lock ups during heavy multitasking

[dc5]

during heavy multitasking, the computer might unexpectedley freeze. for example, i was capturing video from my camcorder, playing music, and surfing the net, all of a sudden, the computer just froze. i have formatted and reinstalled windows numerous times, updated all drivers/bios, however, it did not solve the issue. could this be bad ram?

2.8e ghz p4
gigabyte 8ipe1000g 865pe chipset
radeon 9600
hauppauge 150mce
kingmax 2 x 256mb ddr 3200
wd 80gb
antec 380watt (sonata)

it always freezes when i watch dvds with powerdvd 6 while surfing the internet too. download powerdvd 6 trial to test if your computer freezes while surfing the net too.

 

[Budman]

http://www.memtest.org/

 

[dc5]

ran 1 test with 0 errors. i will do an overnight test just to make sure.

 

[Terumo]

The tasks might be overloading the bus (especially if it's asking for more memory) and processor. Unless you upgrade to some setup with larger pipes, you'll have that chugging. Only so much can be squeezed through a tiny pipe. :/

For a lot of multimedia a dual rig would help a lot, as it'll free CPU cycles to do other tasks too.

 

[dc5]

Originally posted by: Terumo
The tasks might be overloading the bus (especially if it's asking for more memory) and processor. Unless you upgrade to some setup with larger pipes, you'll have that chugging. Only so much can be squeezed through a tiny pipe. :/

For a lot of multimedia a dual rig would help a lot, as it'll free CPU cycles to do other tasks too.

in other words, i should decrease my multitasking?

 

[thirdlegstump]

Get a Power Macintosh G5.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: dc5
in other words, i should decrease my multitasking?

Only if it's like stuttering. If the system is freezing hard (in other words, it never "comes back" and you have to use the reset button) then something else is up. Prime95 has a "torture test" mode that places more stress on the CPU, and is a good thing to use in conjunction with memtest86.

 

[dc5]

exactly, it's a hard freeze.

edit: i will run the toture test tonight when i go to sleep. does prime95 report what is causing the freeze?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Certain video-capture cards tend to be really touchy like that. I've had issues with certain driver revs (and in conjunction with certain video cards/drivers), that would hard-lock the machine at random times, while the card was in operation. Does the problem ever occur when the video-capture/viewer is NOT running?

We need more info, specific mobo/chipset, HDs, IDE controllers, etc. Also, do you get any strange errors or warnings logged in the System Event Log? It could be a power issue too, what brand/rating PSU? How many amps on the 12V rail?

 

[Terumo]

Originally posted by: dc5
in other words, i should decrease my multitasking?

Could but that won't make your experience enjoyable. Some folks it's not a choice to not do 3 tasks at once. AVI/MPEG work takes a-l-o-t of processor/memory/bus resources.

You can do what ProviaFan suggested and test the memory, and if it's bad, you may still want to think of a rig that would handle heavier multitasking. Dual processors are the way to go for bandwidth hogging requests.

 

[dc5]

just ran prime95 for 14hrs, 0 errors 0 warnings.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: dc5
just ran prime95 for 14hrs, 0 errors 0 warnings.

That seems unusual... when I had bad RAM that only caused BSODs once every other week or so, P95 would just mysteriously crash after 10 hours or so (normally it says a calculation didn't match, or something like that, if there is a problem), and memtest86 would hit lots of errors toward the end of its loop. You might try memtest86 again, but make sure to enter the menu and enable all of the tests. This definitely sounds like defective drivers or hardware, because heavy multitasking may really slow your system down, but it shouldn't hard lock like that at any time if things are working as they should (thank goodness we're past the days of DOS-based Windows OSes, where frequent crashes would happen even if all of your hardware was perfectly fine).

 

[Regs]

How about a disk defrag? Maybe it will report bad or un cleanable sectors.

 

[DaFinn]

Hmm, I hjad troubles before with heavy load that was traced to bad PSU. Not giving enough power to all components under heavy load. Might wanna rule that out too.

 

[Terumo]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan
This definitely sounds like defective drivers or hardware, because heavy multitasking may really slow your system down, but it shouldn't hard lock like that at any time if things are working as they should

It can happen when there's not enough memory available. My system here only has 256mb and when a proggie uses all physical memory and it's swapping high, I can get some "not responding" errors even though the app is running fine. Sometimes the only way to close everything is a hard reboot.

Now the same thing happened to this motherboard before I had the problems now, too. It's still acting up, even though Memtest86 shows no errors (even under turbo mode), but the memory is half clocked (showing it's running at 16bit/800mhz instead of 32bit/1066mhz).

So it can be not enough memory/bus overloaded, a bad PSU, bad memory, or a dying motherboard. Hard to tell.

 

[dc5]

Originally posted by: dc5
it always freezes when i watch dvds with powerdvd 6 while surfing the internet too. download powerdvd 6 trial to test if your computer freezes while surfing the net too.

if anyone wants to try the powerdvd 6 tests, it will be greatly appreciated. then i will know if it's software issues or hardware issues.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Terumo
It can happen when there's not enough memory available. My system here only has 256mb and when a proggie uses all physical memory and it's swapping high, I can get some "not responding" errors even though the app is running fine. Sometimes the only way to close everything is a hard reboot.

Wow. Sorry, I forgot extreme cases. I think I had something similar happen to me on a system with 64MB of RAM - it essentially froze hard (no CTRL-ALT-DEL or any resposniveness), just sitting there swapping to the paging file for probably 10 minutes before I shut it off. So yes, that could definitely happen in some circumstances if the system gets way overloaded.