Basically, my PC started to freeze up. This would happen by suddenly becoming very slow and laggy, then shortly (5-20seconds) all programs instantly freezing, and after this (5-20seconds) the mouse cursor would eventually freeze as well. When I get the problem, it will be continuous for a few days no matter how many times I reboot, but other times it might not happen for a month. It's obviously a hardware issue because I was using vista, and then did a clean reinstall of w7, but after about a month the same exact problem has developed again. I've removed my gfx card and used the on-board gfx but after a couple weeks it started to happen again. Because when it does happen, it happens in quick succession, I'm thinking something's overheating. I was wondering has anyone come across anything similar to this, because I really don't want to have to go swapping parts around everywhere to locate the problem, I was hoping rather that someone might recognise the issue. Thanks in adv, Lloyd.
If you an extra PCI audio card, try installing that. I had something similar while running windows xp. My computer would freeze after running for a couple of minutes. It would also slow down with the cpu running at 100 percent with no programs running. Even after reinstalling windows the problem persisted. Eventually (after 6 months of living with the problem) I disable the onboard audio and installed a PCI soundcard (because I was also having audio problems) and the problem went away permanently. It's something that doesn't look related to the original problem but it fixed it.
I would run it with the side off and gently touch the heatsinks while it is running. If there is an overheating issue, you should be able to feel it.
Yeah I did that on the motherboard and all the heat-sinks on it were brutally hot (no fingertips left!). But how can I troubleshoot the problem down to one component, surely the nature of the crash (frozen programs with cursor moving, then eventually total freeze) could point to specific component. Are there any component I could rule out causing this, memory, hard drives, etc...?
Such a crash usualy points to a hard disk failure, hard drive controler failure, or sometimes even a ram failure. If your chipset coolers are too hot to touch, they could cause just such a problem. If the mainboard is already out of warantee, I would upgrade the coolers...most mainboards come with coolers that are designed to be just good enough to outlast the waranty, and no more.
Hmmm, thanks for your suggestions. How could I troubleshoot between the hardware if I don't have spare parts to test? I have a raid 0 steup so it'd be difficult to start swapping hdds over. Ok, so I could take out a ram module and just use one, then swap over to test the other one. I'm happy to but a new mobo, but it'd feel like a waste of dosh to plunge into buying new ram/hdds, since an upgrade there isnt necessary. What do you think?
On the face of it sounds like what killer said a hdd issue,setting the BIOS to show i think it's called the POST screen,it shows info like amount of ram installed,hdd's & dvd drives every time the comp boots,it's real handy coz if a hdd looses detection it won't show up in the screen however i'm not sure about a raid setup & if it would work,for the record i have 3 hdd's that i'm unable to use other than in external cases for the very reason you describe no matter which comp i install them in they work fine for a bit then turn to custard & loose detection or screen siezure,in the externals they work fine wouldn't that just piss ya off..lol.
sounds a lot like a heat problem i fit bog standard coolers to all my builds (apart from my own) no problems so check the cooler is fitted properly to the cpu, check the paste not too little, not too much, power and heat mostly do not leave messages in the event viewer, so you could look in there as almost everything else does start, right click my computer,manage,event viewer,system look for red
cpu temp can be checked by going into the BIOS & looking under "pc health" there will be a read out as it increases in temp until it gets to it's operating temperature then it will stabilize.
Like I said, I'm happy to upgrade the mobo and cpu, I just want to rule out the HDD's. How would I do that. The strange thing is, is that after I wiped vista installed w7, it took a month for the problem to show it's face again, and now I'm lucky if I can use my pc for more than 20 mins! I just don't understand, if it was a overheating problem how could the pc run (mostly non-stop) for a month without having any problems? Thanks, Lloyd.
We can do nothing more than speculate,temp read out can be seen by booting to the bios it will read in real time & will rule out that issue,i was under impression computers had thermal cutouts,an older one of mine does Just coz the heatsink is hot doesn't mean it's overheating you need to find out what the max temp should be,reminds me of the complaints when the slim PS2 first came on the market.lmao.. Best way to find out if hdd is at fault is get a known good one in it's place other than that take it to a repair shop
Considering the fact that your chipset coolers are soo hot that they burn flesh on contact, it is likely that the issue is with the chipset. This said, the problem could affect USb drives just as it does SATA or ATA drives. You could try connecting them by USB, if it worked then you would know the drives are OK, but if it does not work, it would not tell you anything. If you have another system that you could test them with, and they didn't work there, then we could say the issue is with the hard drives...otherwise it would just be speculation to say if the drives were good or bad. As to the Win7 running fine for a month thing: it is possible that your chips are running right at the edge of failure...something as simple as a heat vent pointed towards the general direction of the PC might be enough to make the difference...and this is the time of year that people use the heat a lot more. This could be tested easily if you have some small fans that can be mounted to (or at least pointed at) the chipset heatsinks. Thermal cutoffs have been around for a long time, but there are still many systems being made without them, and they can usualy be switched off in BIOS...if they are even enabled by default.
This is probably a highly uneducated idea, but could I try running chrome off my usb stick by any chance? If it then suffers from crashes I could rule out the hard drives. Sorry it's just a guess, I have no idea whether I could boot chrome on my desktop or not... Anyway, if it is a hdd issue, I have no choice but to wipe my raid setup and install w7 on both hdd's separately, if the same problem occurs on both hdd's (which is too unlikely to be the same problem with both), then I can rule them out. And I'll just do the same swapping with my RAM modules. Would this work to rule out those components? Thanks, Lloyd.
