How to tell whats failed?

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Bit of advice needed before I spend money on items to replace hardware.

Basically in the last month or so after 1 hour of being turned on, my PC will hang...no blue screen but just a hang in that the mouse cursor acts as if something is loading, I get a Windows box saying 'not responding etc' and cant do anything with it.... all I can do is hard power off.

Now this started in WIN7 64 Bit and continues now ive upgraded to WIN8 Pro.

My fans are clean and working, CPU temps are low.... a RAM test passed, my SSD on checking is 100% healthy. Ive downloaded new GPU drivers.... everything is recognised in the machine, bar on some random occasions after a hard power off it fails to find the SSD and as such my OS.

Ive ran all the various malware, AV, spyware cleaners etc.... im now at a loss.

So basically what I need to somehow find out is what is causing this and then as such replace it.

Im a little disappointed that its an OC built machine that has now died pretty much inside 20 months (not what I expected for near on 3grand) but hey ho, lifes like that at times.

All advise appreciated.
 
thanks for the reply.

Anything from browsing the net to idling and coming back to a frozen pc as such... I upgrade windows thinking that was a problem but it's still happens.

What signs would there be if it was mobo or CPU?

I'm pretty sure all connections are tight physically and the ram has just passed memtest again without any faults.
 
Could be overheating. Do you have an overclock? Might be worth turning that off to see if it makes a difference.

*edit* Just seen that you said temp are low. My guess now would be either the SSD or the PSU. Could you try installing windows on a different drive.
 
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Is the system overclocked?

Can you test the PSU voltages with a multimeter or is there a possibility of testing the parts in another machine.
 
I've had the same issue twice now both turn out to be the ssd so, 1 cosair f3 120gb and a ocz 120gb v3 both with damaged sandforce chips im now using an m4 drive and no problem's so good :)
 
I had a feeling that the SSD was a problem... as randomly since this problem id say 4/5 times now it fails to find the SSD on boot up and thus no OS will load....

Just then I had that, I powered off but then the PC started to turn itself on, start the fans and shut itself off every few seconds, it only stopped as I pulled the plug thinking this isn't right!

So SSD....I do have a 2nd HDD but my WIN8 Key is a upgrade key so I don't know how I get that to work and install windows onto that?
 
Yeah I think it is an old SSD firmware, where after a certain number of read/write cycles it freezes after an hour for some strange reason. Get a new SSD, RMA the old one and sell.
 
I have had a similar experience with my old vertex drive before it gave up life. What components are you using?

It's a crucial ssd iirc

Rig is i7 2600, 8gb ddr3, 580 SLi, 256 SSD, 1TB HDD, GIgabyte mobo.

If its the SSD without wanting to sound stupid, how do I install windows8 on any new one I get? I ask as I got win8 as an upgrade key and dl it direct do ....Ie no software media
 
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