Computer randomly lockups/stalling every minute or so...

[dakermanis]

Hi all,

I am experiencing a really bizarre issue with my system where it will randomly stall/lockup for a few seconds every minute or so. When this happens everything stays kind of responsive, I can still move the mouse around etc etc. but I am unable to perform and actions like opening shortcuts on my desktop.

I'm completely at a loss here and cant figure it out. please help.

System specs:

nforce 780i sli motherboard
Intel Qx9650
BFG 8800gt OC2 x2
OCZ Reaper ddr2-1066
PCP&C Silencer 750 Watt Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda 500GB x3 running in Raid 5

Running Vista Ultimate 32 bit.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[dakermanis]

no help? I cant figure out anything either.

 

[jdjbuffalo]

If you've overclocked it then there could be an issue there. It is also possible that your power supply is not beefy enough for your setup but I doubt it.

The most likely cause is the hard drive your OS is on is failing. Other hard drives connected to your system could cause it too but it's most like your main hard drive. This just recently happened to me and I had to send my 6 month old hard drive back to Seagate. If you've got a spare hard drive, try setting it up with a quick OS install and see if the issue persists.

 

[Ausm]

I seen this happen on systems with a failing hard drive this would cause stuttering problems. i have also seen this happen with faulty mobo drive controllers. If this system is being overclocked by all means go back to the stock setting and see if this behaviour continues.

 

[Sam25]

Yes, set back the system to stock settings and see if the problem persists or not.

 

[dakermanis]

hi all

System is already at stock setttings. Ive replaced all 3 HDDs recently. Ive also replaced/updated all the storage controller drivers.

:S

 

[dakermanis]

also... i am running my OS on a raid5...

 

[jdjbuffalo]

I think it is your hard drive that is the problem. It could be the RAID drivers or controller card your using too. Do you have another hard drive you could stick in the system and do a quick OS install? If so, give that a try and see how it functions. If everything works then at least you've likely isolated it to the hard drive, controller card or drivers.

 

[dakermanis]

I'm not sure thats the case. I had the same problem with my old WD raid before I built the Seagate one. This is why I am so puzzled...

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Did you reinstall your OS onto the new Seagate RAID?

Was everything else in your system the same including the RAID card?

Was this the reason you replaced the Western Digitals?

 

[dakermanis]

so ive noticed that I get alot of Hard faults in resource monitor when this happens.... any tips?

 

[techmanc]

What your hardware setup fully are you using a sound card or optical drives or any other hardware? When did the problem start and where there any hardware/software changes made at that time?

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Originally posted by: dakermanis
so ive noticed that I get alot of Hard faults in resource monitor when this happens.... any tips?

"A hard fault (also known as a page fault) occurs when the page of the referenced address is no longer in physical memory and has been swapped out or is available from a backing file on disk. It is not an error. However, a high number of hard faults may explain the slow response time of an application if it must continually read data back from disk rather than from physical memory."

Reference: Windows Vista Performance and Reliability Monitoring Step-by-Step Guide:
http://technet.microsoft.com/e.../library/cc722173.aspx

This often happens when you are doing something that requires a lot of hard disk activity like running a Virus Scanner.