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Computer freeze: Hardware or Software

Started by art128, January 14, 2013, 03:11:29 AM

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art128

hello,

Since some weeks I'm having some kind of troubles with my computer, it keeps freezing. And this in small tasks or big tasks.

To be more precise:
For example I just have steam, winamp, msn and firefox opened, the computer will freeze for 30seconds to some minutes when I open a new tab.
When watching an anime or movie using any video player and will freeze sometimes.
It did freeze while I was in SC4, though i had the time to save before anything bad happened.
In other games it didn't freeze for the moment (MW2, BF3 etc)
Opening the task manager shows "Processes: 64   CPU usage: varies between 5 and 0 (??)%   Physical Memory always at 31% "

I got kind of worried that my computer might be breaking so I went to search this on google using " CPU usage 0% " as it's what drew my attention and it seems this could happen when the main hard drive, where the system is located starts to fail? Now... I wonder if it really is that because I don't want to spend 100-200 more euros ( at most SSD + HDD) to see the problem still there.

I've tried repairing the register using CCleaner, did it four times in a row until it found no error. Did a Malwarebit scan, found no viruses. 
And I'll do a Defragmentation during the night. (I tried this night but as I had only 4hours of sleep it wasn't enough)
Speaking of which, Dfraggler shows 38Gb of fragmented files, and says It is going to take >1day.... Quite annoying but I guess I can do with it.
But.... it says my hard drive wealth is good. good so It can't be the hard drive that starts failing?

This morning I re-applied the thermal paste and made sure all the sata cables are correctly plugged and not damaged and it still froze after that.

Can it be windows?
Can it be the CPU?
Or perhaps the motherboard?


Some specs:

CPU: Fx8350 @4Ghz
Motherboard: Asrock 970DE3
Memory: 8Gb (2x 2Gb@1333Mhz (new) and 2x 2Gb@600Mhz (from my old computer) )
GPU: GTX 650 Going to update the drivers from 310.70 to 310.90 in a moment and see.
Hard drive 1: WD caviar Blue 640Gb (from my old computer) - I did a fresh windows install when i build my new computer end of November.
Hard drive 2: WD caviar green 2Tb (Used to store Animes and videos, I did a backup of all the important things I had on the main in case it fails)


So if any of you guys have any hint on the matter, that is most welcomed! ;)
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Swordmaster

Try running without the old RAM as a test, or do memtest86. Actually, do both.

Defragging is always welcome. Don't postpone it like it seem you have.


Cheers
Willy


Andreas

Try running the task manager all the time and check the CPU load graph after a freeze is happening. Do you see any suspicious spike? Defragmenting your hard drive would be preferrable, however, I don't think a fragmented one would make your computer freezing. I have an external 2 TB WD Green, which tends go into sleep mode after a certain time of being idle. Waking it up again takes a good 20 seconds or so, which means starting up some programs (or trying to save a file and initializing the folder view in the "save" dialogue will "freeze" my computer as well. I'm not sure if the WD green behaves similar as internal drive, but since there doesn't seem to be any tool that can disable the power management (I had similar troubles with an external Seagate drive and found a tool to disable stand-by), you might have to find some third-party tool that is accessing the drive every few minutes to keep it running.
Andreas

NCGAIO

Quote from: art128 on January 14, 2013, 03:11:29 AM

Memory: 8Gb (2x 2Gb@1333Mhz (new) and 2x 2Gb@600Mhz (from my old computer) )




At current cost of memories makes no sense using this memory! The access,  latency time , etc ... will be leveled at the lowest, besides the fact that they certainly have different structures.


Technical council - always use memories of the same type  because it avoids hassles

art128

#4
Quote from: NCGAIO on January 14, 2013, 06:17:30 AM
Quote from: art128 on January 14, 2013, 03:11:29 AM

Memory: 8Gb (2x 2Gb@1333Mhz (new) and 2x 2Gb@600Mhz (from my old computer) )




At current cost of memories makes no sense using this memory! The access,  latency time , etc ... will be leveled at the lowest, besides the fact that they certainly have different structures.


Technical council - always use memories of the same type  because it avoids hassles

I know all that, thanks anyway. I was on a budget so i had no choice but to use lower frequencies sticks I had. :( I'll order in the next days another set to complete and later when I have more dosh to make a proper upgrade some 16~32Gb ( that'll depend on my money)

Quote from: Andreas on January 14, 2013, 03:52:58 AM
Try running the task manager all the time and check the CPU load graph after a freeze is happening. Do you see any suspicious spike? Defragmenting your hard drive would be preferrable, however, I don't think a fragmented one would make your computer freezing. I have an external 2 TB WD Green, which tends go into sleep mode after a certain time of being idle. Waking it up again takes a good 20 seconds or so, which means starting up some programs (or trying to save a file and initializing the folder view in the "save" dialogue will "freeze" my computer as well. I'm not sure if the WD green behaves similar as internal drive, but since there doesn't seem to be any tool that can disable the power management (I had similar troubles with an external Seagate drive and found a tool to disable stand-by), you might have to find some third-party tool that is accessing the drive every few minutes to keep it running.

