Intermittent O/S freeze - i5

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Sep 30, 2009
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Hi, I'm encountering a very annoying probelm, and was wandering whether anyone else experiences this and/or if anybody has any suggestions. Please bear with me this will be a long post. I think this might be a software issue but would really appreciate any input -

I recently installed FSX with the acceleration pack (which i think patches the software to use multi cores and dx10?), since then on the main menu and sometimes during the simulation the mouse will freeze intermitently for 1 to 2 secs over a 30 sec period then be ok for 30 then do the same again, fps goes to less than 5. This also occurs when opening a large speadsheet and occasionally the desktop resets - icons refresh v slowly and already open windows go blank momentarily. So i uninstalled all the FSX software thinking something has screwed up.

Now i'm noticing the same issues, sometimes on startup, or with a couple of apps open, more frequently with multiple web pages open within one browser (using firefox). The only way i can reproduce this effect in a controlled manner is to run LinX or Intel Burn test, freezing only occurs when all 4 cores have just reached 100%, then maybe once or twice while under sustained load - irrespective of the amount of memory being tested. Prime95 small FFTs or blends using upto 3GB ram don't cause any problems like this, even when the cpu load maxed at 4 cores 100%. I'm 90% sure this wasn't happening before the FSX install, but it may have been to a much lesser extent. I get slightly worse 3Dmark06 scores than before without any crash issues, but at times (i guess when all cores are loaded in a particluar way) everything grinds to a halt then speeds up again.

These are the things i have done so far:

1. Reduced a mild overclcock, back to stock settings, both are 24/7 P95 and LinX stable, max load temperatures 53-58C (coretemp) (23C ambient) - this made no difference (btw Vcc never above 1.23 under load).

2. Verified ram settings, all manually set to manufacture's spec.

3. Run memtest overnight at both stock and overclocked settings - several passes no errors.

4. Cleaned the registry with a registry cleaner, disabled AVG and the wireless card.

5. Turned off all the power saving features in BIOS, C1E and C3 etc, (turbo is disabled anyway), as well as turning off the LAN and Audio ports.

6. Resintalled the latest Directx SDK and C++ redistributable, re updated all graphics drivers (completely uninstalled old ones first), chipset drivers, flashed BIOS to latest - F4k.

7. Opened case, removed cleaned and reinstalled hsf, inspected for burned out components, reseated the ram and GPU.

None of these made any difference. Now i'm about to do a fresh OS install, because i thought FSX may have installed/modified some background process which is hogging resources - but i'm not convinced this will work.

Also checked the PSU voltages using HWmonitor, but i think there is some compatability issues because BIOS says +12V is 11.850 (never changes), HWM says +4.3 (which fluctuates +-0.4 under load). Tried using gigabytes easytune 6 to monitor temps but can't get it to install, get a dll error which has BIOS in the text string. Maybe thats a Win7 issue - or could that be a motherboard problem?

So what do you guys/girls think? I'm at a complete loss at the moment, i feel like RMAing the whole lot. Does this sound like a software issue or a hardware one. Aplogies for the long post. Thanks in advance.

Specs
Core i5 @ 2.66 or 3.44 o/c (bclk 172, 1.25)
Gigabyte P55m-UD2
2x 2GB Gskill DDR3 16000
HD 5870
Corsair 750W PSU
Win7 Home Premium
 

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