Help me diagnose my constantly freezing pc

D

Dunan

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 28, 2006
Messages
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I don't use this pc much but the last time I used it it was perfectly fine which was a while ago.
Now I turn it on for my ex's kid so he can play spore and whenever I start ANY game it freezes at the start of the game.
Thought it was a driver issue, changed drivers.
Then that didn't work so I changed the video card.
Then that didnt work so I ran memtest and the ram passed.
Then maybe thought the old XP install was borked so I put on win 7.
Still freezing so I changed out the hard disk altogether and it's STILL freezing.

I did notice the RAM is running @ 5-5-5-12 timings and 1.8v when on the sticks it says 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1v. I'm not an overclocker but if I change the voltage in the BIOS to 2.1v it reads yellow and I'm not sure if I'll fry something.

So now I'm at my wits end, I have changed everything but the power supply and plan to do that in a little bit. Other than that I'm completely stumped on what it could be. The board looked fine, no bulging caps or anything visibly abnormal. DVD writer works fine.

Any suggestions?

My rig is as follows:

Amd 9950
Asus M3A79-t deluxe
Video card not important that's already ruled out and changed twice
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 PC 6400
Pc power and cooling 750w psu
 
What kind of freeze is it?
Stuck on the screen audio looping freeze?

What other games does it freeze on, and at what point in the game?

Memory voltage should be at 1.8v

Try stress testing the rig
Prime95 and MSI Kombustor at the same time
 
Suprfire said:
What kind of freeze is it?
Stuck on the screen audio looping freeze?

What other games does it freeze on, and at what point in the game?

Memory voltage should be at 1.8v

Try stress testing the rig
Prime95 and MSI Kombustor at the same time
Click to expand...

Its a complete system lockup down to the dvd door not opening and even the fan controller not adjusting the fans. With XP it would at least get to the desktop most of the time but also it would freeze but also does it before desktop. With win 7 I don't even get to the desktop but I do get past the BIOS.

It freezes on nexuiz, spore, and plants vs zombies, right when they launch.

Strange thing is this is out of the blue, the rig has always worked fine and I'd only boot it to update my Ubuntu OS.

I can't even get it to the the desktop to do a stress test.

The ram is older and says 2.1v and 4-4-4-12 on it so I set it to that in the BIOS but nothing has changed. I'll be changing out the psu later, that is the last thing I can think of that could be the problem.
 
This used dvd player i bought recently for dumping wii games causes blue screens under win7 while im gaming and im not sure if the drive itself is faulty or the pci cable is or what the cause of it is yet.

Just thought id mention that you should unplug the dvd drives and all of the other things to work out memory and cpu timing.
 
inelegant said:
This used dvd player i bought recently for dumping wii games causes blue screens under win7 while im gaming and im not sure if the drive itself is faulty or the pci cable is or what the cause of it is yet.

Just thought id mention that you should unplug the dvd drives and all of the other things to work out memory and cpu timing.
Click to expand...

I'll try it but I'd be surprised if that was the issue as I just used it to burn the newer version of Ubuntu before I erased XP and installed win 7.

I initially thought it was the hard disk because Ubuntu says it cant mount the drive to install the new version on. That was after I updated Ubuntu 11.04. The OS ran perfectly before the update but now after the updates are installed the drive won't mount.

Issue after issue all of a sudden. :(
 
One thing to try (worked on one of my rigs with similar problems) is to change the slots you have your ram in. I know you ran memtest and it checked out, but I had a similar problem, memtest showed no errors, but on my intel mobo it would blue screen with the memory error message. Changed from slots 2 and 4 to 1 and 3 and haven't had a lock up in weeks. Worth a try.
 
Direfox said:
One thing to try (worked on one of my rigs with similar problems) is to change the slots you have your ram in. I know you ran memtest and it checked out, but I had a similar problem, memtest showed no errors, but on my intel mobo it would blue screen with the memory error message. Changed from slots 2 and 4 to 1 and 3 and haven't had a lock up in weeks. Worth a try.
Click to expand...

Hmm it's worth a shot, wonder why it would make a difference though.
 
Test the machine with a different power supply, if that doesn't take care of the issue I'd assume it's motherboard related.
 
PersonalJ said:
Test the machine with a different power supply, if that doesn't take care of the issue I'd assume it's motherboard related.
Click to expand...

Ugh I hope not
Hope there would be SOME reason for it to go bad, I hardly ever use it.
 
Hmmm

So the freezing starts on the windows 7 startup screen, before the login prompt.
I see hard disk activity like its getting ready to show the desktop then the pc freezes and the hard disk activity stops immediately as the pc freezes but I CAN get in through safe mode. This is a brand new install of win 7 and is doing the same thing it did with XP.

