problem solving

Destination

Destination

Destination

Soldato
Joined
31 May 2009
Posts
21,456
right, my wife's machine is locking up on occasion, in windows, fully up to date etc, its as if the system times out, or gets stuck in a processor cycle and eventually grinds to a halt, screen remains as it is, nothing responds, eventually not even the keyboard, have to hold power button to switch off and reset. Its been working fine for several years, this has started over past couple of months, seems to be on first boot, but can be sitting hours before it happens, if it is reset it will sometimes hang a second time, but much less frequently.
memtest seems to be clear, all fans connected and working, no signs of overheating
windows admin thing records nothing prior to the lockup, and then obviously records an insecure shutdown when restarted
seems to happen more frequently when using a browser, be it edge or chrome, doesn't seem to make any odds.

i did a windows restore, didn't help, memtest clear

not really sure how to go about diagnosing the issue, as i don;t have a stack of spare parts to swap about
she's on a amd 3600, msi tomahawk mobo, 3600 ddr ram, all bios settings seem correct and haven't changed for years
i swapped the sticks over and memtest again, and no effect, no errors.

suggestions please!
 
What PSU does the system have and what make\brand\model is the storage for it? Does it have 1 drive or is there a few SSDs\HDDs in the system?

Do you have a spare SSD? Could chuck a clean install of the OS on it and see if the issue happens, if it does just swap the drives back over.
 
Last edited:
I'd check for a memory leak they can have pretty odd results with the system slowly grinding to a halt sometimes without any obvious errors as things can stop working before it gets to an actual out of memory trigger.

Other than that overheating is the most obvious one, failing solid state storage can also cause similar but usually would be logged in Windows and show in SMART data.
 
Last edited:
ED209 said:
What PSU does the system have and what make\brand\model is the storage for it? Does it have 1 drive or is there a few SSDs\HDDs in the system?

Do you have a spare SSD? Could chuck a clean install of the OS on it and see if the issue happens, if it does just swap the drives back over.
Click to expand...
aye i think i'll give this a go tomorrow

single drive, ssd
 
Sometimes I don't bother with diagnostic test, they can be hit and miss.

Physical swapping is quicker sometimes.

Imo use free reflect clone your ssd and put it in a new or different sdd and re-test for a week or so.... I would disconnect any other older hdds/ssds also and just use the main os drive.

Also worth gently and quickly touching the heatsinks on the cpu and gpu to make sure their not super hot, they should be warm not hot hot imo. This way you know where the issue could be much quicker.

Its rare imo for the cpu, ram and mobo to go bad unless its an old pc like 7-10 years and even then its usually the ssd/hdd.
 
Destination said:
right, my wife's machine is locking up on occasion, in windows, fully up to date etc, its as if the system times out, or gets stuck in a processor cycle and eventually grinds to a halt, screen remains as it is, nothing responds, eventually not even the keyboard, have to hold power button to switch off and reset. Its been working fine for several years, this has started over past couple of months, seems to be on first boot, but can be sitting hours before it happens, if it is reset it will sometimes hang a second time, but much less frequently.
memtest seems to be clear, all fans connected and working, no signs of overheating
windows admin thing records nothing prior to the lockup, and then obviously records an insecure shutdown when restarted
seems to happen more frequently when using a browser, be it edge or chrome, doesn't seem to make any odds.

i did a windows restore, didn't help, memtest clear

not really sure how to go about diagnosing the issue, as i don;t have a stack of spare parts to swap about
she's on a amd 3600, msi tomahawk mobo, 3600 ddr ram, all bios settings seem correct and haven't changed for years
i swapped the sticks over and memtest again, and no effect, no errors.

suggestions please!
Click to expand...
Check event viewer.
Update the MB BIOS

Try the GPU in another slot - This solved a similar problem for a friend using an X370 board.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom