Freeze, BSOD and restart failure

Zeal01 · 23 Oct 2011 at 21:11

Hey all,

I've been having a problem, used to be about once a week and only once in game so far (Singularity), programs gradually stop working. For example, tabs in chrome stop responding, then open office stops typing. The 'busy' light on the computer is constantly lit during.
Finally all functions lock up leaving a busy cursor. After 4/5mins I get a BSOD that I can't read quick enough. An automatic restart displays the mobo logo for far longer than usual, ~45secs, and then gives a black screen with the "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot device and press a key" error.
Restarts return the same error but a hard shutdown fixes it.

During the Singularity crash most recently the game froze, though the ambient sound continued. After around 4 minutes there was a stuttering and it BSODed.
I can't find any logs in event viewer around the time of the crash or an hour before it. Only those after, reporting an unexpected shutdown.

Anyone have experience on this?

Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68
Core i7 2600k
OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
8Gbs RAM
2x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC

Thanks, any help appreciated,

Zeal

ThePengu1n · 23 Oct 2011 at 23:35

Sounds like a dodgy overclock to me, try returning the cpu to stock speed and see if that fixes it, if not then try the cards.

Rik1254 · 23 Oct 2011 at 23:38

ThePengu1n said:
Sounds like a dodgy overclock to me, try returning the cpu to stock speed and see if that fixes it, if not then try the cards.

How do you know its overclocked?

Although I would say this too

What PSU do you have OP?

Zeal01 · 24 Oct 2011 at 01:43

No overclock minus the ones that came standard on the GPUs.

PSU is a OCZ ZX Series 1250W.

Many thanks,

Zeal

jm240 · 24 Oct 2011 at 02:39

How long have you the machine for and when did this problem start occurring?

Dogtaguk · 24 Oct 2011 at 08:40

I am having the same problem myself.
I have the same motherboard and cpu as you.
What ram are you using? Is it corsair xms3 by any chance?
Also using an overclocked gpu but its the msi 580 frozr ii.

Been working on it for a week and have ran every test and benchmarj
i can think of and still nothing. could it be the mobo??

AlfBaxter · 24 Oct 2011 at 10:37

Try this: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

If there's a crash dump on your HDD, then it will display information about the crash.

mp260767 · 24 Oct 2011 at 11:00

have you tried changing the settings on your system so it doesn't restart after the bsod ?

skyripper · 24 Oct 2011 at 11:05

Is it an F4 code on the BSOD? Check the OCZ forums.

Zeal01 · 24 Oct 2011 at 19:47

On startup this time, Windows failed to start and gave the 'Windows failed to start error message, ran startup repair, refused system recovery and the details at the end gave:

Repair action: System files integrity check and repair
Result: Failed. Error code 0x490

jm240 said:
How long have you the machine for and when did this problem start occurring?

Can't quite remember but maybe around three or four months ago. Have had the machine since March or April.

@mp260767, yup have done that now.

@AlfBaxter, ran Bluescreenview, it found nothing. Thanks anyway though.

@Dogtaguk, RAM is Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz

@skyripper, have not as yet been able to read BSOD, will go look at those forums though.

Zeal01 · 24 Oct 2011 at 20:39

Just had a crash. Read the BSOD.

0x000000F4 (0x0000000000000003, 0xFFFFFA800ACD6B30, 0xFFFFFA800ACD6E10, 0xFFFFF80003B9C8B0)

It froze on - Initialising disc for crash dump.
Happened when I clicked reply on these forums to give PSU info at around 20:19. No logs in system between 20:16:34 and 20:31:02.

No minidump file in Windows. Not hidden.

Now to search that error. These BSODs are getting far more frequent. that's three in as many days.

@ skyripper, is this your F4 code?

Nimdok · 26 Oct 2011 at 11:11

@Zeal01 - I had this problem recently, have you tried checking to see if the option for creating minidumps is enabled?

Little_Crow · 26 Oct 2011 at 11:49

I'd definitely say your SSD is the culprit, HDD light staying on constantly, errors on startup regarding a boot device.

That is exactly the F4 code skyripper is refering to. Have a look on the OCZ forums there are many threads about it but as best I can tell there is no definite fix for it, though reverting to the 2.09 firmware seems a popular fix.

Zeal01 · 4 Nov 2011 at 01:14

I'm fairly sure I have.

Just updated to 2.15 from 2.06 so we'll see how that goes I guess!