Pc locking up at random times

Substance · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:33

A few months back I had a lot of trouble with my pc refusing to boot most of the time and getting bsod's the times when it did boot, I couldn't install windows without it locking up on me.

I tried everything I know and couldn't figure it out, I replaced the cpu, ram, mobo and gpu and still got the same errors, I took it to a repair shop as a last resort, they had it for 3 days and phoned me back saying they couldn't figure it out so I could pick it up and there would be no charge (very honest of them)

The crazy thing was that all the components worked on their own in other pc's but as a group they just didn't get on, So I sold the components on ebay and bought mostly new parts,

I set it all up and it has been running great for a couple of months but after that I started getting the odd lock up when doing random things, there are no similar circumstances I can find, It can happen in the middle of a demanding game, or football manager, it can happen when viewing youtube videos or just browsing these forums, I can't figure it out.

The pc just comes completely unresponsive and my headphones produce a static sound for a couple of seconds then that stops and I need to reset to be able to use it again, sometimes it works first time but I have had to reset the cmos to get it to boot other times

The only components I kept from my old pc are the optical drives, 2 sata2 HDD's and 2 dvd-rws and my PSU, a corsair hx520 which was tested in other pc's and works fine under stress tests,

My temps are great, my GPU is a 2gb 6950 with the twin frozr 3 and runs at 45'c isle and around 60-70 in games, My cpu is a AMD Phenom 2 x4 955 cooled by a corsair h60 and runs at 35'c idle and 40-50 under stress,

The pc passes overnight stress tests with ease and has no overclocks apart from the standard clock MSI put on the GPU

Sorry for the wall of text, I have tried everything I can including pretty much buying a whole new pc,

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks

mickyflinn · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:41

Full system spec please

olivier renault · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:42

tough one that :/

PSU, a hard drive, motherboard... No event reported by windows? No blue screens? How frequent?

You have another PSU to try? Any computer in the house having the same problem (pointing to power fluctuations)?

Unplugging opticals, and hard drives. Sata cables maybe.

Running HD, memory, CPU and GPU benchmarks... Which you have done already.

Substance · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:50

mickyflinn said:
Full system spec please

Mobo - MSI 870a-g54
CPU - AMD Phenom 2 x4 955
RAM - 8GB Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
GPU - MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB
PSU - Corsair HX520w
Sound Card - Creative x-fi titanuim edition
Hard drives - 1tb samsung spinpoint f1 - Old maxtor 400gb drive for storage

olivier renault said:
tough one that :/

PSU, a hard drive, motherboard... No event reported by windows? No blue screens?

You have another PSU to try? Any computer in the house having the same problem?

Unplugging opticals, and hard drives. Running HD benchmarks...

Windows doesn't report anything, there is no BSOD, the screen just pauses and sticks on whatever I was doing and the headphones sound like static for a second or 2

The only other computer we have is my girlfriends macbook and that's fine, I am pretty sure the PSU is fine, it was tested by the PC repair shop when I took my old PC in,

I will try running some HD benchmarks now and see if I get anything

*edit* My windows hard drive with all the programs and games on it didn't crash when I ran it, the other only has images and movies on it,

Here are the results

olivier renault · 2 Oct 2011 at 23:30

Values look good. Maybe run a health test overnight. Chkdsk, error scan, defrag and all that.

The HDD / DVD are the only components that remained from the old build, besides the PSU and case?

The only thing I can think of are related to drives (HDD / Optical). And I would re-seat all the connectors and the GPU, making sure everything has good contact. A dodgy sata cable / ethernet could also be annoying like that.

You can also try running drives without the 'hibernation' option (drives spin down after 30 mins of non-usage).

Clutching at straws really.

Substance · 2 Oct 2011 at 23:35

I even replaced the case thinking it might be temps getting too high in areas that weren't monitored and got 3 new gentle typhoon fans to keep air flow consistent, My temps are really low now so I doubt it's that that was causing it in the first place

But yeah, all that is still there from my old build is HDDs, DVD-rw's and the PSU, the PSU was tested in the store with a device that checked all the rails and they were all incredibly stable over a 60 minute period

I'm usually clued up when it comes to diagnostics but this has me stumped

olivier renault · 3 Oct 2011 at 01:28

You changed the SATA cables?

Substance · 3 Oct 2011 at 02:32

I have changed them between builds, I used all new ones that came with my motherboard for this build, I haven't changed them since though, you think it could be that?

olivier renault · 3 Oct 2011 at 03:36

What else is there left

Problems with hard drives / optical can lock a computer like that.

Many other things can as well. If you've updated the BIOS, swapped components, checked the PSU... What motherboard is it?

Spit · 3 Oct 2011 at 06:45

I would say its the PSU. I have had this before and even after testing the PSU under stress independently I still found it to be the culprit. Get yourself a bigger and better PSU as it is one of the most important parts of your PC.

Hagar · 3 Oct 2011 at 10:55

Mobo - MSI 870a-g54
CPU - AMD Phenom 2 x4 955
RAM - 8GB Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
GPU - MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB
PSU - Corsair HX520w
Sound Card - Creative x-fi titanuim edition
Hard drives - 1tb samsung spinpoint f1 - Old maxtor 400gb drive for storage

The pc just comes completely unresponsive and my headphones produce a static sound for a couple of seconds then that stops and I need to reset

I did not pick up which OS you are running, but the soundcard sort of leapt out as a possible culprit. Either drivers, compatibility or conflicts.

