I7 920 Build Freezing Randomly All The Time

[dumboguy]

I just built a new 920 build and it keeps freezing in Vista and I can't figure out why. I have tried reinstalling Windows and different drivers for all my hardware and everything goes smoothly and then within about 15 minutes everything freezes. I can't even move the mouse cursor. I think a few times it froze I could move the cursor but I couldn't click on anything. After this started happening I started running benchmarking programs to try to test things. The only weirdness i noticed was that when I ran the CPU tests in Sandra the computer slows to a hault and frezes temporarily but then returns unlike the other freezes. I am running memtest86+ right now and its been running for some time with no memory errors. I updated my BIOS, tried both the drivers from the hardware cds as well as the newest ones available online and nothing seems to fix the problem. I have good airflow and cable management in the case and the cpu idles between 37 and 43 C and at loads can go as high as 80 C at first. I tried removing the heatsink and reinstalling it and that brought the load temps down. Also I am not overclocking at all. Can anyone please help?

Here is what I have:
ASUS P6T
i7 920 w/ Stock HSF
Corsair 750TX
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB x2 in RAID0 Config
ASUS EAH3450/DI/256M Radeon HD 3450 256MB 64-bit
LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit
LIAN LI PC-7B plus II

 

[dragonsprayer]

email me at my website warpesystems.com - send you contact info and time to call in bottom box

i set you up with all the settings - we ship 4ghzz systems everyweel

I DO NOT SELL SYSTEMS TO thg MEMEBERS!

I AM NOT POSTING what we do and our specs - but i be glad to help you free

 

[dragonsprayer]

#1 increase your memory voltage DRAM BUS TO 1.62-1.64
SET YOUR LATENCIES MANUALLY


if you do not fine the problem i am pretty sure i know what it is

 

[Ancient_1]

I would also consider that the hard drives could be a cause. My 1.5 seagates would cause random freezing when they would act up. One thing I noticed was that my cpu usage would go up during the time they were acting up, I don't remember which service in Vista that showed the usage but in XP task manager it would show like 98% system idle but cpu usage over 50%.

Of the three 1.5 drives I bought all have had problems 1st died within 2 months (but was brought back to life temporarily with latest firmware update and died shortly after). The second died a couple weeks ago and the third seems to be doing ok right now but have no confidence in it any more.

 

[gmcizzle]

Agree with Ancient_1, your HD is the most likely culpret because I've had the same issue before.

 

[SuperNova19]

Hmm i test my memory 3-4 days ago with memtest86 and no errors , but ram was BAD.
Thats prove that memtest 86 is not best option to be sure 100%

 

[dumboguy]

#1 increase your memory voltage DRAM BUS TO 1.62-1.64
SET YOUR LATENCIES MANUALLY


if you do not fine the problem i am pretty sure i know what it is

I tried setting that voltage and it still froze the same. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[dumboguy]

I would also consider that the hard drives could be a cause. My 1.5 seagates would cause random freezing when they would act up. One thing I noticed was that my cpu usage would go up during the time they were acting up, I don't remember which service in Vista that showed the usage but in XP task manager it would show like 98% system idle but cpu usage over 50%.

Of the three 1.5 drives I bought all have had problems 1st died within 2 months (but was brought back to life temporarily with latest firmware update and died shortly after). The second died a couple weeks ago and the third seems to be doing ok right now but have no confidence in it any more.

See I thought about that too. I knew the drives had reliability issues before i bought them but they were also cheap and got really good reviews as far as performance is concerned. They are a lot louder than I thought they would be. Could it really be a Hard Drive causing freezes like that? I figured with a hard drive the concern would be more so it failing in general and not being able to boot windows or maybe getting read or write errors. I am not getting any error messages or blue screens. It just straight up locks up. I guess tomorrow I will throw the only other drive i have (an old ide 160 gb) in there and try to install windows on that and see what happens. One weird thing I have noticed is that under the vista problem solutions thing it is saying there is an incompatibility with my version of windows for the intel qpi chipset controller or something like that and it recommends a new version of the inf driver but when I click on the link to intel it says the driver i already have installed is newer. I don't know if this is related. My experience tells me that occasionally this utility finds problems that aren't actually problems. The is only thing close to an error message I have gotten.

The only place I have been able to replicate the freezing is when i go to nbc.com and try to watch any episodes in HD. it locks up the computer every time i start the playback.

