Win7 Freezing ARG

[ThundaCat]

Hey,
So here is my first post as I am struggling with windows 7 randomly freezing.

First, specs.

Win7 Ultimate 64 legitimate
1 x ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 DDR3 AMD 890GX ATX 2PCI-E16 PCI-E1 PCI-E4 2PCI VGA DVI Motherboard
1 x AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 6 Core Processor 2.8GHZ Socket AM3
Corsair XMS3 CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 4GB
XFX Radeon HD 5850 HD585XZNFV 725MHZ 1GB GDDR5 2XDVI HDMI DP DIRECTX11 PCI-E Video Card
Seasonic M12II 620W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX PFC 80+ Bronze Modular Connectors 6PIN PCI-W
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM and a 1TB Cavair Green 5400.

My OS is running on the Caviar black which I partitioned into 100G and the rest.

I was having problems with random freezing doing anything and everything. So I decided to try and elimate hardware causes. I tried a new HD, hence having the black, made no difference. I tried my onboard vid card instead of the Radeon, still froze. I tried safe mode with and without networking, still froze. I tried a different power supply, still froze. I tried different RAM, just 2GB, blue screened a couple times and was getting random errors.. maybe because 2GB not enough for win7 64.

Anyways, I decided to see if it was a virus or something so I formatted the drive, disconnected the caviar green completed. Reinstalled win7 onto my WD Black.. it froze during installation.. so I unplugged my USB printer.. kept mouse n keyboard in, made it through the install just fine. So, I get into windows, at this point I just have all my initially mentioned hardware in, minus the WD green. Computer doesn't freeze, so I slowly install drivers and updates etc. Went in and out of sleep mode just fine for 2 days. Then, I installed google chrome, seemed okay. Then I went to turn off my computer, walked away, came back and noticed it hadn't shut off yet, saw that it was installing windows updates.. so I watched it and sure enough, it froze at 14/22 on the shutdown.

So, do you guys think it's mobo or processor related? Since I don't know if it's windows as it was freezing during install. I've updated my bios to the latest 1456 version. I did install USB3 drivers, possible conflict for win7? I installed the latest version of the drivers for my vid card; however, it was running off onboard at the time of freezing.

It seems to freeze when the computer is working hard.. I checked heat/temp levels, seemed to work okay. I did some stress tests, intially those froze it every time, but now seems to be able to handle them for a while, and then just freezes anyways later.

All my hware is basically new minus the cd drive.

Ideas, suggestions? I may try to get another stick of RAM and try it with 4GB of the non corsair stuff as it wasn't freezing just blue screening lol

I'm stumped. Help.

Thx

side note - I hadn't activated windows yet, but this freezing was happening while it was activated in the past.

 

[ThundaCat]

So, since no one wrote back, I've done more trouble shooting.

I've even installed XP and it froze again. Does that basically mean it's hardware issue for sure? I just got another processor, so this is basically the last part that I can swap out and if it still freezes, then it's likely a motherboard issue.

 

[TorrentG]

Hey man.

Uninstall your antivirus using the special tool found here, in safe mode. Then test:

AV Uninstallers - Windows 7 Forums

If you have bsod (blue screens), please see that part of the forum. There is a sticky thread on how to post for help with them.

 

[ThundaCat]

I don't have an anvirus install. And my computer is freezing not blue screening

 

[greyCynic]

I don't have an anvirus install. And my computer is freezing not blue screening

If you do not have antivirus software then is your computer protected by a physical firewall? If it is not then your PC is very likely part of a botnet and that could be the answer to your problem. Basically someone could be stealing your processor to post spam or mount a denial of service attack!

Have you used the Windows Task Manager to look at the size of your page file and to see at what processes are running?

It seems unlikely, but if you are really loading your system with lots of programs that push around large amounts of data like video and high resolution images then you could be short of RAM. This will show up as a page file that is the same size as your RAM or possibly larger. In this case your system is likely to be so busy shifting data between disk and memory that it never finds time to do any useful work.

