Random Freezing

[RobertMcDonald]

Though it happens most often in World of Warcraft, it's getting worse and it's happening more and more outside WoW. At random moments, my computer simply stops doing anything. The mouse won't move, sound stops playing... nothing. It's completely frozen. And nothing short of a physical reset will counter it.

I swear it all started when I installed my SATA hard drive a long while back and installed Windows XP Pro SP2. (Before I was using XP Pro with no SPs.) Is it software? Is it hardware? I have no idea. If it's hardware, I would imagine it's my hard drive's fault. If it's software, it's probably this install of Windows' fault.

Whatever it is, it's been going on for months and I'm dying to fix it! Please help!

Thanks.

 

[RobertMcDonald]

No one has any suggestions?

 

[sieistganzfett]

hi, i think its windows, did sata even exist prior to sp1? i cant remember... i think it would be best to make a slipstreamed cd with xppro with sp2 on it so when you try reinstalling it will be sp2 wiith any newer drivers and what not, which may fix it right off the bat. since the problem is probably corruption or something it will eliminate a lot of possibilities. is the hard drive with the game and windows on an ide hard drive or the sata one btw?

 

[RobertMcDonald]

When I bought my SATA hard drive that's when I installed XP Pro w/SP2. In fact, I did exactly what you said: a slipstreamed CD. It was a big problem, but I got it to work.

In any case, perhaps someone could explain how drivers could cause random, seemingly unrelated lockups/freezes of my computer. Because I'm no programmer and I don't know how these things work, exactly.

These problems cropped up after I installed my hard drive and XP Pro w/SP2. So either it is the fault of the hard drive or it's the fault of XP Pro SP2. I don't know which it is, but those two things seem to be the only possible candidates.

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: RobertMcDonald
When I bought my SATA hard drive that's when I installed XP Pro w/SP2. In fact, I did exactly what you said: a slipstreamed CD. It was a big problem, but I got it to work.

In any case, perhaps someone could explain how drivers could cause random, seemingly unrelated lockups/freezes of my computer. Because I'm no programmer and I don't know how these things work, exactly.

These problems cropped up after I installed my hard drive and XP Pro w/SP2. So either it is the fault of the hard drive or it's the fault of XP Pro SP2. I don't know which it is, but those two things seem to be the only possible candidates.

Don't be so quick to judge, sometimes a random problem can pop-up right when you happened to make a change to the system. XP SP2 is very robust, I seriously doubt that is the root of the problem.

First thing, take a look at your Event Viewer for any clues. How big is your OS partition on the 250GB drive?

 

[cgilmore]

What kind of video card do you have? And how old is it? Sounds like a problem I was dealing with. The VPU was going out on the video card and would lock up my system till it got so bad I just broke down and got a new one. But it did start after I installed Win XP. But after I got a new video never had a problem with it again.

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: BadThad
Don't be so quick to judge, sometimes a random problem can pop-up right when you happened to make a change to the system. XP SP2 is very robust, I seriously doubt that is the root of the problem.

Well, it could be the hard drive, too.

Originally posted by: BadThad
First thing, take a look at your Event Viewer for any clues. How big is your OS partition on the 250GB drive?

I don't have the 250GB partitioned. If you're wondering about how big the Windows folder is, though (not that I would know why, but what do I know? ), its size is 2.64 GB (size on disk is 2.45 GB, not that I know why) and contains 13,765 files in 1,127 folders.

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: cgilmore
What kind of video card do you have? And how old is it? Sounds like a problem I was dealing with. The VPU was going out on the video card and would lock up my system till it got so bad I just broke down and got a new one. But it did start after I installed Win XP. But after I got a new video never had a problem with it again.

My video card, as it says in my sig, is an eVGA GeForce 5900XT. I think I bought it around two years ago (early 2004, I think). (Whenever I bought it, it was right when the 5900XT came out, because I ordered a 5900SE and got an XT instead.) I'd be mighty disappointed if it was dying already. My previous video card lasted from summer 2001 until... well, it never broke. Same with my one before that. Am I expecting too much for a video card to not die after two years?