I have changed ram slots, disconnected the DVD rom and have done everything but switched out the psu. I don't think it's the psu at this point to be honest but am still stumped at what it could be. Before I formatted and switched to win 7 at least I'd be able to navigate in XP until I launched a game. Now I can't even get to the login screen.

Suggestions?

Update: the system event viewer says...

'The network list service service depends on the network location awareness service which failed to start because of the following error:
the dependency service or group failed to start'

The application event viewer says
'The winlogon notification subscriber GP client was unavailable to handle a notification event'

Possibly bacause I'm not online to update the OS? I'm not sure why that should have anything to do with it.
 
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Wel since you already did a clean install of Win 7 I doubt this will work but you can try. My computer would freeze like that then someone told me to delete the pci bus in device manager and after I did that my computer worked again. But if it's not that maybe somehow it has overheated or something and the motherboard could be going bad. Just my two cents. ;)
 
Well I did a fresh install on a brand new drive and it still hangs at the same point - right when it's about to show the desktop. I'm going to try an XP install and hopefully that will work. Maybe my win7 disc is borked somehow?
 
Another update

I have tried a whole other friends copy of win 7 to see if there was something wrong with my disk and it STILL hangs at the same point - either the boot manager won't install it load correctly or services won't start. Utterly confused.

If I go into msconfig and load diagnostic startup, everything loads fine, up to the desktop and I can use the pc as normal - but it's limited, it only installs basic drivers. One of the other messages is that the windows boot manager won't load.
 
When you ask for diagnostic help, you really should post everything - even if you don't think it's related.

You don't mention the video card because you say it's been replaced but video cards can draw a lot of power from the PCIe bus (in addition to the extra power connectors)

Usually when you have a system that consistently freezes when you launch a game, it's because power draw goes up and and if you have a bad PS, bad caps or issues with the regulators, the systems inability to supply the increased power will results in unintended behavior - mainly crashing.

This is what I would do:

1. Inspect the motherboard caps - make sure they all look good - no bulges or leaks.
2. Stop being modest about your video card and tell us what you're using.
3. Try to make your system crash using some kind of non 3D stress test tool - you want to see if the system is stable under increased power demands.
4. Can you try the video card in another slot?
5. If the only way to make the system crash is with the game (after trying 3 and 4) then strip out absolutely everything not needed - go to a single drive, single stick of ram, disable sound (in bios if you can) and everything else - bare bones and see if it still happens.

Also, it's probably the power supply, you might just try that first.
 
DoubleTap said:
When you ask for diagnostic help, you really should post everything - even if you don't think it's related.

You don't mention the video card because you say it's been replaced but video cards can draw a lot of power from the PCIe bus (in addition to the extra power connectors)

Usually when you have a system that consistently freezes when you launch a game, it's because power draw goes up and and if you have a bad PS, bad caps or issues with the regulators, the systems inability to supply the increased power will results in unintended behavior - mainly crashing.

This is what I would do:

1. Inspect the motherboard caps - make sure they all look good - no bulges or leaks.
2. Stop being modest about your video card and tell us what you're using.
3. Try to make your system crash using some kind of non 3D stress test tool - you want to see if the system is stable under increased power demands.
4. Can you try the video card in another slot?
5. If the only way to make the system crash is with the game (after trying 3 and 4) then strip out absolutely everything not needed - go to a single drive, single stick of ram, disable sound (in bios if you can) and everything else - bare bones and see if it still happens.

Also, it's probably the power supply, you might just try that first.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply

The first video card was a gtx8800, the second is an ati 4870x2. I know the gtx draws quite a bit less power, that's why I'm thinking they aren't related.

The caps on the mobo look good.
Haven't tried the card in another slot yet.
I can't get to windows to do a stress test to begin with.
Boots perfectly fine in diagnostic mode and safe mode.

The system is crashing before it even gets to the desktop, between the welcome screen and the login screen in win7. With xp it would at least get to the desktop then freeze when I'd launch a game, or every once in a while crash on the desktop too but would always get to it first.

Once I updated Ubuntu, it said it couldn't mount the hard disk, that's when I noticed everything start going wrong. Then I took out the Ubuntu HD and left only 1HD in which I installed windows on.

The only thing I haven't done so far is swap the ram and te PSU but remember the errors I'm getting are services that won't start at the beginning of bootup - but it did it on 2 different copies, that's what's so puzzling.

I'll try to swap the PSU later when I get a sec.

Any other suggestions in the meantime are surely welcome.
 
