Freezing System

Jakstaar2007

Jakstaar2007

Jakstaar2007

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Joined
17 Apr 2009
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Location
East Northants
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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I'll be keeping a check on this thread. I have an ocz modxstream too and also freezing, so if it turns out to be Jakstaar's psu, it might be mine too. I doubt it would be the psu's though, ocz are meant to be a high quality respected name.
 
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.
 
I know it's going to sound strange and un-related but have you tried a stick of ram at a time to see if the error still occurs?
I while back my pc would freeze whilst gaming or browsing the web, all the usb ports lose power and nothing responds but the pc is still on.
I went against my better judgement thinking that it would be blue-screening if my ram was faulty but sure enough i managed to trace it down to a culprit module :eek:

Might be worth a shot if you're at a loose end.
 
It certainly sounds like an OS problem to me. What leads you to rule this out?

Looking at your sig, 8gb may well need more northbridge voltage to remain stable. Does it pass the standard stability testing?
 
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.
 
Were either of these recent, clean installs however? Windows/linux invariably falls apart over time when I'm using either, and I've spent a long time hunting for instabilities because Id broken part of the OS.

Error test a hard drive, then install a clean copy of your operating system on it. Keep it virus free, preferably offline, and see if you can reproduce the fault.

I don't follow your second answer. Have you stability tested the system, or just declared it stable because it doesn't seem to crash very much?
 
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.
 
Ah. Then I strongly recommend you try the system with the correct voltage set in the bios for the ram, and with two sticks removed. If it is then stable, the issue is likely that the northbridge cannot handle 4 sticks at stock settings and will need more voltage.

I'm not worried about the psu being able to cope, but about the chipset. 8gb of ram is a lot to ask of it.
 
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?
 
This isn't a theory as such. My G35 board would run 4gb stable, but not 8gb without more northbridge voltage. My P45 board was exactly the same. I'm very sure about this being a potential issue. Note that this is a very simple thing to check for, just take two of the sticks out for a few days.

I am not suggesting your psu is inadequate, or faulty. At no point have I said that I think the psu is the issue. Northbridge voltage is different to psu wattage. However the software most likely to lay the system out is intel burn test, followed by prime blend.

Since you elected to buy a Dell, you chose to rely on their support rather than on yourself. As such you have a bios that prevents you investigating such problems. I can only recommend you contact Dell technical support, as you currently have no good reason to suspect the psu.
 
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