Frequent computer freezes even after reinstall!

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PresidentDylan5

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Apr 30, 2013
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I am being driven insane by this. After a lot of troubleshooting that just led me in false directions, I still haven't got anywhere. My computer has completely random freezes. It ranges from time to time how often it is. Just now it lasts a few minutes so I can't do a resource scan.
I have completely reinstalled the operating system.
Resource scan showed everything fine.
I think it is hardware related, perhaps my AMD CPU. I am having some heating problems (massive lag spikes) which I pretty much got rid of with a hair dryer (was getting freezes as well) but was still planning on redoing paste and stuff soon. Maybe it's not a coincidence that these two issues arose at once? The lag spikes appeared before the freezes, which would make sense. However, HW monitor (in the brief time before a freeze just now) said my proccesor was at 30C!
A friend told me that a common windows problem is Ram, and another (who basically copied my build:) has the same ram and motherboard. He was getting blue screens and stuff which he managed to fix through voltage settings.
I was playing Titanfall beta all afternoon today with no problems whatsoever but (this could be coincidence) when my friend called me on Skype IT CAME BACK. I reinstalled OS for no reason. It was the refresh feature on windows 8 by the way.

Someone please help me!

Fx 8350
GTX 770
ASRock 970 extreme 4
(Ram has really strange name but it is corsair veangance)
SSD vertex 3
Caviar blue 500gb
Black 1tb
Zalman z9 plus
 
Solution
gumbykid
Since it failed, return the RAM settings to normal. As nostall suggested, if you haven't already, reset everything to default. This should be under Exit>Restore Default Settings.

Then reboot. If it crashes, change the Command Rate to 2T (I didn't see you post that you tried this).

I agree with nostall as well about the PSU, it's just I'd rather try the little things before making you spend money or have a non-functioning computer while you're waiting for the replacement to come.

Swapping out PSUs should take about 15 minutes if you're semi-experienced with it, could take up to 45 if you're really incompetent (it's just remembering where the cables used to be then plugging them back in).

Did you run the two tests I suggested? They're...
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I don't know what's going on anymore. Battlefield got to 66C when I rebooted straight away, then I left it off for at least ten minutes to 'cool down'. After that it crashed after a few minutes, twice.
Things to note: When it froze on Borderlands, it was as I approached a demanding scene, and I remember that the last freeze I said about (after a few minutes) was as I was posting a response on this very forum (as in, as I clicked 'submit'). I don't know, most freezes just seem random, but the Borderlands one might be signifigant.
My PC is next to a radiator which I don't need to use now but this problem came about and escalated in winter... (I know, silly me)
What if my PSU is being damaged by this [possible] overheating? How could this overheating still be here?? Maybe it could be the GPU, I don't really check on its temperatures, but only because when I have (in demanding situations) they haven't been above the 40s, if that.
Finally, and this relates the case temperature I said about, I think that the PC might 'cool down' faster when I leave the side panel off, which I have been doing whenever I leave it to cool down, even through the night. Thus may just be me, though. Thus all just still seems random.

I'll probably take a look at those temperatures on Borderlands. :)
 
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If this is a CPU temperature issue then we have to figure out what part is causing it. It would either be your airflow, heatsink, or thermal paste. Take the side panel off and put a bowl of ice-water a foot or so away from it. Then set up a desk fan to blow the cool air from the bowl into your computer and record any temperature changes (my knowledge of this issue is starting to wear off now that we've exhausted all the typical troubleshooting so now its ghetto fixes)
 
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This thread is so long I have to re read the whole thing again to see what's happened.
However, the 3.3 rail is ok, don't worry about it.
I'll be back after awhile.

Question: Early in this thread you referred to your processor as an $800 CPU that did NOT come with a heat sink.
Could you please clarify this.
I have seen AMD's near $500, never $800, but their new expensive 220Watt 9590 and 9370 do NOT come with a heatsink.
Is this what you have, not an 8350?