Well I changed out the psu and I got to the login screen, was able to log in but then it froze before getting to the desktop.

The only thing left to do is swap the ram, and if it still doesn't work then it has to be the mobo SOMEHOW but the event log says services won't load. This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen.
 
Dunan said:
Seriously, nobody?
Click to expand...

Does your mobo have onboard video?

I've dealt with 2 different annoying crashing problems in the last year or two. One was a faulty video card, the other was a faulty mobo. Both were inexplicable crashing/instability. Took me like a month each of troubleshooting to pin it down. Your situation sounds a little more predictable, but you're running out of ideas so i'll throw this out there.

Problem with mobos, is that if you don't have another--there isn't anything you can do to troubleshoot them... just rule out all the other parts.

But if you can, try having no video card. Also, you could try removing the case. and just have mobo, psu, cpu, ram--set it on a cardboard box.

edit: Have you tried clearing the CMOS? this is an older computer isn't it? Have you tried loading the old mobo drivers while in safe mode?
 
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chockomonkey said:
Does your mobo have onboard video?

I've dealt with 2 different annoying crashing problems in the last year or two. One was a faulty video card, the other was a faulty mobo. Both were inexplicable crashing/instability. Took me like a month each of troubleshooting to pin it down. Your situation sounds a little more predictable, but you're running out of ideas so i'll throw this out there.

Problem with mobos, is that if you don't have another--there isn't anything you can do to troubleshoot them... just rule out all the other parts.

But if you can, try having no video card. Also, you could try removing the case. and just have mobo, psu, cpu, ram--set it on a cardboard box.

edit: Have you tried clearing the CMOS? this is an older computer isn't it? Have you tried loading the old mobo drivers while in safe mode?
Click to expand...


No unfortunately not. Havent tried clearing the CMOS yet, and havent tried reinstalling the mobo drivers. Everything seems to run fine when booting until certain processes need to start then they just dont, for whatever reason. It might be a problem with putting the mobo out of the case, I have a one yr old that is constantly trying to use me a a jungle gym. I'll try the install of the old drivers I guess.

:(
 
To me, it sounds closely related to a PSU issue, or some kind of conflict. The suggestion that chockomonkey gave sounds pretty good about running onboard video versus the graphics cards. I am curious if you are having conflicts with the drivers and the two different video cards (your phys-x one and the Radeon).

You could also try pulling the 8800 card, and running just the ATI. Redo the drivers, after using a driver cleaning utility. Definately check your BIOS at boot and make sure you aren't conflicting somewhere in there. Also, have you checked the HDD for bad sectors?
 
txsizzler said:
To me, it sounds closely related to a PSU issue, or some kind of conflict. The suggestion that chockomonkey gave sounds pretty good about running onboard video versus the graphics cards. I am curious if you are having conflicts with the drivers and the two different video cards (your phys-x one and the Radeon).

You could also try pulling the 8800 card, and running just the ATI. Redo the drivers, after using a driver cleaning utility. Definately check your BIOS at boot and make sure you aren't conflicting somewhere in there. Also, have you checked the HDD for bad sectors?
Click to expand...

Yeah, the hard part is narrowing it down, since at this point, I've tried everything.

2 different win 7 copies
2 PSU's
2 hard disks
2 video cards, ATi and Nvidia
2 sets RAM
Uninstall/reinstall video drivers using driver cleaner/driver sweeper
Ran chkdsk
Ran MEMtest
Bios looks good
Board looks good, no bulging caps or irregularities

I dont believe the board has onboard video, the only options I see are PCI or PCI-E in the bios.

All with the same thing, freezing right after the windows welcome screen and SOMETIMES it'll get to the login screen but once I get to typing the PW or even wait a sec or 2 and do nothing, the mouse/PC locks up hard and I have to do a hard boot to get it back up.

I tried installing win7 service pack 1 in safe mode to see if that would kick some processes on but it needs to complete in reg. mode to finish, and it locks up again at the same point. It's a recurring cycle, it just goes round and round.

:(

I'm stumped, as I've tried everything I could have to eliminate the issue but it just doesnt go away.

Windows installs fine, no issues there, it just for some reason wont start some processes that need to start. I have no idea what could have cause this, I rarely use the PC other than to update the linux partition on it. And its the same thing with 2 completely different copies of windows,
 
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Can you run in Safe Mode at all? Have you tried pulling one of the graphic boards yet? It's still sounds like a conflict to me when it's loading up drivers.
 
txsizzler said:
Can you run in Safe Mode at all? Have you tried pulling one of the graphic boards yet? It's still sounds like a conflict to me when it's loading up drivers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, safe mode is perfectly fine, even msconfig diagnostic mode will boot to a normal desktop without safe mode. No I havent tried pulling the board yet, my 1 yr old is making things difficult to do at the moment, I'm lucky I can type this lol
 
txsizzler said:
Can you run in Safe Mode at all? Have you tried pulling one of the graphic boards yet? It's still sounds like a conflict to me when it's loading up drivers.
Click to expand...

