[Solved] Audio Rig freezes with ProTools (or anything)

[KirbyCodeMonkey]

ASUS Essentio CG5290 (2.66GHz) 9GB 1TB HDD Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Boyfriend's tower. Got it off ebay, wouldn't work because fan became dislodged. Put it back in, now its super loud. Working on that one later.

The big issues is it freezes every couple of minutes from doing things in Window Media player to Protools. It starts back up after a minute. Is this a case of the computer running to hot or it needs a reformat?

I can provide more information as needed, I'll ask my partner.


Memory
Memory Capacity 9GB
Form Factor DIMM 240-pin

Hard Drive
HDD Capacity 1TB
HDD Interface SATA
HDD RPM 7200rpm

 

[mindless1]

Start by running memtest86+ for at least a few loops to see if memory is stable. Next run Prime95 to see if CPU is stable.

What does starts back up mean, that it sits stuck in windows then windows works again, or that it reboots, or has to be power cycled, or ???

I doubt it needs a format, though you could try updating the drivers, particularly video and audio, and if you don't have custom bios settings, clear CMOS or do it anyway and restore the settings to those desired.

You might also run it with the case cover off and when under load, touch test the heatsinks to get an idea if any are too hot, or of course if you can find some software that monitors temperatures or it shows in the bios (reboot after running at high load to see temp elevated) even better.

 

[KirbyCodeMonkey]

Thanks! We'll give that a run tomorrow.

What I mean is, it will freeze, not being able to click anything even though it seems to be running (music plays, etc). Then you it "unfreeze" itself, allowing to click and do whatever.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Ketchup]

I would suggest looking at the CPU temperatures while in Windows and let us know what they say. If you don't have a program to do so, I would recommend this one:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

[KirbyCodeMonkey]

Thanks guys! We can the memory test and it came out fine. Doug proceeded to take the thing outside for a good clean just in case, even though the seller said he cleaned it up. He was wiping away what looked like black tar from the fans! Cleaned it down, back together. Booted it up, played with the fan speeds, setting them a bit higher, and BAM. Purrs like a kitten.

Thanks you guys! We should have cleaned it in the first place.

 

[Ketchup]

Thanks guys! We can the memory test and it came out fine. Doug proceeded to take the thing outside for a good clean just in case, even though the seller said he cleaned it up. He was wiping away what looked like black tar from the fans! Cleaned it down, back together. Booted it up, played with the fan speeds, setting them a bit higher, and BAM. Purrs like a kitten.

Thanks you guys! We should have cleaned it in the first place.

When you said black tar it reminded my of times I would clean out computers that belonged to smokers. Glad you got her working.