UPDATE: 1945hrs. Pacific Daylight Time. I reread all that has been posted herein. (also please clarify, you are playing BF3, NOT BF4. BF4 is having major issues)
It is, very unfortunately, time to start replacing other parts.
I did NOT see if you had replaced any or all of the RAM, or if you had tried your RAM on someone else's computer. The "different computer" test is important: If the other PC freezes - in game, doing work, or otherwise - with your RAM, then the RAM is BAD. This is sometimes the only way to make a final determination of RAM failure; it is literally what I had to do last year after chasing 'freezes' for 5 months. My RAM passed every other test I threw at it, including 48hrs of MemTest. Corsair should, with that final test, recognize that it is bad.
If you have no other PC to use to test it, then call Corsair (again) and start an RMA process for the RAM if they will do it.
YOu have messed with this enough.
Looking at Gumbykid's posts herein, he mentions that the 970 chipset may have some problems with the 8350. Given all the troubleshooting you have done, that is the next area of concern after the RAM: The mobo may be bad.
Again, a discussion with ASrock is in order.
Likewise, it is now worth your time to email or live-chat with someone at AMD. I really doubt that your CPU is malfunctioning, but I could be wrong.
Gummbykid's suggestion of the open side and fan blowing over ice water (probably don't need the ice water) is a good one if you haven't tried it already: Mother board temperature reporting is not very accurate, normally, and the mobo (not the CPU) may be getting to hot. His test should tell.
And last, but certainly not least: Your video card may be defective. NORmally when vid. cards go we see graphics anomalies, but occasionally, without heat issues, they simply stop working properly. I either missed it or you haven't told us, what make and precise model is it.
One last note: I looked at your Zalman case again. It has excellent airflow design. At this point I do NOT think overheating of anything is the problem.
I have to quit; worked all day and I can see I am about to start making mistakes. Guys, re-post; I'll talk to you tomorrow.
 
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OK I will try the fan test. I forgot to say this; could it be the excess cables from the PSU distributing airflow? They are stuffed next to the PSU, and it looks like the fan at the front if the case won't be doing very much because of it. However, there isn't really anywhere else to out them (I don't think) and they have always been there anyway.
Sorry, misunderstanding, I do have the fx 8350 with stock cooler; I was just referring to AMD being bad with cooling. :)
My graphics card is the MSI GTX 770 Gaming.
I will try the ram test; I expect at least one of my friends won't mind. :)

Sorry about this but I will be at my mum's house until next Wednesday (typical teenager these days :) ), so I won't be able to test anything expect maybe briefly today. Then again, I expect you guys wouldn't mind a break! 😀
 
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Oh I forgot to mention this and it could be significant; when Borderlands 2 froze I was running a steam download (and it was actually downloading, I unpaused it) and obviously it was the first freeze I had since new PSU and thermal paste apart from that initial one.
In the case that it is the CPU, do you know if amd are any good in customer service?
And I think you asked what Battlefield I have been playing; it is bf3 but I was playing bf4 regularly a while ago, kinda abandoned it...
 
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I am going to urge you to contact Corsair again regarding your RAM, especially if you try it in another pc and that pc has problems with it.
THEN contact Asrock and see what they have to say about the problem
and finally, please, as I have suggested, contact AMD re. all of this. This may be the hardest contact to make so save it until last. Their Tech Support is very good and helpful when you finally can talk to them.
I truly doubt that it is your processor. They have to get way over 100C before damage occurs and they WILL throttle back their performance once the actual temperature exceeds the maximum. I have had a lot of problems with all components over the years and not once has my CPU been affected. Todays CPU would probably need a direct jolt of high voltage (think 'from the wall socket at 220v') to actually die; motherboards have protection circuitry as do the
CPUs themselves.
I forgot you were going to try Gumbykid's fan trick; that will be enlightening also.
And as I mentioned in my last post, BF4 has some major issues still; if you are having problems while playing that game I would suspect the game first, not your equipment.
 
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Oh god I hope it's not the motherboard!! I will do the tests when I can. Fingers crossed it's the ram so I can use Corsair's great customer service!

Update: Something else which may change something; you know even before the new PSU I could play Fallout 3 for ages, if not indefinitely. I never had a freeze that didn't follow another freeze, other than what I will tell you now. I was changing around some visual mods and was constantly launching, loading the save and exiting, about 7 times. On the seventh time, it froze.
It may be important to note that I've limited the game to two cores...
Hey I could test if that's significant by trying New Vegas. I'm pretty sure it's the same in performance if not better but you don't need to limit it to two cores to prevent crashing. I was going to start playing that again anyway! :)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Won't get my hopes up but this may correlate with me using a program to unpark some cores. It goes by the imaginative name of UnparkCPU. If anything it could decrease the temperature if I reparked them.
 
