LinX and Prime95 freezing the computer.

TylerS

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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UPDATE: in case anyone is searching the forum for answers to their own problems.

Below issue was not due to bad RAM (yay!). After a fresh install of Win 8 everything is running along smoothly. It must be some issue with my Win 7 and I highly suspect a virus/malware or broken registry items. I won' tbe going back in to find out though.

Hello everyone. I hope the group doesn't mind the stream of questions that I am sending out right now, but I have another one (and more to come)...

This one is simple. Is it a "normal" thing for LinX and Prime95 to freeze the computer?

There are no errors being recorded, it is not crashing the computer to a reboot. Everything just locks up - no mouse/keyboard response, even the monitor does not sleep.

LinX does this consistently. Prime95 does this on LargeFFT but not Small (I haven't tried blend). It can take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to happen.

I will be testing a bunch of things to try to solve, but I am really starting to think I need to spend some time with the stability of the software before I fiddle anymore with hardware.
 
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Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
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It is not normal but it is due to hardware instability, it is not a software instability issue.

Reduce your clockspeed (lower the multiplier) but keep everything else absolutely the same (same voltage, same memory speed, etc) until keep doing that until you get to a clockspeed for which neither prime95 nor linx causes any kind of system malfunction.

edit: the fact it does it with large FFT and not small FFT suggests your memory is bad/unstable. Download HCI memtest and see what it tells you after 1000% coverage.
 

TylerS

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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Thanks again for your help. I was beginning to wonder that as well.

I guess running 2.2v through it for 4+ years may have had some adverse effect.D:

Download HCI memtest

Can you point me to a user guide for HCI Memtest? I have looked around without finding noe that made sense to me. It asks me to run several instances because it cannot fully test all of my ram, and setting that up is confusing me or it is not as complicated as I think.
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,118
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HCI is simple, just launch multiple instances of the same link. One for every core you have (2 in your case) and then assign ~1/2 of your available ram to each.

Your sig says 6GB, I'm guessing you have ~5GB available in windows so you'd assign each HCI "2500" for 2500MB and test.
 

TylerS

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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Thanks. Yes, more simple than I thought. This is definately the next step for me when I get home tonight.
 

kevinsbane

Senior member
Jun 16, 2010
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This sounds very similar to the symptoms I experienced on my i5-750 system - full system lockups on Prime Blend/Large, but no problems on small FFT's. Incidentally, I had no errors when running either LinX or Memtest86, strangely enough. I finally gave up on my RAM and bought a different set of RAM and all my random lockups went away.
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,118
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91
Memtest has troubles catching the kinds of memory errors that today's modern systems seem to be generating.

I only came across HCI memtest because my tried and true combo of memtest86 and memtest86+ were both reporting no errors detected but my system was not stable (random lockups). HCI detected the memory errors, I RMA'ed the ram and the replacement ram made all my lockups go away (and tested clean with HCI).

I don't know what secret-sauce HCI has that the other testers are lacking, but I've since given up on relying on anything other than HCI for detecting memory issues.
 

TylerS

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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61
the fact it does it with large FFT and not small FFT suggests your memory is bad/unstable.

A couple more questions:

Should I put everything back to stock settings to run this test, as a way of isolating any other problems? Or does this just ease everything up and make it easy enough for bad ram to pass?

If it is a bad RAM stick, anyway to tell for certainty which module it is?
 

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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Seems like it would the memory. Theres a good chance MemTest will be able to capture an error before you see any lock.
 

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
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www.hammiestudios.com
Its your vcore. Raise the CPU voltage a notch or two. gl

Freezes are usually not the cause of RAM, but because the PSU might be bunking out and vcore is too low. Go to stock in the BIOS then see if everything works. then well take it from there.