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System Freezes / Restarts - VERY FRUSTRATING!

A

axion

Senior member
System Specs:

Intel Core i7 920
MSI x58 Pro
6gb tri-chan corsair
bfg gtx 260 gpu
650 corsair psu
wd 640 black
maxtor 250gb for media/photo storage
vista 64 home premium

Problem(s):

This PC will work like a champ for a day or two, then I will wake up and find that it has restarted itself in the middle of the night, or is frozen. Sometimes, and I can't find something that will cause it specifically, but for instance watching youtube videos, the system will lock up. It will also lock up when I am just browsing the files on my PC, or the net. Sometimes after a hard reset from a freeze, I can't even go 5 min. browsing the web before it will lock up again. Then it will be fine all evening, but restart itself in the middle of the night! I can play games just fine (it;s only frozen ONCE during my playing of CoD4) and I can encode movies, extract large files, do cpu and gfx intense things and it will be just fine.

My question is where and what should I start looking at in terms of a fix? I have also tried booting up the system with one stick of ram, one at a time and it boots just fine with all 3 sticks. What next?
 
axion said:
System Specs:

Intel Core i7 920
MSI x58 Pro
6gb tri-chan corsair
bfg gtx 260 gpu
650 corsair psu
wd 640 black
maxtor 250gb for media/photo storage
vista 64 home premium

Problem(s):

This PC will work like a champ for a day or two, then I will wake up and find that it has restarted itself in the middle of the night, or is frozen. Sometimes, and I can't find something that will cause it specifically, but for instance watching youtube videos, the system will lock up. It will also lock up when I am just browsing the files on my PC, or the net. Sometimes after a hard reset from a freeze, I can't even go 5 min. browsing the web before it will lock up again. Then it will be fine all evening, but restart itself in the middle of the night! I can play games just fine (it;s only frozen ONCE during my playing of CoD4) and I can encode movies, extract large files, do cpu and gfx intense things and it will be just fine.

My question is where and what should I start looking at in terms of a fix? I have also tried booting up the system with one stick of ram, one at a time and it boots just fine with all 3 sticks. What next?
Click to expand...

Do you OC?
 
Ah forgot to mention that, no OC'ing at all, don't know how and don't think I have the need anyhow for what I do on this PC..
 
You don't give any details on your RAM. If you are using 1600 or higher RAM, try running it at 1333. If you are already doing that, consider removing 2 of the 3 DIMMs and running single channel with 2GB for a while. If it does not crash, rotate through the DIMMs and see if one of them makes it crash.

Also, you might run the RAM checker - I forget what it's called - Memcheck86 or something. Problem is that is can take for freaking ever and just because it does not find a problem does not mean you don't have one.
 
System freezes are usually the result of a CPU malfunction, although now that the CPU contains the memory controller, it may also be a problem with how the memory is configured.

I second the motion to try reducing the load on your memory subsystem. Although it wasn't fully clear, your post implies that the system is capable of running with a single stick of memory in single channel. Check the documentation for your motherboard, memory, and CPU and make sure that you're running your memory at a speed all three are certified to support.
 
davidrees said:
You don't give any details on your RAM. If you are using 1600 or higher RAM, try running it at 1333. If you are already doing that, consider removing 2 of the 3 DIMMs and running single channel with 2GB for a while. If it does not crash, rotate through the DIMMs and see if one of them makes it crash.

Also, you might run the RAM checker - I forget what it's called - Memcheck86 or something. Problem is that is can take for freaking ever and just because it does not find a problem does not mean you don't have one.
Click to expand...

This is the exact ram I have

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145220

I was going to order another 6gb kit, but the price has almost doubled since my purchase earlier this year, lol..

Also, yes the system booted just fine using each stick individually. I will check the motherboard and ram specs when I find them and see if I have something setup wrong. When I installed everything I did not mess with any settings, or change voltages or anything like that for anything.
 
There could be a couple things. Some i5/i7 systems are picky about memory and when I got mine, I made sure it was listed as compatible.

You might look into using less aggressive memory timing in the bios. I never mess with that because I have not had to but it could be that your RAM is reporting settings that your motherboard accepts but does not really work well with.

Is there an option below the PC1333 speed (1066mhz) ? Can you dial it down to 800mhz? Try that and I would bet 70/30 that you will see the system run stable. If it does, then you might try cranking up the speed and timings until you get it where you want it and it does not crash. Not sure how granular your settings are and there are probably people smarter than me that can help you with the timings.

It might help to put up whatever you can in terms of your current timing settings.
 
Sounds like a good idea, I will go into bios and see if I can manage to change that setting.

Like I mentioned before I really don't know much in the way of changing things, usually I just pop it in and it works great or doesn't.. not just works sometimes, lol..

Will report back with an update tonight after speed change and post settings and we can go from there!
 
Sounds like a good idea, I will go into bios and see if I can manage to change that setting.

Like I mentioned before I really don't know much in the way of changing things, usually I just pop it in and it works great or doesn't.. not just works sometimes, lol..

Will report back with an update tonight after speed change and post settings and we can go from there!
 
Well I just got done browsing around the BIOS and couldn't find anywhere to actually change the RAM speed? Did I miss something, or does my motherboard not have this option? It's an MSI X58 Pro.
 
K well I finally found the options, and changed it down from 1333 to 1066, will see if that change makes any sort of difference at all. thanks again!
 
Well no freezes or restarts since the last update, maybe it fixed the issue? 🙂 too soon to tell but we shall see!
 
Just wanted to update once more, I have not had a single restart or lock up since changing the ram speed down a little. Hope this can help someone in the future that may have the same issue! Thanks again to all who helped!
 
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