Random Boot Freezes

[rayek07]

Hi! I'm new to the forums but have been reading them for years. Everyone is pretty helpful and always are willing to put their two cents in. I'm hoping that someone will be able to help me with my little puzzle. My PC has been freezing on boot. Half of the time it will freeze during the BIOS check. Even if I select to go into BIOS it will sometimes freeze. I'm not sure what COULD cause this. I have disassembled and reassembled every piece of the computer. I had the CPU O/C'd to 3.2ghz but recently changed it back to standard clock speed to see if that would help but it has not. I haven't been able to find anyone with the same configuration to get any feedback. If you can give any advice it will be greatly appreciate. I've listed my specs below:

BIOSTAR G41D3G LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

OCZ Special Ops Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3SOE1600LV4GK

Intel Pentium E5300 Wolfdale 2.6GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80571E5300

RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular LED Power Supply

EVGA 768-P3-1362-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Thanks!!

 

[BoomerD]

OK, even though my first thought is your PSU, let's ask some questions...
First...did you do any work on the PC, change/upgrade any hardware before it started acting up?
Next, do you have any friends with whom you can swap components for testing?
It helps if you can test various parts of your rig on a known working rig...and can test their components in your rig...

I'm still suspicious of your PSU. Those are made by ATNG...definitely a low-tier PSU manufacturer.

 

[rayek07]

It always hung on bootup sometimes but recently got worse when I did two things:

1. Added two more hard drives which maxed out my sata ports(the position of two sata ports is covered by the gpu and very hard to squeeze cables in and still fit the gpu).

2. I upgraded my gpu from the radeon 4870 to th gtx 460.

I've unhooked my DVD drive to see if that would help but it has not. Unfortunately I do not have anyone around that I can swap parts out with. Besides the gpu, what is the most power hungry device?

 

[mlc]

the GTX 460 can be a big time drain on your psu.. so it might have pushed your system over the edge... Also i think that card has two power connectors... so make sure both are connected....

If you can't swap back in your old graphics card.. or swap another psu in.. then i would remove all of your extra hard drives to see if that helps.....

the fact that you've always had this problem, but less frequently, suggests an issue perhaps with some bios settings? I would clear CMOS and run everything at default settings, with the exception of the memory. .And doublecheck the label on the ram to ensure you're providing them with the proper voltage.. sometimes boards undervolt ram at auto settings.. And overwrite the latency/timings as well to see if things improve...

Also look for other settings that may impact how the voltage is managed by the board, things like cool and quiet (AMD chips) or other power state type settings, may be causing issues....

 

[rayek07]

So since my last post I purchased:

Antec Nine Hundred Computer Case
Antec 650 watt True Power
Core I5 760
Intel DP55WG motherboard

My only original parts are the GTX 460 SC and OCZ Ops Edition memory.

It's still randomly not booting up or freezing in Windows and when it does boot up it has weird issues such as when playing Wow I'll be running at a full 60fps in Ultra settings then BOOM slides down to a SLUGGISH 10-15 FPS for no reason. I have a tool to Overclock the Graphics Card but haven't overclocked anything but I do use it to see the GPU usage and I noticed in WOW it uses around 96% and when it hits 99% is when everything slows down. I'm starting to think something is up with the graphics card. I wish I had another card to test with. All this is after a fresh install of Windows 7 64 bit. I'm so frustrated!!

 

[mlc]

run memtest for each stick.. for at least 7 to 10 passes.. to see if any errors show up for the ram

 

[rayek07]

Where can I get memtest?
Thanks!

 

[pete1229]

1. Open Memory Diagnostics Tool by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, clicking Administrative Tools, and then clicking Memory Diagnostics Tool.* If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. Choose between the two options for when to run the Memory Diagnostics Tool:
   
   • You can restart your computer and run the tool immediately.
   • You can restart your computer and run the tool later.

 

[rayek07]

Thanks for the info on Memtest! I ran it 8 times with no errors. My PC would boot into Windows 7 and restart itself. So I installed Service Pack 1 to be sure it wasn't something in Windows. Still restarted itself. I updated the Bios and it still kept restarting itself. So I went into the BIOS to check all the settings and noticed that even though it had my memory settings on Auto Detect the Bios was forcing my Memory to 1333 which it's only rated for 1066/800. So I set it manually to 1066 and no more Restarts. However, I still have the issue in Wow in which I'll be rocking at 60-100 FPS and then BOOM 10-15 FPS. Since I have it on ULTRA and AA set at 8X perhaps the graphics card does not have enough memory. I'm gonna lower the AA and see if that helps. I appreciate ALL your help guys and gals!!

 

[rayek07]

So I lowered the settings in WOW and the issue was still there. I forgot to mention I have a dual monitor setup. One for playing wow and the other watching netflix. I unplugged the other monitor and no more issues in wow. Is that normal for my setup? Is it possible that my graphics card just doesn't have enough memory?

 

[mlc]

sounds like a graphics driver issue.....

check the nvidia site for the latest drivers.. and try installing them.. as they may have fixed some issues with using dual monitor support... worth a shot

 

[rayek07]

I did that as well and still the same thing. It must be a graphics memory issue because I can put WoW into window mode and scale it down to about half my 22" screen and it never slows down until I resize the window to 3/4th size then after a few minutes it slows down. This is rather frustrating. I forgot to mention that in the beginning of all this that the display driver would give and error and windows would either reboot or reload the graphics driver and give me a recovery error. Could there be something wrong with the card itslef?

 

[mlc]

have u checked the gpu temps? maybe it's running hot ?

Make sure nothing is being overclocked.. especially the graphics card.. but also the CPU.. and make sure you're running the RAM at very conservative settings in terms of latency and speed, just to rule those out as contributing factors for now.. then you can change back once you isolate the problem...

I would also try running with just one stick of ram... even though your test passed, its not 100% foolproof.. and it is an original component along with the card.


it's possible the card is defective.. but try those things first....