System Freezes Randomly

duttonadam

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2007
2
0
0
My basic system setup is as follows:
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Mobo
AMG Athlon 2800 CPU (not over clocked)
Antec SmartPower 400W PSU (~1 year old)
Samsung PC3200 2 X 256MB DDR

The system is connected to an APC XS 1000UPS and I don't recall any major power events that would have impacted the system.

The system was working with no problems for about 3-4 years, and within the past few days I have been experiencing seemingly random system freezes, requiring a reboot of the system. I have checked a number of possible software issues, but there does not appear to be any connection with the applications running when the system freezes, nor have I installed any new software recently. I have done thorough checks for viruses and spyware, and I am confident that is not the root of my problem either. Sometimes the system will freeze when I log into Windows (XP 2002, with SP1), other times it will run upwards of 12 hours before freezing, and anywhere in between.

Some issues I am flagging are the PSU, or at least a power issue. I have an ASUS monitoring program on the PC and was able to capture the power stream graph you see HERE
Voltage.jpg
. The +5V fluctuates between 4.998V on the high end (never reaching or exceeding 5V) and down below 4.7V on the low end (outside of the stated +/- 5% spec on the PSU). Is it possible the fluctuations on the 5V line are creating havoc on my system? As an alternative, is it possible there is a MoBo issue that is causing the problem with the 5V line? I'm really not quite sure how that works, but thought it could be an area to consider.

Another area I am considering is the RAM. The Asus board tells me during the POST whether the system passed or failed the memory test. In the past, it would occasionally fail, but more often than not it would pass (I'd guess 95% pass rate). Lately, the amount of fails have increased. I know someone will be quick to point out that this means I should replace the RAM anyways, but I do not know how superficial the memory test is or is not, and if it truly is having an impact on the stability of the system. Thoughts on this aspect?

One final area I checked was disabling the integrated 3Com NIC, in favor of the nVidia NIC that is also on the board. I did a quick search and saw some references to issues with the integrated 3Com NICs on some ASUS boards. The volume of freezes have appeared to drop off, but they continue so I do not feel that was the culprit, or at least the only culprit.

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully someone can offer some insight and things I may be able to check out.
 

xSauronx

Lifer
Jul 14, 2000
19,582
4
81
id say with those 2 sticks of RAM and some free time, id start with memtest, and then see if its just one stick or the other.

 

erickj92

Banned
Jan 3, 2007
309
0
0
I would say try and update or even get an older version of your sound card driver.. It worked for me when my computer started freezing
 

duttonadam

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2007
2
0
0
A quick update - I went back into the BIOS and found that I had made some changes a while back and forgot to change them back to where they should be. I actually had my CPU running grossly under clocked (at 1.09GHz), and the RAM for some reason was not setup for Dual Channel. I now have the RAM modules back to where they should be for Dual Channel (slots 1 and 3), and the CPU throttled back up to Athlon XP 2600+ level (1.85GHz). The system has been running for a while without freezing with the new settings, so it is possible that the low performance settings were somehow impacting the stability, though that would strike me as odd because the system was running efficiently when it was running with these settings. The CPU is now running about 5 degrees Celsius hotter than before, but still at 40 degrees C so not problematic.

Think the low settings on the CPU and Single Channel RAM were the problem?