Constant Freezing

[Awesome Canadian]

Hey guys and gals,
For quite a while now, my PC has been freezing when I play video games. But now it even freezes in Chrome! I read some topics and I believe it is either my HDD or my Mobo. I've tried defraging both my drives, turning up my fans, and even borrowing a friend's good RAM to see if mine is faulty.

Specs:
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9650
MOBO: Zotac nForce 790i Ultra SLI
RAM: 3 x 2GB DDR3 1333
GPU: EVGA GTS 250 "Superclocked" 1GB
HDD: 1) 250GB Seagate 2) 1TB Samsung (I don't know the exact specs to these)
PSU: Corsair 650w ATX12v

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Freezing problems are nearly always either RAM or temperature related. Using three sticks of RAM with your system is less than ideal since it will run in single channel mode. What exact RAM kit do you have? Have you manually set the RAM speed/timings/voltage to their rated specs in the BIOS? If not, that's the first thing to do when experiencing freezing problems. After you set the values correctly, you should download and run Memtest86+ overnight.

We also need to know your idle and load CPU temps.

We get a ton of posts just like this one every day. You might try searching the forum for similar posts and what the resolution was. (You'll notice it was usually fixed by manually setting the RAM values in the BIOS).

 

[capt_taco]

Constant freezing is an excellent indicator that the RAM voltage or timings are off. What specific model RAM are you using? If it's anything but 1.5V, you'll probably have to set the voltage yourself in the BIOS.

Also, what motherboard? If it's an Intel board, you're likely f***ed.

 

[Awesome Canadian]

Constant freezing is an excellent indicator that the RAM voltage or timings are off. What specific model RAM are you using? If it's anything but 1.5V, you'll probably have to set the voltage yourself in the BIOS.

Also, what motherboard? If it's an Intel board, you're likely f***ed.

I knew I forgot something . My Mobo is a "Zotac nForce 790i Ultra SLI"

Freezing problems are nearly always either RAM or temperature related. Using three sticks of RAM with your system is less than ideal since it will run in single channel mode. What exact RAM kit do you have? Have you manually set the RAM speed/timings/voltage to their rated specs in the BIOS? If not, that's the first thing to do when experiencing freezing problems. After you set the values correctly, you should download and run Memtest86+ overnight.

We also need to know your idle and load CPU temps.

We get a ton of posts just like this one every day. You might try searching the forum for similar posts and what the resolution was. (You'll notice it was usually fixed by manually setting the RAM values in the BIOS).

Here's my RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148247

To what value do I need to set the speed and timings? Also, my CPU idle temps are in the 33-39C range, but how do I get the load temps for the CPU? Just put on some processing-heavy program? Or would you like a full load?

I'm not too keen on this stuff

 

[lindley010]

Constant freezing is an excellent indicator that the RAM voltage or timings are off. What specific model RAM are you using? If it's anything but 1.5V, you'll probably have to set the voltage yourself in the BIOS.

Also, what motherboard? If it's an Intel board, you're likely f***ed.

His ram appears to be 1.5v.

Other causes except ram can be bad harddrives including exterrnals.

 

[Awesome Canadian]

Not to be a necroposter or anything... but can anyone help me out here?

 

[Niklas_13]

For one it looks like you have Triple Channel Kit in a duel channal mobo, Not really sure but to me thats not to good

Anyways the ram you post should be set to

1333
1.5V
9-9-9-24 timings

 

[Awesome Canadian]

It is, and I'm still having those problems.

Should I try taking out one of the RAM sticks?

 

[capt_taco]

For one it looks like you have Triple Channel Kit in a duel channal mobo, Not really sure but to me thats not to good

Anyways the ram you post should be set to

1333
1.5V
9-9-9-24 timings

Now, that could be a problem that I totally missed. I guess it was possible to figure out based on 3x RAM and the socket 775 CPU, but I totally wasn't even looking for that.

There are two ways you could attack this -- one would be to remove the third stick of RAM and try running with only two. If it works, you've found the problem.

Another thing you could try is to keep all three sticks but bump the RAM voltage up to 1.6V or so. I know when you've got all four slots filled, it can make the memory use a little extra voltage. Not sure what happens when three of the four are filled, because you're not supposed to do that, but the same effect could be at work.

In either case, for the long term, you should probably either reduce to two sticks, or get a fourth stick of the same kind of RAM and try to get it stable. On a 4-slot motherboard, you want to be using either 1, 2, or 4 slots, but not 3.

Also, to see what your CPU does under load, use Prime95. It'll push your CPU to the limit, but no other components.

 

[Awesome Canadian]

Thanks a lot! I never knew any of that RAM stuff...

Anyways, my system usually ran games for 1-2 hours before freezing, and now with this new information, I've been playing for four hours straight

Also, I don't want to mess with voltages, as I've had bad experience with them before

 

[Awesome Canadian]

Best answer selected by Awesome Canadian.

 

[capt_taco]

Well, glad it's working. I assume you have it running with two sticks now, since you didn't mess with the voltage.

For future reference, it won't hurt RAM to run it 0.1V over stock, so don't worry about doing that if you go to four sticks one day. It's when you mess with other settings, like the CPU voltage and northbridge voltage, that you can mess things up if you don't know what you're doing.

But I wouldn't worry, since 4GB is plenty unless you're doing heavy-duty image editing or something like that. For gaming, it's more than enough.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey