System freezeups, mainly during games

[Venen]

I have an issue that my machine is freezing up on random events every now and then (although IE. while playing Europa Universalis it tends to freeze very often, approx every 15 minutes). During that freeze-up machine is irresponsible to anything (need to use reboot button on the case), screens (running 2 monitors) are frozen and speakers come out with annoying looping small sample of whatever was playing atm (very small sample, maybe 0.2s).

I've run couple stab tests (CPU Stability Test, BrunInTest, memtest and others) but they couldn't find any errors and I've run out of ideas what may be causing it. Since I can redo it, maybe some people can help me identify the cause of it as it is very frustrating (i love EU3 god damn it). System and drivers are up to date, it's not cause by background applications (i turned em all off, system still froze up). I did clean up registry with reg cleaner, nothing changed.

DxDiag: http://paste-it.net/public/f9464f9/

 

[COLGeek]

You are describing a classic heat/power issue with the GPU. When you stress your GPU, like during gaming, you are pulling max power from the PSU. If the PSU isn't up to the task, symptoms such as your occur.

What CPU, GPU, PSU are you using? Also, are you overclocking anything (CPU, GPU, memory)? If so, revert to default settings until you sort out the problem.

Good luck!

 

[Venen]

You are describing a classic heat/power issue with the GPU. When you stress your GPU, like during gaming, you are pulling max power from the PSU. If the PSU isn't up to the task, symptoms such as your occur.

What CPU, GPU, PSU are you using? Also, are you overclocking anything (CPU, GPU, memory)? If so, revert to default settings until you sort out the problem.

Good luck!

Nothing is overclocked in this system, as for CPU/GPU I've attached DxDiag in OP so you got all details there http://paste-it.net/public/f9464f9/ . As for PSU: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=tx850w&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6106436340731799806&ei=ucDfTMO1NIjOswbM-dm_Cw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCIQ8wIwAg#

Can you suggest some tests to confirm that this is heating issue ? As I just checked GPU temp is at 77 celc and fan is working at 10% (GPU is idle). CPU fan is working at max RPM and temp is at 33C (max 37c) Will turn on GPU fan to 100% manually and see if it will hang.

 

[Venen]

Sadly this is not heating issue, I've turned on fans to 100% speed, CPU temp was stable at 37c, GPU at 54 and it suddenly freeze up again.

 

[COLGeek]

What PSU are you using (make/model)?

 

[Venen]

What PSU are you using (make/model)?

I linked it in last post I feel like phoecalling MS tech support , http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=tx850w&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6106436340731799806&ei=ucDfTMO1NIjOswbM-dm_Cw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCIQ8wIwAg#

 

[COLGeek]

Missed the link, sorry. BTW, when was the last time you updated Catalyst? Go to ati.com and download the latest suite. Won't hurt and may actually help.

MS won't help.

 

[Venen]

Done that already, didn't change anything.

 

[COLGeek]

Have you looked in your Event Viewer to see if there are any clues about what is crashing? You can sort by severity. Look in the Windows logs, particularly the Application and System logs. (Control Panel/Admin Tools/Event Viewer)

 

[Venen]

I did, nothing there beside unclean shutdown info, nothing before that (which doesn't suprize me since machine is completly not responsive during freeze-up).

 

[COLGeek]

What brand/speed memory are you using?

Also, how old is the PSU?

 

[Venen]

Whole rig is about 8 months old, was build from new parts. RAM manufacturer is "Goodram", freq is at 669mhz

 

[COLGeek]

Are your memory settings, in the BIOS, set to Default or auto?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

What are the system messages your getting ? Have you looked in Event Viewer ?

tried uploading your mini dump files to sevenforums ?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/83172-dump-files-upload-seven-forums.html

 

[Venen]

Everything is running on default speed, no overclocking.

Nothing in event viewer, that was covered 2 posts ago (seriously guys, this is only 1 page long topic...). Also there are only 2 minidumps from about 4 months ago.

 

[swifty_morgan]

What are you using for sound ? The on board, from a sound card or from the ATI ? Sound conflicts may cause this. You said something about "crackling" or something. Sounds like a conflict. If using on board you should uninstall or disable the ati stuff... either from control panel/sound or just uninstall the ati drivers and do a custom install and the DON"T install the sound drivers when prompted. If running a sound card disable onboard from BIOS and dele ati sound drivers.

 

[Venen]

What are you using for sound ? The on board, from a sound card or from the ATI ? Sound conflicts may cause this. You said something about "crackling" or something. Sounds like a conflict. If using on board you should uninstall or disable the ati stuff... either from control panel/sound or just uninstall the ati drivers and do a custom install and the DON"T install the sound drivers when prompted. If running a sound card disable onboard from BIOS and dele ati sound drivers.

Well yea, there is small looping sound but I always thought of this as a symptom not cause. Going to test that tonight and tell you how it goes.
As for soundcard, it's onboard thingy.

 

[Venen]

I did as you suggested, sadly freeze still occurs.

 

[COLGeek]

Are you using the most recent BIOS for your mobo? Also, I know you said your RAM checks out when tested, but do you have a set of compatible RAM you could swap into the box to see if it stabilizes the system? I have never heard of Goodram and I would just like to rule out a compatibility issue.

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

Which graphics card you have? Is this problem taking place since when you first built your pc or just started couple of days ago?

 

[swifty_morgan]

Blow the dust out of your video card from the exhaust end. Blow the dust out of your processors heat sink. Go into the CCC for ATI and into the ATI OverDrive section. Enable ATI OverDrive and set the fan speed manually to 37%. Should help the card run at a more constant temperature than letting the fan work on auto... ( only spins up when the card is extremely hot )

 

[HavoCnMe]

My buddy had the same issues with his new build. It ended up being his motherboard.

 

[Venen]

Are you using the most recent BIOS for your mobo? Also, I know you said your RAM checks out when tested, but do you have a set of compatible RAM you could swap into the box to see if it stabilizes the system? I have never heard of Goodram and I would just like to rule out a compatibility issue.

I didn't update bios so that would be no, I don't feel confident with updating bios.
Goodram is polish memory manufacturer, they are just starting on worldwide market, and quite frankly I never had any issue with them (me and my friends are using them in all machines for last 3-4 years). If that was ram issue then this crashes would be more frequent especially with applications that use a lot more ram (and stab tests) and this freeze rarely occurs beside Europa Universalis. I will grab some Kingstones tomorrow and swap them to verify.

 

[COLGeek]

I didn't update bios so that would be no, I don't feel confident with updating bios.
Goodram is polish memory manufacturer, they are just starting on worldwide market, and quite frankly I never had any issue with them (me and my friends are using them in all machines for last 3-4 years). If that was ram issue then this crashes would be more frequent especially with applications that use a lot more ram (and stab tests) and this freeze rarely occurs beside Europa Universalis. I will grab some Kingstones tomorrow and swap them to verify.

I would recommend a BIOS update as well. Not difficult and rather hard to mess up.

 

[ATi RaDEoN]

if you have any antivirus running in the background, turn it off, it solved my gta 4 freeze ups.
Download Gamebooster too