Freezing computer

CGough · 28 Sep 2011 at 21:49

Hi all... Many apologies for requesting help with my first post.

I've seen this issue a whole lot on the net but no real confirmed fixes. You see I'm having trouble with my PC freezing after a while. I know the following:

the less RAM I have installed the longer it runs before freezing

I have upgraded the PSU recently as I'd thought it was a power supply issue, however this does not seem to be the case.

I've had some luck removing the BIOS battery, this seems to allow me to run the computer but it will freeze if I try to load certain programs like "3Ds Max"

I feel quite sure that this must be a BIOS issue. I have installed the required drivers and tried updating them also...

My rig is as follows:

CPU : AMD Phenom 955 Black Edition
Motherboard : ASUS M4A785D-M Pro
PSU : Coolermaster GX Bronze 750W
RAM : Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR 2 800MHz ( 4-4-4-12 2.0 )
GPU : XFX Radeon HD 5770
HDD(s) : Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

CGough · 29 Sep 2011 at 13:05

Indeed I have. I left it running for 24 hours or so with no recorded problems... I am always wary though of RAM...

* Also, many thanks for the help and time taken out to actually reply to so many posts *

I've noticed that it freezes often when a message indicating that the Catalyst control center has stopped working. I somehow managed to keep it online long enough to install the relevant drivers via the "Automatically Detect and Install" method from AMD and have reinstalled the drivers for the Motherboard from the disk...

I also set the BIOS settings for the RAM to those specified (4-4-4-12) but there are many other settings I am unsure of in the BIOS list for RAM...

Things seem to be leaning over to this being a GPU issue but I haven't seen any artefacts on the screen, when it freezes it simply stays still, no artefacts at all... I have an older GPU so I can try installing that to see if anything changes.

Also I've ran the benchmark for "Final Fantasy XIV" it plays well but judders every second or so, this is also indicated in the "score" line where it jumps between low and high every second.

CGough · 3 Oct 2011 at 23:17

Hi, sorry about the delay...

I'd set the RAM to 2.0 volts as it specified in CPU-z (well 2.0100) and the timings too, those were 5-5-5-14 I believe. This didn't seem to improve or hinder anything.

I also tried the older GPU and my system died on me big time so I've had to install windows again and update... I noticed that I still had to have only one RAM module (in the second slot) in order to prevent it from freezing during install.

(( also when it freezes the lights on the RAM still change about, would this be any indication that is isn't a RAM issue? ))

I've updated the computer back to where I was before but have not installed any drivers for the card yet ((this is the 5770)) I'll see if it is stable with all the RAM before installing the drivers.

So many thanks again for the help. I hope this page can be useful to somebody though along the line.

CGough · 4 Oct 2011 at 23:06

The older card was a HIS Radeon x1650 Pro IceQ.

I haven't tried older drivers yet as I've ran memest with each stick. I've found oddly now that the system will not boot with RAM in slots 1 and 3, where as 2 and 4 will give errors within 30 minutes.. Often I can't re boot the computer with the same RAM piece as it's quite hot, not super hot but hot enough to handle it and think " Hmmm that's hot "... after replacing the RAM with any of the other cool RAM will work and memtest can start giving errors again after 20 minutes or so...

Also all the errors are the same "100000100014" I've googled this but perhaps it's all over my head now...

I'd be surprised if it is the PSU as I've only recently bought it and the same issues existed with my old PSU.

CGough · 5 Oct 2011 at 13:48

Indeed I've tried all 4 RAM sticks with simmilar results and even a spare old one I've had that still gave errors after a longer time and in slot 1 it racked up 5000+

I have an older CPU I can try tonight to see if things are any different... It's a shame but if I have to upgrade my CPU then that's that...

Any chance this may have been caused by overheating? I have an "Asus silent knight" cooler but I think I did a balls up job of installing it after removing the older CPU.

CGough · 5 Oct 2011 at 15:05

Just a poor job of applying the thermal paste? thought I did use my computer quite heavily while at university as I was running it almost 24/7 with aplications like Autodesk 3ds Max and many other special effects related software...

Edit : also would you be able to suggest a new CPU? as I'm unsure to stick with another 955 Black edition or go up to a hex core?

CGough · 5 Oct 2011 at 18:17

it was about a year ago or more.

I do indeed use software that makes use of multiple cores but was unsure of the performance difference between the quad and hex.

CGough · 7 Oct 2011 at 20:12

Update : It seems it was indeed the CPU, after installing an older Athlon the system has been fine, not an issue in sight... Now I sadly have to go through the hurdles of getting the CPU replaced via AMDs incredibly hard returns process.

CGough · 11 Oct 2011 at 19:20

Many thanks for the help. I've recently purchased the Phenom Hex core, installed it but when the BIOS starts prompting me that there is a new CPU it started to check the NVRAM and froze...

I googled this and the fixes were generally unplugging HDDs and removing the BIOS battery to reset it... this however has left me with a computer that won't start, everything whirs up, the ram stick lightls aren't changing nearly as fast as they should...

I'm a little lost here, tried unplugging all the components to no avail sadly... Again, any help would be more appreciated than ever...