Stable under load, hanging when idle?

[AaronG67]

Hi folks,
I've been having a problem lately in which my computer will hang, requiring a hard reboot to reset, randomly when not using the computer to it's potential. I've saw this happening at the desktop, while watching videos on youtube, while reading forums and countless other small tasks, but I've not once saw it happen while gaming, rendering videos or anything to that caliber. It usually happens between 5-30 minutes of booting, but there are times when I will be allowed to use the computer casually for hours and I will use it until I decide to turn it off, however these are uncommon so I would rather find a way to solve this problem.
I Have tried to reinstall windows, I've resat the HDD and swapped out its SATA cable and port. I have ran stress tests on my GPU and my CPU, and I have ran memory diagnostic tools as well as HDD diagnostic tools from the HDD's distributor. Nothing I've done has fixed the problem, and no diagnostic tools I've used have picked up on any errors. As far as I'm aware I have no out of date drivers, as a matter of fact I went on a driver hunt a few days ago and only found a few updates, but the problem persisted after this. Any help to resolve this would be great.

My current specs are:
AMD FX8350 (No O.C.)
Gigabyte 970A-UD3P Motherboard
8GB Vengeance 1600Mhz (Running at 1333Mhz)
WD 1TB Caviar Blue
WD 2TB Green (This is the boot drive)
Sapphire R9 380 Nitro (No O.C.)
Aero Cool Integrator 850W Power Supply

If it is any help, I have noted a few things
All of my components are 6-9 months old with the exception of the boot drive, which is around 5 years old.
My HDD read/write light completely stops when the hang happens, although the rest of my case is lit with fans still running.
A Few months ago I had a problem with HDMI audio, which resulted in me being completely unable to use HDMI audio until AMD released a follow up driver which then fixed the problem.
Lately when I'm using my headset as a primary audio source, occasional split seconds of static can be heard through my 3.5 Audio jack speakers, however when they are set to my primary source this problem vanishes.

If I can think of anything else relevant I will edit the op, or reply to any questions.
Again, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks for reading.

 

[johnbl]

I would run crystaldiskinfo.exe and check the drive firmware version, then see if there was a firmware update. Or disable spinning down the drive in controll panel power management.

 

[AaronG67]

I would run crystaldiskinfo.exe and check the drive firmware version, then see if there was a firmware update. Or disable spinning down the drive in controll panel power management.

Thanks for the response, I checked the firmware on both of my hard drives and both are up to date.
For the sake of completeness I ran GSmartControl's health check tests and both drives also passed without error.

 

[soundguruman]

I would run crystaldiskinfo.exe and check the drive firmware version, then see if there was a firmware update. Or disable spinning down the drive in controll panel power management.

Thanks for the response, I checked the firmware on both of my hard drives and both are up to date.
For the sake of completeness I ran GSmartControl's health check tests and both drives also passed without error.

Reset the power profiles:

This causes you to have problems on some computers. You expect high performance and you are not getting it. OR You system freezes…
If you are on laptop battery power, these high performance settings cause the battery to run down faster. These settings are really for high performance desktop PC.

A. When these power saver features are enabled, it causes a bunch of problems.
B. Windows shuts down your system to sleep, hibernate, standby, etc..etc...
C. After shutting down system to "save power" the system malfunctions when you try to wake it up again...and locks up, freezes, etc...
It locks the mouse, it locks the keyboard, it shuts off the display, and locks out the hard drive, it shuts off USB devices, etc...etc...
D. This will cause you to pull your hair out, and go to the funny farm...(those nice young men in their pretty white coats)
E. Make it stop, please make it stop.
F. Shut off all these "features" and USE your computer for a change):

Click Start, Click Control Panel,
Look at the top of the window, in the path bar you see “control panel >”
Click on “>” (in the path bar) now click on “all control panel options.”
(This will open up all the hidden controls available)
Click Power Options
click on the arrow to “show other plans”
Check the Box that says "high performance"
Click (in high performance) "change plan settings"
Turn off display: set to NEVER
Put the computer to sleep: set to NEVER
Click: Change advanced plan settings
Scroll down the list: Click on the + signs to expand the choices for each item on the list.
Require a password on wake up: set to NO
Hard disk: turn off the hard disk: set to NEVER
Wireless adapter settings:
Sleep: set to NEVER
Allow Hybrid sleep: set to NEVER
Hibernate after: set to NEVER
Allow wake timers: set to disable
USB settings:
USB selective suspend setting: set to NEVER
Power Buttons and lid:
Power button action: Setting: set to shut down
Sleep Button Action: set to: do nothing
PCI Express:
Link State Power Management, Setting: OFF
Processor Power Management: Minimum state (set to) 7%

System Cooling Policy: setting: Active
Maximum State (set to) 100%
Display
Turn off display after: setting: NEVER (turning off display automatically can cause freezing also)
Turn off the monitor power manually, when you want it off. Don’t use the auto monitor turn off.
Multimedia Settings:
When Sharing Media: Setting: Prevent idling to sleep
When Playing Video: Setting: Optimize Video
Click APPLY
Click OK

Open the bios set up and make sure "cool and quiet" is OFF. (AMD)
If there is a power saver or a "quiet mode" in the bios, shut it off...
There may be a performance setting in the bios setup you have...make sure it's cranked up to max.
in the bios, see that the allocation for video, if available, is maxed.

Now open the hardware manager profiles...
click start
click computer
click system properties
click device manager
double click on mice and other pointing devices
right click on HID compliant mouse
left click on properties
click on the power management tab
UN-check the box that says: "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." (there is now NO check mark in this box)
click OK

Now repeat this procedure for all mice, monitors, keyboards, and ALL USB ports on the device manager list.

You must open ALL the devices one at a time, as above, and turn off the power saver, for each device.

NOW turn all the security back ON. NOW open your security antivirus. Make sure the antivirus is set to "gaming mode." Or "multimedia mode."
This prevents the security updating from interrupting your game / multimedia priority.
IF the security does not have "gaming mode" or "multimedia mode" get different security.
IF you are using "free" security downloaded from the internet, get rid of it NOW.
Use ONLY professional all in one security. DO NOT load multiple mismatched security programs, which conflict with each other.
DO NOT load free tools into your system such as: "driver sweeper" or any of that "free" goofy stuff.

 

[AaronG67]

Hi again,
After trying the above response, the computer still didn't seem to be any more willing to respond consistently.
I did however, and this will seem silly, like it shouldn't have helped, decide to put a password on my computer about two weeks ago, and since then it has only hung once when I booted and got to desktop as fast as I could have.
So while I haven't found a solution, crashing once over a fortnight is a major improvement from crashing two or three times a day, so I would recommend anyone having this problem to try this.

The only thing I can think of being the problem is the computer trying to load all of my start up items at once in this case, but since I always boot my computer a few minutes before I even intend on touching it this isn't a problem if it needs to sit at a password screen.

Thanks for the responses, and I hope my experience helps anyone with this problem in the future.