That's why i suggested re-loading the motherboard drivers. Did you do this after re-installing windows 7? Perhaps that motherboard doesn't like the drivers being supplied by windows...

def sounds like a driver problem, or--the one thing you haven't tried is a different motherboard. I suppose it's possible that some component on the mobo is just broke and it won't load a driver for it.
 
chockomonkey said:
That's why i suggested re-loading the motherboard drivers. Did you do this after re-installing windows 7? Perhaps that motherboard doesn't like the drivers being supplied by windows...

def sounds like a driver problem, or--the one thing you haven't tried is a different motherboard. I suppose it's possible that some component on the mobo is just broke and it won't load a driver for it.
Click to expand...

Well the problem is I never got that far. It's freezing on a brand new fresh install of windows. I haven't loaded a single driver yet that isnt windows native. It froze on XP too but totally randomly but mainly only when I launched a game.

I dont understand why itll launch in daig mode or safe mode but reg desktop is a no-go.
 
Because Safe Mode loads basic drivers? The thing is, when it's loading the regular drivers that are associated with the motherboard and the periphials, it is hitting some kind of conflict. That is why it is being suggested to pull the offending possibilities, like the nVidia board. At least that is my (and chocomonkey's) thoughts on it.
 
txsizzler said:
Because Safe Mode loads basic drivers? The thing is, when it's loading the regular drivers that are associated with the motherboard and the periphials, it is hitting some kind of conflict. That is why it is being suggested to pull the offending possibilities, like the nVidia board. At least that is my (and chocomonkey's) thoughts on it.
Click to expand...

I'd like to pull the video card but the main board doesn't have onboard video. Unfortunately there is nothing to connect a monitor to on the back of the pc. I'm going to try to load the mobo drivers in safe mode but I'm not sure how far that will get me. I just don't see any other options at this point.
 
Didn't you say you were running both cards at the same time (the nVidia and the Radeon)? If not, try one or the other, load up in Safe mode, and do a driver cleaning and reinstall the drivers for that particular card. Then boot up normally. If that isn't it, then something else is conflicting. But it definately sounds like a driver issue.
 
Dunan said:
I'd like to pull the video card but the main board doesn't have onboard video. Unfortunately there is nothing to connect a monitor to on the back of the pc. I'm going to try to load the mobo drivers in safe mode but I'm not sure how far that will get me. I just don't see any other options at this point.
Click to expand...

Where did the mobo come from?

If i were you, and loading the correct drivers for the motherboard in safe mode doesn't work, i'd say fuck it and get a new mobo (or rma it, or whatever is applicable to your situation).
 
txsizzler said:
Didn't you say you were running both cards at the same time (the nVidia and the Radeon)? If not, try one or the other, load up in Safe mode, and do a driver cleaning and reinstall the drivers for that particular card. Then boot up normally. If that isn't it, then something else is conflicting. But it definately sounds like a driver issue.
Click to expand...

No it's only one card I'm running. I've tried 2 to make sure one wasn't conflicting with the other and have done fresh installs with each card.
 
chockomonkey said:
Where did the mobo come from?

If i were you, and loading the correct drivers for the motherboard in safe mode doesn't work, i'd say fuck it and get a new mobo (or rma it, or whatever is applicable to your situation).
Click to expand...

It came from newegg in 2009, I don't think I can RMA it at this point. I started a thread to get tips on what board/CPU I should get already in case I can't figure this out.
 
The errors I'm getting in event viewer are

'The following boot start or system start driver failed to load:

discache
spldr
Wanarpv6

It looks like this is where the hang up is but 2 different win7 installs tells me it's not a coincidence when one version is running fine on my other pc with no issues for much longer than this one.
 
Hmm

Anyone know where I can get a motherboard for a phenom 2 9950?
 
Talked to Asus support, they seem to think its a CPU issue since the board boots and can get to desktop in diagnostic mode and boot to into safe mode with no issues.
 
Dunan said:
Talked to Asus support, they seem to think its a CPU issue since the board boots and can get to desktop in diagnostic mode and boot to into safe mode with no issues.
Click to expand...

Doubt it, CPUs rarely go bad. Asus is just pointing fingers.
 
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