Help figure out random Freezing

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Kaos_Drem

Gawd
Joined
Oct 16, 2004
Messages
970
Just built a new x58 system with an i7 920 and rampage ii gene.

Rest of system parts are as follows for reference.

6GB corsair 12800 C8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145236
Nvidia GTX 260 216 from EVGA
3 harddrives, WD Seagate and Samsung, the WD is the boot drive.
Corsair HX 850 PSU

The system will just randomly freeze on the desktop, never any BSOD and this system is running nearly stock with only changes around the ddr3 running at 1333 instead of 1066.

I have tried raising voltages, upping timings, lowering timings, updating drivers, downgrading drivers. The system passed 15 passes of memtest86+ 4.0, and passes 100 passes of LinX and 8hr prime95 testing, but just plain freezes randomly when it seems the cpu is at idle or near idle (web surfing, checking email etc.) Nothing seems to work, as of writing this i am trying a couple things and it hasn't happened yet but you know how that old knock on wood thing goes...

If anyone has experienced this in the past with an i7 i would be more than grateful to know what you did to fix it.
 
It may help ot list your OS, snce that'll more than likely be part of the problem....

FWIW I have a simlar issue with my new Win7Pro machine - random freezes, on a mild OC.
 
I was having a VERY similar issue with my Asrock X58 extreme (basically an ASUS board) and have a thread about it here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1465502

Try changing your command rate from 1T to 2T if you haven't already, though it sounds like you have. My system would freeze doing anything at first, then changed to just freezing during games with an overclock after I changed the BIOS to an older version.
 
If i were you i'd:

-- Flash BIOS to latest
-- Keep all default settings
-- Re-install OS
-- Benchmark/Test
 
mrrogers747 said:
I was having a VERY similar issue with my Asrock X58 extreme (basically an ASUS board) and have a thread about it here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1465502

Try changing your command rate from 1T to 2T if you haven't already, though it sounds like you have. My system would freeze doing anything at first, then changed to just freezing during games with an overclock after I changed the BIOS to an older version.
Click to expand...

Before I was banned at the gskill forum(For Spamming) ((three posts max?)) (((I don't even know what the hell they meant)))I gleened the from 1N to 2N thingy. It keeps my gene from freezing now where it did do it before. Now 3.6 to 4.0 stable with the rest of the recommended settings.

My Settings Gene 904 bios

AI overclock - manual
OC from CPU level up - auto
OC from Memory level up - DDR3-1600
CPU Ratio setting - 18 for 3.6GHz
CPU Turbo Power Limit - disable

CPU configuration
CPU Ratio Setting - whichever you chose above
C1E Support - disable
Hardware prefetcher - enable
Adjacent Cache line prefetcher - enable
Intel Virtualization tech - disabled
CPU TM Function - disable
Execute Disabled bit - disabled
Intel HT Technology - disable
Active Processor Cores - all
A20M - disabled
Intel C-STATE tech - disabled

BCLK frequency - 200
PCIE frequency - 100
DRAM frequency - 1600 MHz
UCLK frequency - 3200 MHz
QPI frequency - auto

Dram Timing Control
DRAM CAS# Latency - 8
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay - 8
DRAM RAS# PRE Time - 8
DRAM RAS# ACT Time - 21
DRAM REF Cycle Time - 74
DRAM Timing Mode - 2N
All others can be on AUTO

EPU II Phase Control - Full Phase
Load-line calibration - enable or Disable
CPU differential amplitude - auto
Extreme OV - disabled


CPU voltage - 1.30V
CPU PLL voltage - 1.85V
QPI-DRAM voltage - 1.40V

IOH voltage - 1.35V
IOH PCIE voltage - 1.60V
ICH voltage- 1.20V
ICH PCIE voltage - 1.60V

DRAM Bus voltage 1.65V

CPU spread spectrum - disabled
PCIE spectrum - disabled
CPU clock skew - auto
IOH clock skew - auto
 
The OS is win7 64bit professional. The freezing is still persisting, and i can't for the life of me figure out what to do.