There are also some badly written applications that get control of the processor and don't release it while they communicate with a remote server. If that server is very slow, or overloaded, or just not working then your system can do nothing. The sign to look out for is a process that is constantly using a large percentage of the processor's resources. If you find one behaving this way then google its name and see what you can discover.

 

[ThundaCat]

I am behind a router and my firewall is turned on.


My computer freezes right away when I run prime95 stress test blend (lots of RAM).

I tried changing my voltage to 1.65 and setting my ram to run at 1600.

No help. Still freezes right away.

 

[greyCynic]

You are well outside my area of expertise

I had guessed that you are into gaming but I had not spotted the overclocking until you mentioned the cpu voltage.

All I can suggest is that you check out the thermal bonding of your heatsink because as I understand it Prime95 hits the FPUs in a big way. But with your background I am sure that you will already have been down that path!

I am going to drop out of this thread here because this is beyond my expertise. I am not into the detail of the low level systems that you are testing to their limit. I'll keep watching the thread because I will be interested to hear what caused the freezing when you find the answer.

R.

 

[ThundaCat]

thanks for your attempted help anyways my friend. I am far from an expert myself, hence being on here.

Anyways, I've tried upping the voltage on my ram to 1.7 and making run at 1600, didn't help. Tried the RAM sticks on their own and then I just popped them into the other 2 slots. Same deal, right away Prime95 freezes my computer when running a blend test.

Anyone have any suggestions? I am going to get the new beta bios that just got release, see if that does anything.

 

[ThundaCat]

okay... so it doesn't freeze when I turn my ram down to 800 mhz.. bumped it to 1000 or whatever and it freezes.. freezes at 1333 and 1600... however, running it at the 800 mhz I have been running the prime95 blended and has been fine so far, while doing a bunch of other things.

So, what do I do to fix this? Or any ideas on the issue? My ram is on the QVL for this mobo... HELP!

 

[clifford_cooley]

Hi ThundaCat

Have you tried a voltage other than the 1.65?

Out of curiosity, are you trying your ram settings on auto?

 

[TorrentG]

Yes, Clifford's questions are great.

In addition, please download and run CPU-Z. Make a screenshot of the SPD and Memory tabs. You can type snippingtool then hit enter in the start menu to get the program to make screenshots.

Then attach the 2 .jpgs to the post using the paperclip above where you type.

 

[ThundaCat]

Thanks for the questions and suggestions Clifford.

Firstly, yes I am running my ram settings on auto. When it's auto, it detects it at 1333 instead of the 1600 it should be. The moment I log in, and go and run prime95 blend it freezes. So, I uppsed the volated to 1.65,1.68, and 1.7 on the auto, it still froze every time. So, I manually set my RAM to 1600, froze on all of those as well.

I decided to underclock my ram just for the heck of it. Tried 800, loaded and ran prime95 last night while having a couple programs open and like 10 browser windows and installing starcraft2 just for the heck of it, didn't freeze - this was on auto voltage.

So that worked, I went to 1000, or whatever the next level up was, and it froze right away again. So, last night I just went back to 800 and ran prime95 overnight... after 8.5hrs it hadn't frozen yet at all.

I also had tried settings D.O.C.P. and it detects as 1600, but it froze as well.

I'll do that CPU-Z tonight when I get home.

 

[ThundaCat]

Narrowed it down..
Ram shows at 1333, should be 1600. I checked my mobo, this ram is on the QVL. Determined it's due to my processor, no biggy.

I run memtest86 got zero errors after 14 hrs. Ran prime95, it freezes right away when at 1333mhz. Changed to 1600 and reran, froze right away again. I underclocked my ram to 800mhz and it ran prime95 for 9 hrs without freezing.

So, my question is - how do I configure the ram properly so it will work?

I also tried D.O.C.P. option #1 which auto sets it to 1600, voltage 1.65 and timing to 9-9-9-24-2T... but it still froze in prime95 if it even loads windows.. which it won't half the time.

Anyways, if anyone knows how I have to configure my bios to make it so I can happily use my computer without it freezing every time with my ram @ 1600mhz I'd love you long time.