Try running without the soundcard, use the onboard for a while and see if that locks up. I've not had too much luck with creative recently.

andy

Substance · 3 Oct 2011 at 20:06

olivier renault said:
What else is there left Problems with hard drives / optical can lock a computer like that.

Many other things can as well. If you've updated the BIOS, swapped components, checked the PSU... What motherboard is it?

My motherboard is the MSI 870a-G54, seen Here

Spit said:
I would say its the PSU. I have had this before and even after testing the PSU under stress independently I still found it to be the culprit. Get yourself a bigger and better PSU as it is one of the most important parts of your PC.

The corsair HX520 should be easily enough for this build and is well known as being a damn reliable PSU

nkata said:
Mobo - MSI 870a-g54
CPU - AMD Phenom 2 x4 955
RAM - 8GB Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
GPU - MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB
PSU - Corsair HX520w
Sound Card - Creative x-fi titanuim edition
Hard drives - 1tb samsung spinpoint f1 - Old maxtor 400gb drive for storage

I did not pick up which OS you are running, but the soundcard sort of leapt out as a possible culprit. Either drivers, compatibility or conflicts.

Try running without the soundcard, use the onboard for a while and see if that locks up. I've not had too much luck with creative recently.

andy

I've been running onboard for the last couple of months, I only re added the x-fi last week, and I was having the problems before then too

olivier renault · 3 Oct 2011 at 21:01

what speed / voltage / timing is the ram? The Northbridge frequency and voltage? If you can get a snapshot of the bios settings.

interesting comments here.

Looks like that mobo has nothing but problems.

Substance · 3 Oct 2011 at 22:24

Looking at the comments on that youtube video it just seems like one annoyed guy mouthing off a lot and everyone else defending the mobo, I'm not concerned about the reliability of the motherboard as I picked it based on a couple of recommendations,

If it does turn out to be that though MSI are decent with RMAs

Here are the pics of ram timings and voltages etc

Thanks again for the help

olivier renault · 4 Oct 2011 at 00:05

If it is the mobo, and if you have the latest bios, I don't think there is much you can do.

Settings look OK for stock. The memory is running at 1333 mhz. You tried the RAM in the other slots?

Look up newegg feedback on that board. 44 pages of people having problems.

scottmuir424 · 4 Oct 2011 at 02:34

i would try sweapping out psu for another rule it out first

tipes · 4 Oct 2011 at 09:35

scottmuir424 said:
i would try sweapping out psu for another rule it out first

A very tricky problem to diagnose/fix as others have said. Must admit I am not convinced that the PSU is necessarily ok - would be good to swap it for a known good one for testing puposes. I am inclined to think that this problem is a power issue(just a gut feeling) so further to the PSU suggestion I would ask:-

How is the pc connected to the mains, and do you have or have had electrical problems in the house?

Are you using a UPS to connect the pc to the mains - if not try a UPS with AVR capability to smooth out voltage ripples etc as the variable nature of this problem does suggest voltage problems i.e sags or dips in voltage.

Have you tried running with the dvd drive disconnected as these drives if flaky can cause freezes.

Other than that I am out of ideas for the moment. Hope this helps in some way, as I know how frustrating this situation can be.

Mark

olivier renault · 4 Oct 2011 at 10:05

yup, could be a dodgy drive, a dodgy motherboard, uneven source of power, the PSU being flaky (no matter how good it is it's always a possibility), ...

One last stab. You ever installed realtek sound drivers? Is the onboard sound disabled?

If I was still around Liverpool, I'd have lent you a spare PSU to try out for a month.

Substance · 4 Oct 2011 at 23:17

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, keep em coming

The ram is 4x2gb sticks in a 4 slot motherboard so there is no way I can try different slots,

I don't have another PSU to test in the machine, and don't want to buy another before being sure that is the fault as they aren't the cheapest things

I am connected to the mains via a decent UPS and power seems to be fine for everything else in the house, it's a new build so the mains should be in good condition.

I will try running with the dvd drives unplugged for a few days and see if that helps.

And as for the realtek drivers I did have them installed but have removed them completely, and have disabled the onboard in bios

tipes · 5 Oct 2011 at 10:26

SuBsTaNcE said:
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, keep em coming

The ram is 4x2gb sticks in a 4 slot motherboard so there is no way I can try different slots,

I don't have another PSU to test in the machine, and don't want to buy another before being sure that is the fault as they aren't the cheapest things

I am connected to the mains via a decent UPS and power seems to be fine for everything else in the house, it's a new build so the mains should be in good condition.

I will try running with the dvd drives unplugged for a few days and see if that helps.

And as for the realtek drivers I did have them installed but have removed them completely, and have disabled the onboard in bios

Well you are doing all the right things as far as I can see - thanks for the confirmation on my queries. Could you not borrow a known good PSU from a mate to try? But let uss assume the latest steps you have taken solve the problem - keep us informed and good luck.

Mark