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It is possible for a program to cause crashes. This thread is so long that I forgot some info, so I might ask a few things that have been answered already.

If you leave your computer in the BIOS screen will it freeze or crash? If not then it is getting more likely to be a software issue. If it does crash then software is out of the question.

Tell me how your New Vegas goes. However you already played other games that weren't limited so it's unlikely to be an exception.
 
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The BIOS froze once but could the program be affecting g more than just windows. Probably not..
Sorry I think when I said about New Vegas I didn't realise that I wouldn't be able to test it really. Before I could play BF3 for 5-10 minutes and Team Fortress 2 for about 2 hours. Now I have played Battlefield for a whole hour with no freeze (haven't played for linger than that). My point. I imagine that if New Vegas was capable of freezing then I would take 10 hours or more! Perhaps I could test it after a freeze (on Borderlands or something) but then I'm not sure it would be valid then as it freezes on desktop when I do that!
Hopefully I'll be able to a ram swap test this week. I looked at that symptom list again and it sort of points to ram as that's the only component where it outlines freezing in demanding applications but at the same time the subsequent freezing after a few minutes points to cpu! I was talking to my friend about it and he said it could be a 'ram leak' but when I said about the freezing after a few minutes that comes after he was baffled!
Also I don't have any of the motherboard symptoms so surely if the ram test doesn't work then it is most likely to be CPU?
 
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CPUs rarely go bad.

Go to Run, type in cmd, then type systeminfo and hit enter. Scroll down until you find your BIOS version. What does it say?
670px-CheckBIOSVersion-3.jpg
 
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My BIOS version is American Megatrends Inc. P2.60 11/11/2013
Something interesting that may not mean anything; it said that my total memory is 8150MB while available memory is 4967MB. Normal?
Turns out my cores are already parked. :l

I think it may be RAM!! I ran a Windows Memory Diagnostic test and, guess what! It froze! Note that I was using the computer for about 10 minutes beforehand, without games, and it froze towards the end of the diagnostic. I swear this is the first time I've been glad to see a freeze! 😀
 
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The 8150MB is fine. Your BIOS is up to date, which would be the next step since there was an update that improved FX 8350 compatibility.

I don't think the memory test means anything. I would rely on memtest, not Windows. I believe the next step is to replace parts, however I would like nostall to confirm that there aren't any other things we can do first, since it appears he has more experience than me. Did you try the ice-water test? Might as well before we take your computer out of operation.

And have you run memtest86+ yet? If so what were the results? It should run over night since it takes a few hours. You can do it via usb now.
http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
Click on Image for Creating Bootable USB Drive (under Windows)
 
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So should I contact Corsair just, now? I don't need to do a ram swap test? I haven't been able to use my of at all today because of the freeze caused by the memory test! It just freezes after a few minutes. I think I've now confirmed that this has absolutky nothing to do with temperature. I left the computer off (obviously at wall as well!) For over an hour with the aide label open and it just froze after a few minutes, then I felt the ram and it wasn't even warm! Also it froze in BIOS which showed the CPU temperature as 37C about, and the motherboard (I know this isn't accurate) as 25C.
I realised I didn't have a fan do that test anyway.

Are we getting on to a record now? Has anyone you know had a forum that goes on for this long? Maybe we are nearing a conclusion...,
 
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You can cross temperature off the list then. Nostall can correct me if i'm wrong, but it'd be good to run memtest86+ over night and record the results before you contact Corsair. If you have errors this will surely get you a replacement from Corsair and most likely a solution to your problem. If you don't get errors then you may still be able to get a replacement, but it may not do much for you.

In all reality, if it's getting replaced either way then the test doesn't matter, but I like to know if the part im refunding is actually faulty, and depending on the test results we can verify the issue.
 
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Guys, you are going to have wait awhile for my answer. Busy.
 
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Guys, I don't think Memtest is going to run. I thought it had already been run as Gumbykid suggested it about 18-20 posts ago. If it does run there is a pretty good possibility that it won't find anything - never has for me; and some of what has been suggested has Not been tried.
No fan test to see if the extra air flow cools any mobo parts that may be overheating (perhaps you could have borrowed a fan) - so it could still be the mobo.
No swap test of the RAM.
No contact of tech support as suggested in at least two of my post.
As far as I can tell from all the replies, you have not obtained any canned air and done a thorough cleaning of your PC as was first recommended: I could be mistaken and you have cleaned it up enough with your hair dryer, but I have never heard of anyone using a hairdryer to blow out a PC - heat, especially the motherboard heating up, could still be the issue. Yep, canned air is expensive over there; but your time and our time has some value also, plus your PC still isn't running correctly according to you.

PresidentDylan5, you just keep making guesses at what might be wrong and keep thinking it is the CPU. We have already told you several times that that is very highly unlikely. Yet you haven't made an attempt to contact AMD to discuss it.
Nor Corsair
Nor Asrock (though they may not be to helpful from what I saw in another post this week).
Do you really want help? Or are you just posting to see how long you can get responses - that's called trolling.
So here's my last suggestion: Stop playing games, stop trying to make it freeze or crash, stop trying to find reasons to replace your CPU. Thoroughly clean the computer & DO THE TESTS that have been recommended and talk to the company's tech support as suggested. THEN post back with the results.
Gumbykid, you have given excellent advice and been really patient with this thread. Thank you. But I did have a senior Moderator look at this and his recommendation was to shut it down.
I hope it doesn't come to that.
 
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Ok... I think I need to say that this problem isn't my highest priority right now especially since it has become a lot more manageable since new psu and all that. I am a GCSE pupil with mock exams coming up soon and I will be spending more time doing revision than talking with tech support. NOT that I don't appreciate all the time both of you put into this of course! Now I need to make a little comeback list for all things said:
I didn't realize that I didn't have a fan until it came to the fan test, by which point we have [pretty much] ruled out mobo overheating so it doesn't seem very necessary anyway.
A swap test isn't very convenient, especially for reasons mentioned above and I thought you just said I don't really need to do it now ("Contact Corsair.")
Only until day before yesterday did we establish which company to contact; I wasn't really planning on contacting a bunch of different companies just in case they had some idea what was going on. You said that AMD are difficult to get through to (mocks).
Um, that was when the CPU was overheating. It isn't overheating anymore! It hasn't reached 70C since I replaced thermal paste, which cost £10! One of my friends has the same CPU and he gets higher temperatures than I am! There may still be a bit of dust in the grill, but none on the fans.
Note: May I just add that I've paid a total of £30 so far? Thermal paste and replacement shipping costs to Holland.

[sigh] Am I really being accused of trolling as I try to fix my computer? I appreciate how patient you've been; I think we're getting on to something now! I will contact Corsair soon to see if I can replace the RAM, but NOT right away, for reasons mentioned above. That's mock exams. I'm not rushing. I do have other things to worry about. I am not trying to make if freeze; that's called troubleshooting. That's how I [pretty much] found out that it's probably RAM.
Now you've just confused me as in one post you've said that memtest probably won't be very useful then told me to run it! Besides, as I already mentioned in a previous post, it will be difficult to run that test overnight as my pc is rather loud and it is in my bedroom; my dad will probably hear it through the wall and may not be able to sleep. If it's really necessary, I may get round to it but it will be awkward.

Ok I will stop expressing my thoughts about the CPU. I just keep it in mind since it has a number of symptoms from that page Gumbykid sent me and it was overheating before. I guess this is a one-sided discussion. That doesn't really make sense but whatever. And I don't really have time to contact AMD as I already said.

Why would they want to shut the thread down?!?!!?! Because I take a while to do the tests and stuff?? That's a bit harsh isn't it? All I ask is a bit of lenience, now that hopefully you understand my situation. I just came home from school today, casually checked on the forum and was smacked in the face by a very harsh-sounding post that made it sound like it was my job to fix my PC! Like I said, it isn't my main priority to fix this; in fact it's turned rather casual now as I am able to play at least most games for as long as I want, which isn't long because MOCK EXAMS.

What I'm going to do now is run the test if I can, and contact Corsair next week, maybe even later. Not today. Perhaps I could link pc downtime with exam period so I don't get distracted. :) Again, I appreciate your work which I think is more than what I've been doing since you're the experts, but we CAN take it slowly. Please don't shut the thread down. Thanks. And sorry again for the bumping when I thought you hadn't been notified.
 
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Good luck with your exams. They are more important than the computer or this thread.
 
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