Freezing System

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I have recently (past few months) been experiencing freezing of my system. If it happens, it happens between 30seconds - 2minutes after i turn the computer on first thing of a day. It all boots up fine and will get into Windows OK, but sometimes i will click on Opera or another time i will be just browsing the web and it will completely lock up. Mouse won't move, Keyboard controller seems unresponsive as the caps lock light doesn't respond when i press the button.

I have to reboot the computer from the tower.

When i have a look in Event Viewer, i see a critical error, but it is only the following error:

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.


- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>2</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-10-20T09:05:56.593217700Z" />
<EventRecordID>2155</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Win7</Computer>
<Security UserID=/>
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

indicating that i shutdown the computer incorrectly (i had to to restart it).

I thought that i only really noticed it on my Windows 7 RC install on one of my hard drives, and not on my Vista install on my other hard drive.

However, i have recently purchased a new hard drive and installed a different copy of Windows 7 and i has happened twice already in less than a week of having this new HDD and OS install.

Any ideas? :confused:

Cheers
Jack
 
OcUK say that they will RMA it to test it out, but if it isn't faulty i will be charged £10 plus postage back.

Now, as you've said, it is difficult to pin point exactly what it is so i do not know what to do now. I have put in my old PSU, but the problem only happened twice so far since i installed my new hard drive, so i could wait 2/3 days and have no problem so assume it is the PSU, send the OCZ one back, and then the next day have the same problem happen again, meaning that the PSU wasn't the problem and will be charged £10+
...
 
Yea, just bought a new card, 4890 vapor-x from orby. Saying that, that will probably get caught up in the strike. So not really too much of a rush.

Problem is, the PSU i have in now is the Dell one that came with it, 275w, and i have in a 9800gt that requires the extra power cable. While this PSU does have that and it is running OK at the moment, I am not sure that this power supply is really adequate to be running that card (even though users with the same Dell PSU say that the power wattage is very underrated).

But as you have said, i will test it for a while to hopefully pinpoint the problem.


Cheers again!
 
Cheers mate, i sort of know how to do it as i did the CompTIA A+ qualification and that is a whole chapter. Unfortunately, it didn't really say too much about diagnosing freezes and lock ups ;)

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately i do not have a multimeter to hand :(
 
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What else would cause freezing like that though?

I have ruled out a HDD problem, OS problem, Unlikely to be the RAM as that would usually just cause a STOP error. Not sure what the CPU would do, but CPUs are usually very stable.

Just the fact that it is on a cold boot. As the only other way around it is that it got to a point before i put in my new HDD, where every morning it would freeze. What i ended up doing was once i booted into Windows, i restarted the system straight away to save me from restarting it from the button, and once it booted up the second time, it would be fine.

I will keep you updated anyway.
 
Well i have had the same problem using two different hard drive with two different OSs.
Well it ran stable with my 275watt PSU so i expect it to run stable with an OCZ 600watt PSU.
 
Clean install on a brand new hard drive on Thursday, yes.

And no i haven't stability tested it due to the fact that nothing is overclocked and as the 275w PSU could handle it, i assumed the 600w could.
 
The BIOS is locked so i cannot overclock/change any voltages. The XPS is sold with 8GB of RAM so i'd expect it to be able to run 8GB.

Can you recommend any benchmarking software to run to test out your theories?
 
Says that the system passed the BurnTest. Did it on Maximum.

Am now running Prime95 Blend mode. How long should i run it for? Did run it earlier for around 40mins with no problems.
 
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Right, Just did Prime95 Blend for 10 hours and it hasn't come up with any errors (using my 275w old PSU) so sureley that means that it isn;t a RAM/CPU problem, no?
 
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