Thing is, I don't want to buy another AGP card. After Vista comes out, I'm planning on buying a new computer and sticking a PCI-E video card into it. But maybe I don't have a choice. :s

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Well, this could be a bad sign (and an odd conicidence considering I posted about it today), but while I was playing WoW tonight, as my framerate dropped below 20, I heard some clicking noise in my computer. It wasn't my hard drive but it did seem to be coming from the direction of my video card. Furthermore, after my framerate went back up over 20 again, it stopped.

Hmm...

 

[ockky]

just get a new heatsink for it. problem solved

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: ockky
just get a new heatsink for it. problem solved

Could that really be it? My video card's just over-heating?

 

[ockky]

take a look at it and see if it is smothered in dust. even if it's not, i would still rather replace the loud fan on that bad boy for cheap ($10-20) before i try figuring out what else it could be. i still think that is the solution myself though

 

[drum]

sounds like maybe a video card issue with overheating. if you find that not to be the case, memtest your ram and see what the result is

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: drum
sounds like maybe a video card issue with overheating.

While that was likely the case two nights ago, it has ran perfectly since and it doesn't seem to crash under "heavy loads." For instance, I can play Quake 4 on settings that my system can't honestly handle that well and even when it starts to chug, my computer doesn't crash. In fact, I don't think it's ever crashed in anything but WoW and Windows. Doing the most mundane of things. That's what I haven't understood about all of this.

I've probably got two problems now, simultaneously. Great...

 

[Carazariah]

Its definitely a tough diagnosis. . . some other things hardware wise that cause random lockups in addition to those mentioned are failing power supply and bad ram. MemTest will isolate the bad ram if its a problem and replacing the p/s with another one could isolate the power supply if its the problem. . . MemTest is free though. . .

Good Luck,
C

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: Carazariah
Its definitely a tough diagnosis. . . some other things hardware wise that cause random lockups in addition to those mentioned are failing power supply and bad ram. MemTest will isolate the bad ram if its a problem and replacing the p/s with another one could isolate the power supply if its the problem. . . MemTest is free though. . .

Are there any good instructions on how a MemTest works exactly? I recall almost doing one once and I think I didn't because I didn't quite understand how I was supposed to do it. (Maybe not, though?maybe it was just going to take too long and I had to go to work and forgot about it. That's possible, too. )

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: Carazariah
Its definitely a tough diagnosis. . . some other things hardware wise that cause random lockups in addition to those mentioned are failing power supply and bad ram.

Well, I replaced my power supply. I got this one:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817153023

My 12V rail runs at 11.584 consistently. I unplugged my SATA hard drive and it remained 11.584. I plugged it back in and then tried my IDE hard drive with the same results. Occasionally, it dips to 11.52 (in WoW, for instance), but I've not seen it go any further down.

Since I got the new power supply, my computer has crashed at least six times. One of those times, I got an error message I'm all too familiar with, but only once:

**Power Indicator**

Problem report: The NVIDIA System Sentinel is reporting that the NVIDIA-powered graphics card is not recieving sufficient power.

To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations.

I haven't seen it again since, but it seems to indicate that my old power supply wasn't the issue because the new one is misbehaving just like my system was with the old PS. (Unless this one's voltage and/or amperage is insufficient--I have no idea what I'm doing and may have bought the wrong one. )

I should probably try that memtest now (though my FD drive is unplugged at the moment), but I thought I'd update this to see if anyone else had any ideas with this new info.

Thanks again.

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: drum
sounds like maybe a video card issue with overheating. if you find that not to be the case, memtest your ram and see what the result is

Okay, now I've replaced my power suppy and passed a MemTest. So it's looking like everything must be my video card's fault.

...Or my hard drive's. Is there any way it's my hard drive's fault?

 

[Modular]

Look, sorry to bring in another opinion to this matter, but here's mine!

I worked on a computer with a very similar problem to yours:

Random lockups at desktop, sometimes under heavier loads, sometimes under almost no load. It was the HSF on the processor. The proc was hitting 90C and shutting down.

1. DL Speedfan and check proc temps.
2. Doesn't the 5900 have temp sensors?

Post what your temps are.

