system is just locking up for a few seconds, would it generate an error in the programs you are using to test, or would it just pause the program too?

S.M.A.R.T is a joke. Don't rely on it to tell you have a bad drive. In fact, the Samsung drive I'm replacing passes every test I put it through, including the S.M.A.R.T. test, even when the system wouldn''t boot even the Vista DVD with it plugged in.

OP, you're going to have to start swapping out parts to see if your problem goes away wen one partcular part is taken out.

[Stef@n]

Enable SMART and watch the results at POST.

I suppose enabling SMART would be in the bios, right?


I'm not sure how accurate your tests would be. If your system is just locking up for a few seconds, would it generate an error in the programs you are using to test, or would it just pause the program too?

That's the funny thing: no freezes during the tests at all!

BTW: thanks everybody for the quick replies/feedback!!!:)

[Stef@n]

Damn Ryan! I think you were right about the hard drive failing.

Just ran a disk diagnostic tool from Hitachi (after Vista locked up completely after a reboot!) . The basic test didn't result in any errors, but the extended test did. I had a gut feeling that the Samsung HD might be causing the problems, but since this is brand new I was in a bit of denial.

With my two feet back on the ground now, I'm gonna start a RMA procedure this weekend. I hope Samsungs is as good as Western Digitals (probably not!).

To be absolutely sure I'm gonna let Seatools have a go at the HD overnight.

Thanks again everyone for the assistance!

[ryan_975]

Damn Ryan! I think you were right about the hard drive failing.

Just ran a disk diagnostic tool from Hitachi (after Vista locked up completely after a reboot!) . The basic test didn't result in any errors, but the extended test did. I had a gut feeling that the Samsung HD might be causing the problems, but since this is brand new I was in a bit of denial.

With my two feet back on the ground now, I'm gonna start a RMA procedure this weekend. I hope Samsungs is as good as Western Digitals (probably not!).

To be absolutely sure I'm gonna let Seatools have a go at the HD overnight.

Thanks again everyone for the assistance!

well, I hope you have better luck than me. I sent an RMA request on Monday morning and I've yet to hear from them as of today. I'm going to give them a call after the weekend to see what the holdup is.