 

[dumboguy]

Hmm i test my memory 3-4 days ago with memtest86 and no errors , but ram was BAD.
Thats prove that memtest 86 is not best option to be sure 100%

One interesting thing is that when I was running memtest86 it was the longest my computer has gone without freezing. In fact it did not freeze at all. If memtest is not reliable how can I tell if my RAM is bad or not before the time period I have to return it runs out?

 

[ministerpaul]

I would also consider that the hard drives could be a cause. My 1.5 seagates would cause random freezing when they would act up. One thing I noticed was that my cpu usage would go up during the time they were acting up, I don't remember which service in Vista that showed the usage but in XP task manager it would show like 98% system idle but cpu usage over 50%.

Of the three 1.5 drives I bought all have had problems 1st died within 2 months (but was brought back to life temporarily with latest firmware update and died shortly after). The second died a couple weeks ago and the third seems to be doing ok right now but have no confidence in it any more.

I never use seagates...they are the worst. Always use Western Digital....even Samsung is better.

 

[ministerpaul]

Seagates are trash. Always use western digital. Even Samsung is better. I have not had any problem with my I7 Core 920 build. Did you install ALL Vista updates? And always use Nod32 for virus protection, because other virus programs slow your computer.

 

[dumboguy]

I would also consider that the hard drives could be a cause. My 1.5 seagates would cause random freezing when they would act up. One thing I noticed was that my cpu usage would go up during the time they were acting up, I don't remember which service in Vista that showed the usage but in XP task manager it would show like 98% system idle but cpu usage over 50%.

Of the three 1.5 drives I bought all have had problems 1st died within 2 months (but was brought back to life temporarily with latest firmware update and died shortly after). The second died a couple weeks ago and the third seems to be doing ok right now but have no confidence in it any more.

Well it's officially not the Hard Drives. I removed them and used an old PATA Hitachi 160 GB and it still froze in the same way. One thing I remembered though is that when i removed and reseated the Heatsink on the CPU I didn't use new thermal grease cause I didn't have any. I have just been reusing the stuff that came on the stock sink. Could that cause these problems? Like I said the processor seems to run at ok temps. Could it be spiking at high temps and freezing cause of the reused imperfect thermal pad? and maybe I just don't see it cause it happens so fast?

 

[vin73]

Well it's officially not the Hard Drives. I removed them and used an old PATA Hitachi 160 GB and it still froze in the same way. One thing I remembered though is that when i removed and reseated the Heatsink on the CPU I didn't use new thermal grease cause I didn't have any. I have just been reusing the stuff that came on the stock sink. Could that cause these problems? Like I said the processor seems to run at ok temps. Could it be spiking at high temps and freezing cause of the reused imperfect thermal pad? and maybe I just don't see it cause it happens so fast?

My first thought was temperature... if you have been reusing thermal compound, you have committed a computing sin!
You've built a very expensive rig and reused compound?? Get that sorted immeadiately...

 

[amdfangirl]

^ Agreed, TX-2 or AS5 is like $5 max.

 

[anan1611]

i have the pc description & the same problem like you :

description :
core i7 920
msi x58 platinum motherboard
6GB 3x2Gb OCZ platinum
1st HDD : hitachi 500GB with buffer 16mb
2nd HDD : hitachi 1T with buffer 16mb
Video Card : Gigabyte 9800GTX + 1GB
windows vista ultimate 32bit

1st try : i bought a segate HDD 1.5T at the first time , then i change it to 2XHitachi
2nd try : i changed my video card to new one
3rd try : i changed my motherboard to new one

the problem is still the same problem freeze all the time in games,windows...
the problem that when i take it to the ivory lab (technical computers) they check all the hardware units & they say to me that everythin is OK. no problem
& i cant prove to them that the pc still freeze. cause it freeze randomly ex : after 1 day or after 3 days or in one day more than 4 times i cant prove this to them when this will happened ?

it freeze with me many times in GTAIV in windows xp & vista
it freeze with me 1 time in the login screen
it freeze with me 4 times when i enter a hotmail site without openeing any program just FIREFOX

what can i do to this problem can any one help ???????????

 

[oumonoman]

i have the same problem as well.

i send my cpu for repair and they said bout hardisk faulty and stuff. I'm not sure bout this but it seems like i7 have problem with certain hardisk?

i have tried everything to the best of my knowledge but nothing seems to work. everytime I played any game its freeze up in minutes.

anyone have and an answer for this?