I don't really know what it could be, i'm leaning towards the motherboard in general or maybe the ram even though it memtests out to be fine. It could just be incompatible on same wavelength...sigh...just want this system to be 100% stable at stock, is that so much to ask?
 
Bump, started ruling things out as possibilities.

So far from my own testing i have "partially" ruled out the ram as it memtests out for 20hrs and has no errors.

The onboard nic card was what i suspected but i have found a dedicated nic card and it has the same freezing issue.

What i'm left with is the motherboard, processor, harddrives, and videocard.

I don't really suspect the harddrives, and the processor seems like it would freeze faster or freeze under load if that was the culprit. So that basically leaves the motherboard and videocard. I don't really want to RMA it to asus unless they will cross ship it, and i really hope its not the videocard as it has been RMA'd once before.
 
I suspect Win7, since I have different hardware, but a quite similar problem.

Mine usually happens sometime after I cold boot. Then, after shutting down (overnight, for example), the next time it will lock again - 10min or 1hr in. But after a reboot, no problem.
 
This issue was present on xp as well, so it is not related to OS.

I'm currently testing videocards and so far so good, but since the issue is random it could appear after 1hr or 3 days...never really sure.
 
Rossi~ said:
If i were you i'd:

-- Flash BIOS to latest
-- Keep all default settings
-- Re-install OS
-- Benchmark/Test
Click to expand...

I would have to agree. Go to your manufacturers website and download the latest BIOS. That can fix odd issues. If the problem persists then you may want to get a different motherboard and try again.
 
This kind of crashing without blue screen/rebooting is sometimes caused by the power supply or a connector being a bit flakey, can you test it with another one?

you cant see the small spikes with software monitors which only poll the hardware every second or so. but you might be able to see if the voltage is wobbly. i expect you can look at it with asus pc probe.

having said that corsair PSUs are usually very good,

another thing you might try is unplugging and replugging the video card, ram and all the power connectors could jsut be a bad connection, there are hundreds of connections that have to be perfect!
 
Last edited:
Well i tested it with another power supply also of high quality and the computer still froze, although it was a day and 19hrs later. Oddly before i pulled the old psu i ran OCCT gpu-memtest and it came back with a shit-ton of errors. When i put the new psu in it had zero errors, after the computer froze i ran gpu-memtest again and it came back with a ton of errors again. So i removed the new psu and put the old one back in since i have no intention of keeping the test unit.

That leaves:

CPU
Motherboard
Ram
Harddrives
ide/sata dvd rom?

Ram is next on the test block, its a 2hr drive to frys, but 2hrs is better than 3days wait for shipping.
 
Are you using the sleep/hibernate feature? My system in my signature would randomly freeze every time I brought the unit out of sleep/hibernation. I disabled it and left it as always on and I haven't had any freezes since then.
 
Hibernation and sleep is for people that care about power usage. I don't, i have all sleep/hibernate features disabled, it freezes after 2 days of uptime, and it freezes after 30mins of uptime, there is no way to reproduce the freezes.
 
i am experiencing the exact same thing; my computer freezes on random occasions, no matter the OS(installed XP/vista and windows 7). System freezes while in startup or after half an hour or several hours.. Memory tests are all fine, no errors at all. Im guessing it must be a RAM or MOBO issue while i already switched videocard and HD. I updated to the latest bios(june 2009) and tried altering RAM timings, without succes. I can't seem to find the 'command rate' setting in my bios.. is it possible that i cant configure that?

Moreover i can sometimes reconstruct a system freeze by mounting a .iso file. My USB also looses power on a system freeze(mouse turns off).

My system specs: (http://us.shuttle.com/scgforum/tm.aspx?m=2229)
- Shuttle SX58H7
- Intel Core I7 920 (D0) 2.66 GHz, 4.8 GT/s, 4x 256kb, 8 MB, Boxed
- Corsair TW3X4G1333C9 4 GB, PC3-10666, 1333 MHz, 9, Non-ECC, Kit Of 2
- Sapphire HD 4850 1GB GDDR3 PCI-E HDMI 1024 MB
- Samsung SpinPoint F1 1 TB, 7200 Rpm, 32 MB, S-ATA II/300

Hoping to find a solution to this! Let me know when you find something Kaos_Drem!
 