Task manager opened on the CPU load graph. I didn't had any freeze for the moment so I can't tell yet.
I don't really know what usual spikes are but I'll wait and see for some crazy spikes when the usage reach 0%.
My green do take some time to open (2-5 seconds) but the problematic freeze appears when using something on the caviar blue which is the boot drive.
But I'll look onto a third party program to delete that few seconds warming up of my green.

Quote from: Swordmaster on January 14, 2013, 03:30:56 AM
Try running without the old RAM as a test, or do memtest86. Actually, do both.

Defragging is always welcome. Don't postpone it like it seem you have.


Cheers
Willy



I ran memtest86+, showed no errors (with all four sticks)
Currently running only the two newer sticks.

They're correctly placed on A2 and B2 slots as the motherboard manual says is priority.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Andreas

I didn't see the RAM discrepancy that NCGAIO pointed out above, but he's correct that this is an unnecessary "road block" for your system, even it if seems to work fine. Try removing the old sticks and check if the freezes are gone (4 GB RAM should be more than enough for all standard tasks).
Andreas

art128

Quote from: Andreas on January 14, 2013, 11:15:05 AM
I didn't see the RAM discrepancy that NCGAIO pointed out above, but he's correct that this is an unnecessary "road block" for your system, even it if seems to work fine. Try removing the old sticks and check if the freezes are gone (4 GB RAM should be more than enough for all standard tasks).

I did some hours ago and I just got a freeze with 0% CPU usage, the spikes seemed fine though.

I was launching Firefox, right clicking a file and launching Teamspeak.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Swordmaster

I remember from my Firefox days that the browser sometimes evoked random short freezes. I think that was at the time of 3.x, so it may no longer be an issue. I assume you get the freezes when it's not open as well?


Cheers
Willy

art128

Hmm It often occured when firefox was on.. Though it happened one time while watching a 720p MKV on MPC-HC ( with all the codecs ) and firefox closed ( I made sure the processus was off as well. )
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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art128

Okay it seems to be impossible to play any game located on the blue drive...Starts lagging and freezing like worse than a 2001 laptop..

I don't think the defrag will do anything as the hard drive seems to die slowly.

I might be wrong though and I HOPE I'm wrong. I can buy new ram easily but not a new hard drive right away.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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NCGAIO

#10
.....

Andreas

Well, although it's not ideal, you could try to use the WD Green as system drive. Split it into two partitions, move your data to the second one and use the first one for a new Win7 installation. At least you could do some testing without buying any new hardware.
Andreas

Kitsune

It could also be a power supply issue - if the pc is drawing too much current it could cause momentary freezes. Also - to test your hd try http://www.hdtune.com/download.html .. there is a free version that will allow tests. Out of curiosity - how big is your power supply?
~ NAM Team Member

art128

My power supply is a Akasa Venom 550W. Should be plenty enough.

I downloaded HDtune, but what am I supposed to do in it?
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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art128

Okay, I ran the defrag during the night and it did.............................. 2%.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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[Delta ²k5]

Did you already run a memtest like Swordmaster said? Sounds to me like some RAM issue. On defrag the system pulls data to RAM, resorts it and pushes it back to the hdd. RAM can cause some strange problems even during installation of a new Windows version.

Some times ago, while installing Windows 7 on a new rig, the setup many times said "failed while writing file xxx to hard disk try again?" after hours the system was stable, but after some windows update it keeped crashing with some bluescreen. I checked the RAM with memtest and viola... Error while testing... after buying a fresh stick the system runs fine now :thumbsup:

art128

I did run the memtest with all my memory sticks ( both old and new) but it didn't find any error.

When I installed Win7 on this rig it didn't show any errors as well.

I did a defrag with the windows defrag software this morning before going to school, it seems to work better than with Defraggler.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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art128

Okay, so defrag with Windows defrag software worked nicely and so far I had only one freeze.
I tried putting my old ram again but it froze almost directly at start up, so it's a no no I guess.
From what can this freeze come?

I really need some advice here... motherboard? CPU? HDD?

I'm going to order another set of the same ram I bought so that the speed will be the same, because 4gb can barely run BF3 on ultra and because ram is cheap.

Also pondering to replace some stuff if there is a problem.

SSD + HDD is a must anyway. But also motherboard? Maybe... But before that I want to make sure where the problem is located so if you guys know any thing to test the parts..
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Swordmaster

Obviously, you don't need to play BF3, you need to play SC4.

Okay, seriously then, you may try get some advice at more specialized forums. To my knowledge, RAM is the most frequent culprit unless the freezes are related to specific actions like gaming, in which case the graphics card (or even sound card in some applications) may be the cause. Playing with your graphics settings may be a solution but it's usually very tedious. There are many other possible causes and since you're running win8 I can't help much there.


Cheers
Willy

art128

The freeze often occur when I have Firefox opened.

One happened in SC4 two or three days ago but that's all.

None in BF3 and none in cod.


I tried using another web browser ( I have the four principal installed) but still got a freeze.

Though they're less often now that I have removed the old ram sticks.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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