Help with freezing problem (not overheating)

[jr8801]

My System:
Intel I5-2500k
Corsair A50 Heatsink
Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 MOBO
XFX Radeon HD 6850 GPU
PNY 1333 4gb x 2
Antec 300 case
Antec Earth Watts 750w PSU
Samsung Spin Point F3 1tb
WD Green 1tb
Windows 7 Ultimate
NOT OC but Has been (but i always watched my temps and never spiked above 55c)

Problem: I did not encounter this problem until about 3-4 weeks ago (system is about 6 months old). My computer would just freeze while idle. So i took off hibernate and sleep mode and just turned the computer off when i was done using, hopefully to solve the problem. The freezes became more frequent and when in use. When school is in session i do not play games or anything so i was not running my computer very hard. Simple word and powerpoint projects were used. I also listen to music with VLC often. Besides that and research online nothing was pushing the cpu hard at all. Eventually it go to the point where it was freezing after about 5 minutes of use so i decided to wipe and format harddrives and reinstall windows. This would help for a day and then the freezing problem would ensue again. So i thought maybe the graphics card is going out and decided to use the integrated Intel HD graphics via dvi. This also worked for a couple days. I went 3 days without freezing. Then the freezing started again. Eventually i couldnt even get past the bios screen. (says gigabyte efi and then goes to post). and then i did not get any signal to my monitor at all. so i plugged an hdmi into my GPU and used my flat screen tv. This has worked another couple days but now the freezing is worse then ever (hence me coming here). I am in the process of writing a paper and i have froze atleast 6 times this morning alone. (losing paragraphs of work, and yes i try to save every couple sentences but when you are in the process sometimes you forget to save)

What i have done:
Tried switching monitors (from small pc flatscreen to 50" tv).
Using HDMI instead of dvi.
Using integrated instead of GPU
Ran windows mem test
Ran Intel processor diagnostics
Defrag all harddrives
Reinstalled windows 7 SP1 x64 multiple times.
Downloaded the latest drivers directly from source every time i reinstall windows.
Taken computer apart and checked all connecters, inputs,and just did a general cleaning.

Please help. i do not know what to do. Infact im surprised i have not froze while writing this. It most just know when im doing something important .

I need to do something to fix this or troubleshoot it as i need to get this paper done. Thanks for anyone that can help...

 

[Lasthitlarry]

I can suggest resetting BIOS in case remnant settings of your past OC are still lurking, if you messed with voltages could see a problem there, but besides that it sounds like typical poor hard drive performance from an old or corrupted drive.

I am guessing there weren't any errors detected when you scanned and defragged the drives.

Could try just having 1 drive plugged in at a time to isolate further...

Anyone else?

 

[jolancer]

how you could isolate it -
+First check see maybe if you have another power outlet you can try? no high power appliences connected near same outlet? using a surgeprotector?
+Stress test system, sorry i havn't done this in yrs, someone else can hopefully recommend modern applications, but back when they were single cores like the AMD64, i used... memtest86, prime95/super-pi, atitool/rthdribl
+remove ALL unneccesary hardware to boot. example- use just 1HDD 1Dimm onboard GPU, no USB Devices(unless ur mouse is usb - try a diff usb port), etc.
+If still freezes, anything that has an alternative connection use it - like move the HDD to a diff SATA port, use the Secondary Dimm slot,, etc.
+If solved reconnect everything 1 by 1 to find out whats causing.
+If not solved, Id start with PSU, possibly barrow/replace for testing. if still not solved... gota be your mobo, cause you have 2 of everything else already in the system for proccess of elimination testing(Edit: sorry i know you dont have 2cpus lol, but you have means of testing it, and unless misshandled, tho things Rarely go bad)

 

[jr8801]

I can suggest resetting BIOS in case remnant settings of your past OC are still lurking, if you messed with voltages could see a problem there, but besides that it sounds like typical poor hard drive performance from an old or corrupted drive.

I am guessing there weren't any errors detected when you scanned and defragged the drives.

Could try just having 1 drive plugged in at a time to isolate further...

Anyone else?

I did reset the motherboard/bios by removing the onboard battery and have not overclocked since. There were not errors in the harddrives and both are as old as the computer (6 months) i will try unplugging one at a time as i have not yet.


Power outlet seems feasible as i just rearranged my room and my computer has not always been in this place. I do have it connected to a powersurge but with a stereo and a tv and my monitor. So i will remove these and try a different outlet. and i have stressed tested with memtest and prime.

Ill start with all your other suggestions tomorrow and i appreciate your inputs. i posted this in 3 other forums and have not gotten a single response.

The only problem with removing everything is that the freezes have no real time frame and happen very randomly (for example...After i wrote the first post it did not freeze all day. but just 5 minutes ago it did.). But none the less i will try all suggestions to figure out the problem and report back. thanks!

 

[jr8801]

Also, dont know if its related but it hangs on boot (at the bios options page) on first restart after freeze.

 

[jolancer]

do everything 1 by 1.... so if it doesn't ever freeze again after switching power outlets, there's no reason to start dissassembling the computer. (you might also want to just move it back to the outlet you were using the first 6months if it never had an issue there).

I don't know about the pausing on next boot.. maybe its just running some internal checks after failure.

 

[jr8801]

switching the power outlet has solved problem so far...its been a day with no freezes. So hopefully that was the problem. Thank You!