Did you try disabling C1E? Seems like when the CPU adjusts clock/voltage when it's idle, the system become unstable at some point in that process causing the lock-up.

Keep us updated.
 
C1E is disabled, and i am currently trying a new set of ram this time i went with some stuff that is on the Qualified vendor list to be sure. I'm running it at the same settings as my other ram as the timings aren't exactly tight, 9-9-9-24 2t 1.6v. It froze last night with the new ram, but that was most likely because i accidentally bumped the ram with my hand when my dad startled me...yeah...nice guy...

On another random note, i ran memtest again on the new stuff and didn't see any errors, at least until i told memtest to probe. Then it found about 20k errors before it froze my system, and i actually had to remove the motherboard battery for my system to come back on. Is this normal? I had never probed a system before and it only showed errors on one of the slots, but i'm not sure which one.

Anyway i'm going to run it a few more days to see if it freezes again, it probably will, which will leave harddrives, motherboard, or processor.
 
I only have 1keyboard and 1mouse plugged in, and this problem persisted on windows xp with this system. But i might have an inkling for this:

i7 = new, mobo = new, ram = new, power supply = new, videocard = reused, harddrives = reused...

So as unlikely as it would be for the harddrives to cause this issue, i will be testing those next if this new ram doesn't fix it. I will take one drive out at a time and running till it freezes.
 
Thank you for your respons defex and thanks for the updates Kaos_Drem.

I disabled the USB setting in power management. I expect this doesnt solve the problem since i still have freezes on the startup logo of windows7 and had the same freezes on winXP. I will keep you updated on the results.

I have taken out my second memory module and my system is far more stable ever since. Left my bios settings on ram voltage to standard and freezes are now more rare. They do still occur, but not as often as with two ram modules inserted.

if Kaos_Drem has solved his problems with new ram modules, i think i'll replace my modules with 1600 ddr3 modules on the approved hardware vendor list. Waiting for his results for now.

Thanks for you support here!
 
I actually put the original ram back in as the new stuff did freeze a few times. I updated the bios last night to the newest available which is 1033, i will report back if this fixes the freezing.
 
Kaos_Drem said:
This issue was present on xp as well, so it is not related to OS.

I'm currently testing videocards and so far so good, but since the issue is random it could appear after 1hr or 3 days...never really sure.
Click to expand...

Could be that new PSU you just installed. I had a new Enermax that was bad and the symptoms were exactly what you describe.

I just got a new Seasonic S12 850W yesterday and it was bad from the get go, wouldn't even power on the PC. Just kept trying to power on and the fans would momentarily star then turn off. Put my Seasonic S12 600W back in and was fine. Now I have to waste my time and money on an RMA for it. There goes my savings on the mail in rebate it came with. :(
 
I had already tried that, replaced the 850 with a 750 that i knew to be good, didn't change anything so i went back to the 850. As of writing this it hasn't frozen since the bios upgrade, fingers crossed.
 
It went 3 days of solid uptime, and a lan party, before it froze when i set it back up at home just a few minutes ago.

Granted i was messing with a bunch of encoder settings in Megui, but that should crash the program, not the system, so its obviously still not 100% stable.

I'm fine with it for now though, i don't have the time to keep troubleshooting blindly, it could be the motherboard, it could be the processor, or it could be harddrives. I don't know which of these it is, and i really don't care anymore. Maybe one day i will replace all the harddrives and see if it goes without locking up, but if i bought a bunch of things and it still locked up, i'd be considerably more pissed than i would if i just left it alone as is.
 
For future problemsolving:

My old RAM modules had optimal RAM voltages of 1,50 volt. My Shuttle motherboard supported 1,505 volt as minimum. Altering the voltages on the individual modules didnt had any succes.

I ordered a pair of Corsair DDR3-1600 modules with 1,65 volt and 9-9-9-24 timings and my system has been running smooth without any crash ever since the end of november 2009.
 
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