system freezing out of nowhere

[kevinf2090]

these past few nights i have noticed that my computer just locks up in screen saver mode with no error. it always seems to happen the same time at night too. i just notice my screensaver freezing. this computer has been pretty stable. i can play games and all at high settings with my 8800gts. sorry i can't give you more information though because i have never seen an error message with this nor could i find something in the event viewer. can somebody try to troubleshoot this for me. could i windows reinstallation be coming soon

edit: also i noticed that the hard drive led does not even blink one single time when it is frozen

 

[dclive]

Hardware. Take it back to your vendor so they can fix it. If there's no BSOD, there's nothing to analyze, and the system is shutting down outside of the control of Windows, hence hardware.

 

[kevinf2090]

i built the sytem though.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: kevinf2090
i built the sytem though.

In that case it's just a question of going through hardware diagnostics until the problem is isolated - start with RAM tests, then swap motherboards, and so forth until the problem is isolated.

 

[kevinf2090]

so i know that i should use memtest to test the ram but i don't have another motherboard to test though and if it is a video card problem, the screen should blank out or give me artifacts right? so that just leaves the hard drive. i used seagate's seatools to do a long diagnostic test and it said that it passed. also i have never been next to my computer when it freezes. it is always when i am not using it

 

[thegorx]

what's the screen saver ?
Is it all of them ?
Why not just disable the screen saver and have the monitor shut off instead ?

You could try a bootlog ntbtlog.txt it might help ... maybe
Or trying a Process Monitor log ?

What AV are you running ? is it possible it's having issues with the screen saver ?

 

[kevinf2090]

the screensaver is mystify. just wondering but how could i possibly be a screensaver problem. i am running nod32. i am not sure how to to the bootlog ntblog.txt thing.

 

[JustaGeek]

Most of the problems everyone here is having can be traced back to the RAM settings.

Make sure that your memory has the Voltage, Timings and Frequency set MANUALLY in BIOS.

Especially VDimm...

 

[kevinf2090]

i have never touched the ram settings. in what way would i need to change it.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: kevinf2090
i have never touched the ram settings. in what way would i need to change it.

Set the Memory Voltage to the one recommended by the manufacturer (ex. 2.0V)

Set the memory timings to the one recommended by the manufacturer (ex. 4-4-4-12, 2T Command Rate)

Set the Memory Frequency to the one recommended by the manufacturer (ex. 800MHz)

 

[kevinf2090]

disabling the screensaver still gives me the problem

 

[Evander]

Last time a computer gave me random freezes, installing the latest motherboard drivers solved the problem for me (I didn't know they existed at first b/c I was only looking at Compaq's driver page for that laptop, but after going to Via's page I found the new drivers)

 

[kevinf2090]

ok this is the situation so far; i ran memtest on each stick of ram separately and got to 10-12 passes with no errors. also i am stilll a bit scared to mess with memory timings. and plus this system was built a few months ago and has been running fine. i am starting to suspect that the hard drive is the problem. the hard drive may have a problem parking its heads when going into idle because this only happens when i am not doing anything. by the way i have also switched the sata ports and the problem presists

 

[NoelS]

kevin,

Do you have, or can you borrow, another hard drive to check out your suspicion? If you can afford it, buy another HDD (they are cheap these days) and put it in your machine in place of the old one. You can use the new HDD's CD tools to clone your old HDD contents to the new one and then see if you're in business without freezes. If so, then use the old HDD as number 2 until it craps out... Just be sure to have good back-up images so you won't lose any data later on.

Noel

 

[kevinf2090]

ok i might get a new hard drive soon but i recently get this blue screen sometimes. the only new hardware that i can think of that i installed is a new graphics card. could the drivers be corrupted. i have ran games on it before and ran benchmarks on it and it was stable. i havn't overclocked it either. Text

 

[dclive]

Hardware, not drivers, for the original problem. For the BSOD problem, read my website, debug the driver, and figure out why it's crashing (with the BSOD).

 

[kevinf2090]

but is it possible for the bluescreen and freezing to be related problems though

 

[dclive]

Anything is possible.

What was the culprit for the BSODs, when you debugged the dumps?

 

[kevinf2090]

it says that it is probably caused by emBDA.sys.

 

[dclive]

Easy enough! Now you know why it's bluescreening, and you can easily update that driver to fix the problem. Problem solved (at least the BSOD part).