Also, 11.5 volts is LOW for the 12v rail. You need to try and RMA that PSU to Newegg and maybe get one that has a higher 12v rail (more amps). 11.5 volts won't lock up the computer per se, but it's not where the voltages should be.

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: Modular
Random lockups at desktop, sometimes under heavier loads, sometimes under almost no load. It was the HSF on the processor. The proc was hitting 90C and shutting down.

1. DL Speedfan and check proc temps.

I downloaded Speedfan, and its voltages don't agree with ASUS Probe or my BIOS. Temperatures are the same, though. Right now, with nothing but IE6 windows open, my processor is at 39ºC and my motherboard's at 40º. ASUS Probe says my "+12V" is at 11.584, SpeedFan says my "+12V" is at 11.00V and my "-12V" is at 0.56V. I don't know which to believe.

Meanwhile, my new 430W power supply has an 18 amp 12V rail--I thought that was enough.

Originally posted by: Modular
2. Doesn't the 5900 have temp sensors?

I have no idea for sure, but SpeedFan lists something called "Remote" that I'm pretty sure is my video card. "Idling" right now, it says my video card is at 66ºC. In WoW lately, it's been hitting over 100ºC. My video card's fan also seems to start clicking around 98ºC. If I ALT+TAB out of WoW, the "Remote" sensor starts to cool off relatively rapidly. But clicking and all, I'm not seeing a direct corelation between temperatures, load, and crashing. I've crashed on the desktop and I've crashed in the middle of WoW. Granted, the crashes do seem to happen more often in WoW than not, but lately, it's getting closer to 50:50 in WoW/out of WoW. I can't discern any corelation between what I'm doing and my computer crashing.

Originally posted by: Modular
Also, 11.5 volts is LOW for the 12v rail. You need to try and RMA that PSU to Newegg and maybe get one that has a higher 12v rail (more amps). 11.5 volts won't lock up the computer per se, but it's not where the voltages should be.

Is it really that likely that my PS is busted? I can't remember for sure, but I believe 11.584 was where my 12V was at on my old 420W power supply, too. Seems like an awfully strange coincidence, but what do I know? Is it possible my video card (or maybe something else) is drawing too much voltage? I know it's not my hard drives, but that leaves an awful lot of other stuff.

Thanks!

 

[RobertMcDonald]

I just installed my new video card (recommended via another thread), and while my computer hasn't crashed yet, my +12V is now reading 11.52 and has dipped a few times (to 11.48, I believe). Time to RMA the power supply? Or, perhaps, could this not be a problem somehow...?

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Two hours after its installation, after I finished a BRD run in WoW, sitting in the inn in IF, my computer hardlocked.

Is it the voltage? Is it the hard drive? The Windows install? I've now bought a power supply and a video card in an attempt to cure this and so far, neither worked. I'm running out of ideas...

...oh, who am I kidding? I never had any idea what I was doing.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

I'm not trying to throw a monkey wrench in the works. After reading this thread and seeing the work you've already done, it might come down to the PSU. If you have a spare, hook it up even out of the case and see what happens. According to a very recent survey at PCStats.com 30% of PC problems are PSU related. It is next to impossible to pick up voltage spikes, dips and dirty voltage w/o an O'scope. So using a known good PSU is the only option. If your PSU is out of warrenty open it up for inspection. Inspect your other boards for bad caps. Has there ever been a foul oder coming from the case exhaust like ammonia or fart smell?=bad caps.

...Galvanized

 

[RobertMcDonald]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
I'm not trying to throw a monkey wrench in the works. After reading this thread and seeing the work you've already done, it might come down to the PSU. If you have a spare, hook it up even out of the case and see what happens. According to a very recent survey at PCStats.com 30% of PC problems are PSU related. It is next to impossible to pick up voltage spikes, dips and dirty voltage w/o an O'scope. So using a known good PSU is the only option. If your PSU is out of warrenty open it up for inspection. Inspect your other boards for bad caps. Has there ever been a foul oder coming from the case exhaust like ammonia or fart smell?=bad caps.

But two PSUs with the exact same problem? Just seems hard to believe to me...