Windows randomly started freezing- not a memory issue

[djfsolo]

Out of nowhere my system has started to freeze.

I was playing crysis, when all of a sudden during a cut scene, the screen went to gray- then the computer froze. No cursor, no task manager, nada. Completely dead.

Turned off computer, rebooted. Everything was normal for about 10 minutes, then it froze. Then the blue screen came up with the 'physical dump' stuff, automatically rebooting my computer. Following this it froze during boot-up several times.

Since then I have gone into bios and made sure everything was ok, ran memtest which failed. Fixed up the ram in the bios and the memory is 100% clean now.

The system now runs for a while longer, maybe a couple hours, but I still find it freezing... this completely came out of nowhere.

Does anybody have any ideas? I did system restore which has had no effect. I am not sure what is causing this problem, and would obviously.. like to alleviate it.

I am not an experienced user.

Thanks

[bigdogchris]

Turn off automatic reboot on failure and see if you can read the name of the file that is listed on the blue screen.

[Demon10000]

Since then I have gone into bios and made sure everything was ok, ran memtest which failed. Fixed up the ram in the bios and the memory is 100% clean now

What exactly does that mean? Did you make some changes to the timings? If so, you were probably overclocking -- did you reset *everything* to defaults?

[Arainach]

Reset all Memory and CPU clocks to stock and see if it persists. Once those are stable, if it's still around, sounds like a heat failure to me.

[djfsolo]

Thanks for the replies, let me address one by one

I don't see the blue screen anymore, that was only after the initial freeze (to gray screen)

Now the computer just randomly freezes. It was on for a good 8 hours yesterday, came back from work to find the screensaver stuck, computer unresponsive.

I haven't been overclocking anything. In the bios I set the voltages a little lower to try and ease up anything that might've been going on, I now have everything at default settings.

Memtest passed all 8gb 100% okay, so I know it's not an issue with the memory.

I thought it was a temp issue too, even though that seems impossible with the Antec 1200. Coretemp shows 40c for all four cores, and everything else is running nice and cool thanks to the case (6 fans)

This problem was very sudden. The computer has been working great for almost 3 months now, then SUDDENLY this crap happens. The computer used to freeze when I first built it but that was sorted out when I set up the memory correctly in the bios.

I am beginning to think this is a software issue (windows system file?) but I am a novice user and really don't have any idea what to do.

Thanks for the replies so far, please keep this coming, want to get this fixed!

[Arainach]

If it came on suddenly and you didn't recently install any major software/drivers, I'd suspect hardware failure. myself.

[djfsolo]

What sort of tests can I run on my other hardware? I have only tested the ram.

It runs great while it runs, which is why I am extremely confused as to why it freezes ever so occasionally.

I've completely ruled out overheating, all cores are at 35.

I uh... don't have any idea what to do. :confused:

[MChief]

What sort of tests can I run on my other hardware? I have only tested the ram.

It runs great while it runs, which is why I am extremely confused as to why it freezes ever so occasionally.

I've completely ruled out overheating, all cores are at 35.

I uh... don't have any idea what to do. :confused:

Power supply is another likely culprit.

Did you let memtest86 make a full pass? This can take a while with as much ram as you have. Often it will get through tests 1-3 without complaining, but only fail when it gets farther through tests 4 and 5.

Get prime95. Run 4 copies of it at once so it loads all your CPU cores. This will get your system power consumption up. While that's running, do a video benchmark or run crysis to get your video card going.

Power supplies can go bad any time, and when they do there are all kinds of problems like this.

Also, lowering your voltage is generally the wrong thing to do for stability. Increasing voltage increases stability (to a point) but with added heat. Since your heat seems good, you can probably afford it, but don't change anything until you can figure out a trigger that makes your system crash, so you can measure the improvement.

[djfsolo]

Thanks for the advice.

I have reinstalled vista which has not solved the issue.

I have upped DRAM voltage from 1.8v to 1.9v.
I don't know what MCH Core is, but if I leave it at the default setting of 1.1v, memtest fails immediately, whereas if I raise it or lower it too much, same results. Only leaving it at 1.05v allows the memory to pass. I have no idea what this function does, it may be unique to gigabyte boards.

memtest made a full pass, with absolutely no errors in all 8gb.

I don't suspect the power supply, but I can check. All of these parts are only a few months old, and the power supply is an antec 1000W quattro... it's one beefy mf.

The computer just froze again with a blue screen (haven't seen this since the second freeze way back) but I didn't have time to see the file. Is there any way for me to recall the information from this screen?

Thanks

[djfsolo]

the most recent drivers I installed prior to the initial problem occurring, where mouse drivers for my Kensington expert trackball mouse. I don't know how significant that info is but putting it out there nonetheless.

[djfsolo]

Windows also loads much slower than usual. What is causing this? After the initial screen with the green progress bar at the bottom, the screen goes black, and I have to wait up to 5 -7 minutes for the log-in screen to pop up, much slower than normal. The harddrives are clean from fresh install. What the hell...

[maven]

I have had memory problems in the past yet memtest worked flawlessly. Although in your case the problem might just be elsewhere but to be sure you might try running with 2 sticks (4 GB) and see if you get the same results.

[djfsolo]

Does anybody know why windows is hanging during startup? As I said earlier after the initial start up screen with the green progress bar at the bottom, the screen goes black for a long time before the windows logo pops up followed by the log-in screen. This used to be extremely quick, including earlier during the problem-state of the computer.

This doesn't seem hardware related to me, but what do I know?

[SatTech]

Could be a harddrive problem? What does a SMART check say?

[brokenarrow03]

Could be a harddrive problem? What does a SMART check say?

+1 for HD failure...

[YeOldeStonecat]

I wouldn't rule out bad memory...or better yet....incompatible memory. I've seen those memory tests pass memory that was bad, and I've seen them fail memory that was good. memory tests are about a useful as a pair of nice tits on a nun.

Is your RAM compatible with your motherboard? As told by the RAM manufacturer? Or just any old RAM of the approximate speed that you wanted?

Test hard drive, cables

Power supply.

Adequate voltage to video card if you have a higher end card, and a power supply that meets its specs.

[djfsolo]

what is a SMART check? I am not an experienced user, sorry

power supply most definitely meets specs