Need help Diagnosing a PC hang out of ideas

[Jeffqxc]

Hey AnandTech,

Long time reading finally had to come and ask for help on this issue.

I have been dealing with a very annoying PC hang ever since I had this machine put together 2ish years ago. This may be a little long winded but I have done a lot of trouble shooting over the time and will provide what I have come up with, it's just come to the point where I need a new pair of eyes to look on the situation.

First off specs:

Motherboard: AsusStriker II Formula, Nforce 780i (latest BIOS)

CPU: Intel QX6850 (Kentsfield)

GPU: SLI EVGA 8800gtx's

PSU: 1000W Cooler Master

RAM: 8 gigs OCZ Vista Upgrade pc2 6400

Sound Card: Auzen Prelude 7.1

Case: Antec 900

CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700

OS: Windows 7 64 bit

Nothing is overclocked atm, I have enough issues as is.

Symptoms:
Ok so when doing a combination of heavy gaming and listening to mp3's(it always seems to be a combination of the 2) the system will hang, the screen stays on the frame it was at, and the speakers give a high pitched ringing sound. Nothing responds and I am forced to hard reset. Now sometimes I can go multiple days with no issues others it happens 2-3 times a night.

What I have Tried:

Okay so I have monitored temps a lot and I don't think this is a case of overheating, I have a screen shot of temps of everything from a few hour gaming session that I captured with Everest. (also have voltages and such if needed)

Power Supply:
I have a Zalman fan controller on the front of my case that monitors wattage and I have never seen it pull more than 600 watts so that should not be an issue.

RAM:

8 gigs of OCZ Vista Upgrade running at 1:1 (333.3MHz) no overclocking running at 667mhz. I have run memtest86+ and windows memory diagnostic and found no issues. If you need screen shots from CPU-z I can do that.

GPU / Sound Card:

I have read and seen that lots of people have had issues with Nvidia cards/Nforce/ and x-fi sound cards, could this be a possibility? Also I know it should not be an issue and windows now a days but both 8800's and the prelude share IRQ 16.

Other Notes:

I am actually on my 3rd motherboard in this machine, the first two were also Asus (p5n32-e sli and p5n32-e sli+) and I had this issue on both of those boards as well.

Started with 4 gigs in the machine and had the issue as well.

I have had this issue in XP, Vista and Windows 7

Also I rarely have SLI enabled as I prefer to use my 3 monitors.

So I guess I am asking should I be looking to:

~Add more cooling?

~Try new RAM?

~Try taking out the Auzen card to see if it is the issue?

~Is it a GPU issue?

~ Or is there something here I am completely missing that could be the issue?

Any thoughts comments or input is greatly appreciated as I am sick of dealing with this issue. If you need any other numbers screen shots or info just let me know.

~Thanks again

 

[KGB]

Is anything logged into Event Viewer?

 

[Jeffqxc]

The event log only has the following(no screen shot as I am at work currently):

Critical Error that comes from hard resetting the machine
A Warning that the reboot was unexpected

Nothing before hand nothing after

 

[daniel49]

is it the same game always?
latest drivers for sound card and graphics?

 

[Jeffqxc]

No it happens in any game, I have had it happen in WoW, SC2, Crysis, Mass Effect 1 and 2 and a bunch of others.

All drivers are up to date.

Also have had it happen with multiple different drivers as I have upgraded them over the years.

Made some bios/ram/chip set tweaks the other night and was stable all night(although it isn't uncommon to have a full stable night). So if it crops up again I guess I will just start ripping out hardware until I find the issue.

Was just hoping maybe someone out there had some experience with similar components and the symptoms to help narrow the search.

 

[daniel49]

No it happens in any game, I have had it happen in WoW, SC2, Crysis, Mass Effect 1 and 2 and a bunch of others.

All drivers are up to date.

Also have had it happen with multiple different drivers as I have upgraded them over the years.

Made some bios/ram/chip set tweaks the other night and was stable all night(although it isn't uncommon to have a full stable night). So if it crops up again I guess I will just start ripping out hardware until I find the issue.

Was just hoping maybe someone out there had some experience with similar components and the symptoms to help narrow the search.

Searching that board it shows onboard sound.

Audio Chipset ADI AD1988B
Audio Channels SuperFX II Audio Card (8 Channel HD Audio)

same result using that?

 

[Athadeus]

Troubleshooting that kind of intermittent problem really sucks, I've had a bad P4 before that took me 6 months to find out. You have to try the easier things first like going to a different sound card like daniel said and seeing how that works.

The things I'm sure you can rule out are your OS, motherboard, and overheating. With that much memory (probably 4x2gb sticks), 2 sound solutions, and 2 compatible video cards, you have a lot of different hardware to test with.

I think the most important thing is to try using a lot more automated programs to find out if any of them can produce your problem overnight. OCCT has a couple good tests that might help with that. It has a couple options and I'm not totally familiar with how they operate so you might want to try searching about it a little before using it.

Anyways, keep us updated and good luck!

 

[Jeffqxc]

Searching that board it shows onboard sound.

Audio Chipset ADI AD1988B
Audio Channels SuperFX II Audio Card (8 Channel HD Audio)

same result using that?

Actually I have an pretty unique audio set up atm. Currently I run a set of 7.1 speakers through the Auzen card(which with its original drivers the mic input did not work on the card. I think that has been fixed now but am not entirely sure to be honest) and then I run my head set and mic through the on board sound card.

Vista and Win 7 seem to have no issues with a set up like this and prior to learning the mic slot was unusable on the Auzen card I had this issue before I put on board sound into the machine.

But that will be one of my steps if isolating this if it comes to that point, I will remove the Auzen card and run with just the on board audio to see if it helps. May have time to do that this weekend and will report back.

Troubleshooting that kind of intermittent problem really sucks, I've had a bad P4 before that took me 6 months to find out. You have to try the easier things first like going to a different sound card like daniel said and seeing how that works.

The things I'm sure you can rule out are your OS, motherboard, and overheating. With that much memory (probably 4x2gb sticks), 2 sound solutions, and 2 compatible video cards, you have a lot of different hardware to test with.

I think the most important thing is to try using a lot more automated programs to find out if any of them can produce your problem overnight. OCCT has a couple good tests that might help with that. It has a couple options and I'm not totally familiar with how they operate so you might want to try searching about it a little before using it.

Anyways, keep us updated and good luck!

Yeah that is why I decided to ask for help before diving into this. I pretty much know what to test but with 4x2gb ram 2 gpu and different sound solutions there is so many possibilities I thought I would try to get a little more info on it.

I will look into OCCT test to see if there is something there that can help me reproduce and narrow down the issue.

Thanks for the replys