I think i7 or p6t mobo have certain hardrive compatibility problem.

 

[anan1611]

i see that all we have difference cards & different memories
but we have the same cpu : core i7 920

i think we have a big problem with this core , therefore the place that i bougth the pc from him checked my cpu on a program that will load to it a big load and he do fine .
but when it freezing , it will freeze in a small processes like IE or firefox or without start any process
i changed all my pc approximatly still the memory & cpu
and i think the problem in 1 of them
but all of u have another kind of memory but same cpu , so i think that the problem in the cpu


i think that we have a problem with core i7 Manufacturing ....
what r u think about it ?!!!

 

[oumonoman]

I think so too. but mine froze when playing game. that means it froze with heavy loads.

could be i7, but also could be i7 compatibility prob with certain hardware rite?

how come best claimed processor have this kind of prob.

 

[dumboguy]

Sorry to hear all of you are having freezing problems too. I think i figured out my problem though. It was my damn Linksys WMP54G PCI Wireless Card. It doesn't have official Vista 64 drivers but alot of people claimed that if you use the generic drivers from the chipset manufacturer (Ralink) it would work fine. And it did sort of except it constantly froze up my computer! After swapping everything else around I figured I would try taking the WMP54G out and everything was fine. I ran games and DVD movies and it didn't freeze. Left it on all night and it didn't freeze. Today I decided to look for a wireless adaptor with true Vista 64 support which ended up being a major pain in the ass. Alot of them say they work even on the box but then there are no drivers available. I ended up buying a Linksys WUSB100 which quite honestly I don't even know if it has a true vista 64 driver but it works ok with the software on the CD it came with and the box claimed to work with Vista 64. I would really like to have a PCI adaptor instead but nothing for Vista 64 seems to be available.

 

[falconerh92]

Disable the auto time server syncronization

 

[oumonoman]

how to disable the auto time serve sync? is this connected to i7 freeze prob?

 

[anan1611]

with me not happened in a heavy load it can be happened with no load , cause in one time it's freeze in the login screen before it enter to windows
that's will make me crazy :S

 

[anzu]

I'm having the exact same problem!!! I have no idea what it is. No matter what I do (BIOS settings, hardware troubleshooting, software), I can't figure out what the deal is. I hope someone is able to help us fix this problem with the Vista/P6T/Core i7 920 freeze issue.

 

[dbacon71484]

I just wanted to let you guys know that I too have an i7 and it was locking up all the time, however mine was mostly related to locking up when using the internet browser but I had occasional lockups when just sitting at the desktop. These problems happened in both 32 and 64 bit vista as I installed both OS trying to figure out this dang problem. Oddly enough what fixed the problem for me was installing Java. I did not have it installed before since windows update doesn't install it anymore and nothing seemed to prompt me to have it installed. But I did some pretty thorough testing and without java I lock up but with java i seem to be rock solid stable. Hopefully this helps everyone else too!

My pc specs are:

Vista 64 bit.
core i7 920
biostar tpower x58
6 gb crucial ddr 1066
2 x 74gb raptors raid 0
geforce 9800gt
soundblaster xfi xtreme music edition

 

[arda]

I have the same problem on 64 bit vista ultimate sp1. However, my system runs great on 32 bit xp pro sp3. It is very stable on xp, on the other hand, it sucks on vista x64. I have updated bios too. i did not try installing java. i thought it was about my audio drivers but it freezes even if i did not use anything that uses audio drivers. But weirdly, it generally freezes while i was listenning music. It also freezes frequently while i was surfing the net. it even freezes while i was doing just nothing! It is more like there is a counter and it counts to freeze the vista because even if i try to make a huge load on ram and cpu it is not affected at the first 5-15 minutes after startup. I'm really confused about this problem! I'm afraid that i'll become crazy just because of this. Someone please help!

My specs:

Vista Ultimate sp1 64 bit
core i7 920 (non-over-clocked)
asus p6t
9gb corsair dominator 1600 (3x2gb + 3x1gb)
seagate 500gb 7200.12 (ncq) (runs vista)
samsung 320gb (runs xp)
club 3d hd4870 512mb
creative audigy 2 zs
ocz stealtxstream 600W