randomly freezing: no logs, no bsod, no hard drive activity.

Zarphus

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May 21, 2014
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i'm a computer tech of moderate skill, but this one has me pretty well stumped. it's hard to troubleshoot and diagnose a problem when there's no error log!
the system will occasionally lock up. : no mouse response (sometimes, mouse movement seems to hiccup a little about 2 seconds before lockup). the hard drive light reads no activity. (for about 5 seconds before, too.) just a deadstop. no bsod, no error, nothing. on reboot, i check my event viewer, absolutely nothing. no minidumps that i can find, either. no specific files created or changed at time of crash, either.
there is nothing in common between the occurrences: it's happened during gaming, it's happened when sitting at the desktop doing nothing, it's happened when browsing local files, during websurfing, when completely idle and i return to find it had been frozen for well over 30 minutes. you get the idea.

it has been doing this since the day i got it (nearly 3 years now). generally, if i use the system daily, and run it for 8 hours a day, shutting down at night, it will tend to happen between 1 and 3 times a week, on average.

specs:
Win7x64Ultimate, SP1, all important updates installed as of posting (5/21/2014)
flash and java up to date.

Corsair TX750 PSU.
intel quad core i5 760@2.8ghz
Asus P7P55D-E LX
8GB dual channel DDR3 RAM
Asus Nvidia GeForce GTS 450
1TB WD hard drive, and a secondary 500GB, that is currently removed to simplify troubleshooting.

i have a nagging feeling it could relate to the chipset or SATA drivers, but i've found little to no information to confirm it.

things i've tried:
toying around with various drivers, graphics, chipset, SATA controller, etc.

switched motherboard between SATA6G and SATA3G modes
switched the hard drives between the sata6 and sata3 connectors on the mainboard.

full diagnostics on both hard disks, nothing out of the ordinary.
full RAM test, all good.
full vRAM test, all good.
PSU voltages: no abnormalities, spikes, or dips.
temperatures: nothing out of the ordinary.

ive not yet tried to reflash any firmwares. i'd prefer to avoid that, but if we can confirm it needs it to fix this, so be it.

oh, almost forgot: ran all the usual malware tests, couldnt find anything, no rootkits, no malware, etc. clean system. (i can rule this out since it happened from day one anyway, just thought i'd mention it)

UPDATE: I started looking up BIOS update release notes for my issue. i have noticed a 'system stability' note in the update for the next version above mine. i will try this update in the morning, and test for a week or two.
 
Solution
You are misunderstanding me on what I was saying. I have a 12 GB section on my drive for page file if it needs to be used also. I was not telling to to not have it. I was saying when your system runs low on memory and it needs to use the Page file system, It is extremely slow. This is due to the access speed of the ram and the slow access speed of HDD's. I was not telling you to not have it just that it is best not to need to use it.

I am not arguing semantics, Drivers are a software component. you can not deny this.

I am glad you have possibly found the cure to your issue. Next time the attitude is unneeded when you mis read a post. If you you try to argue with the ones trying to give free help then you may end up...
I was getting that from time to time too, maybe once a month or more, the little last gasp of the mouse and everything. In my case, the most recent occurrence anyway, it turned out to be too high overclocking even though it had passed burn in tests, so I took it down 100 mhz and it disappeared. . assuming that is not your problem it could still be the odd dip in the PSU that is too rare to catch or some other very difficult to pin down fluctuation.

On general principles I would re-seat and blow out RAM and video cards.
 


i'm not overclocking, and i'd think that a voltage issue would bring about different symptoms. however, i might try some stuff to see if you're on to something. i've also reseated ram and GPU probably a total of 10-12 times through the life of the PC. i doubt that's it.
 


my page file is MASSIVE. probably not an issue. also, it even happens when idle. and sometimes only shortly after startup.
 
Possible software conflict. A program is not interacting properly with another. These can be the hardest to find. To find out will take days of testing, stop one process at a time and wait to see if it locks. This will take days to find the issue but this is how you find what program is causing a conflict.

the Point is you don't want to use the page file system because it is so slow and will cause lag.
 


have you even read this issue properly? do you really understand what my computer is doing?
i understand you're trying to help, but what you're suggesting is a step backwards.

this has nothing to do with page file. it has happened when less than 1gb of ram is being used. PF only gets used when RAM is full.

the computer did this from day one. software does not cause these symptoms. i have narrowed it down to drivers, firmware (bios), or hardware.

i have also not experienced a lock since the day i posted this. but that doesnt guarantee anything. ive gone weeks without it occurring before.
 
" software does not cause these symptoms. i have narrowed it down to drivers, firmware (bios), or hardware. "

what do you think a driver is? It is software! yes I understand totally what the issue is.

my response about the page file was due to your comment of "my page file is MASSIVE. probably not an issue. also, it even happens when idle. and sometimes only shortly after startup." and that you do not want to use the Page File at all.

your issue sounds like a software conflict. bad driver, improper driver can fit into this category. any thing you can not Physically touch that is part of the PC is considered software, which is programming, including drivers.
 


i think you're just trying to argue semantics at this point. i guess i cant speak for others, but i generally refer to drivers as not the same as a software application, when troubleshooting.

and it's really my business if i feel like i need to have a page file for my own reasons.

in any case, it looks like updating my bios again, which contained some updates for the sata controller, may have solved it. four weeks without a crash now.
 
You are misunderstanding me on what I was saying. I have a 12 GB section on my drive for page file if it needs to be used also. I was not telling to to not have it. I was saying when your system runs low on memory and it needs to use the Page file system, It is extremely slow. This is due to the access speed of the ram and the slow access speed of HDD's. I was not telling you to not have it just that it is best not to need to use it.

I am not arguing semantics, Drivers are a software component. you can not deny this.

I am glad you have possibly found the cure to your issue. Next time the attitude is unneeded when you mis read a post. If you you try to argue with the ones trying to give free help then you may end up on your own at some point with no help, just a word of caution for the future. 😉

Have a great day and good luck with your system, Cheers Bgunner.
 
Solution