Windows 7 64 bit Random Lockup/freeze

rainedrop184

Honorable
Apr 27, 2013
1
0
10,510
Ok, been working on this for over a week, and as google search has lead me to this forum many times for other problems I figure I'll try posting here, I think I'm in the right place, if not, apologies, just let me know how/where to move this.

Specs:
Win 7 64 bit

16 gb Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144563

Gigabyte motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128565

AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.20ghz processor

GeForce GT 440 1gb gddr5 video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134135

4 HDD's:

ST2000DM001
WDC WD20EARS
WDC WD2500BB
WDC WD5002ABYS

ORION HP585D 585W PSU


Symptoms: Computer will randomly freeze for 15 to 60 seconds. no mouse movement, any sounds playing will freeze as well. After that time everything is back to normal, however it appears during this freeze the internet connection has dropped, but comes back when the system un-freezes (this is based on being in an online game when this freeze has happened, i got a "attempting to connect" dialogue indicating connection problems) I can't figure out any consistency except it seems to happen more often the longer in between restarts, but this isnt 100% true. It happens while playing games, or just watching youtube with the same frequency.

Google lead me to run a chkdsk scan on my windows installation drive. This did reveal that the two partitions had bad sectors. I cloned the partitions onto a new (not out of the box but a spare) HD, ran chkdsk on the new HD and it came back clean. No other problems, so the clone should have gone fine, but the freezing continued.

Next up was memtest86. did one pass and had no errors.

Next was an attempt to test the power supply. I Disabled my DVD burner and one of the HD (one used mostly for storage, not games or windows) to see if lightening the load of the PSU would help. This initially seemed to work, I went for a few hours last night without this issue happening running a game, skype and streaming said game as well. To confirm it was a PSU issue and not that the HD i disconnected was also bad, i ran chkdsk on that, and it also returned errors and said it corrected them. I thought this may have been the problem so re-enabled it and the DVD Drive. I began seeing the freezing again, same as before. I disabled the DVD drive, to see if that was enough. Still freezing. Disabled the same HDD. this time it did NOT stop the freezing. I then tried physically disconnecting the two devices. but I still got the freezing as before.

Then I checked temperatures. Everything seems normal, the only other clue is that when the freeze occurs, my CPU temp jumps from between 25-30C to 40C for just a moment, then returns to normal. Similar things happen with "Temp2" and "Temp3" these go from a normal 40-45C spiking up to 55C(this is per the chart on SpeedFan 4.49) I do have screenshots of the Charts if this will help, I'd just need to know procedure/etiquette for posting images.

Any ideas would be a great help, let me know any other info that may be needed... Thanks in advance, at the end of my rope with this thing, first time a system has defeated me and my google-fu....
 
Solution
Install any monitoring tool/program that gives you a glimpse of your CPU, HDD, VGA temperatures, try to save log files from your monitoring program.
Having 4 HDD is dropping the performance of your computer if you use RAID 0.....better to use RAID 1 (but will loose one drive) or either use all 4 HDD in RAID 5. for more details search the web about RAID.....I advise to unplug all other 3 HDD and run your PC only with the OS HDD to see if happens again....then add one by one to see/notice changes .....However if you peek any increasing temperature on your CPU or VGA card, i advise to clean radiators, fans, and replace the thermal paste (look and search the internet for how to do it....lots of DIY=Do It Yourself).
I recommend the "Wolf...

chavez1

Distinguished
Apr 13, 2009
37
0
18,530
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit Randomly Freezes
No BSOD just random freezes with screen on and no keys or cursor repsond, all I can do is use a hard reset to restart. Then I get the standard windows was not shut down properly messege at start-up. I have been having this issue/s and have tried all the same standard help people have had to offer, in all the dfferent post I've read online.
To actually fix this issue I ended up having to go to the device manager and check for driver updates on all my devices, one at a time. I think the ones that had updates that fixed this issue were the ACPIx64-based PC under the computer drop down and the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers especially the ICH ATA and SATA AHCI ontrollers (I think these made the difference). I checked them all, but these were the only ones that had updates. Once those were updated and the computer was restarted, it has stayed on. It's been on for a day now and no problems so far.
 

Nikkeftw

Honorable
Jul 19, 2013
25
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10,540
We are a great deal of people having this exact problem. What ive noticed between all of us, is we have QUAD core CPU's. My old Core2Duo used the exact same OS, and this never happened once. I see people have done like my self, testing their computer in any way thinkable. People who seem to know a great deal about computers, still they find no answers. When it happens to me, it is when I am browsing the internet, with no music or videos running in the background. ANY load, and it NEVER happens. Only when i f.x. read articles on the internet, without VLC or YouTube running.

Ive been looking for answers since i made my new machine 2 months ago, and today I found several people blaming the USB power-save mode, that allows Windows to shut off USB power. This, in combination with certain QUAD core motherboard might be what is doing it to us.

Try this:
http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Mice-and-Pointing-Devices...
Ive done this to my computer, and now im testing. Ill report back in a couple of days, or, as soon as, IF, it happens again.
 

bubububu22222

Honorable
Oct 17, 2013
8
0
10,520
I had the same problem with my AMD X4 925.
How do i solved:
First i run into BIOS right after the freezing (restart PC) and read all the temperature at the Health system....found out the CPU had 80 Celsius degree (over heat)
The only way to fix that was (coz i don't have any overclocking) to pull out my CPU (physically) have the radiator cleaned from dust and clean the thermo-conducting paste from both radiator and CPU (was dry and hard). I replaced with small quantity of thermo paste (take care not to put too much or too less ....just enough to be spread only on the CPU surfaces as a thin layer). Mount the radiator back and ....that's all. works like clock now....i monitored my CPU temp and not overheating over 42. Hope that was helpful....
 

Dblaa

Honorable
Dec 10, 2013
2
0
10,510
I have this same problem. My computer will just randomly freeze for anywhere between 1-60 seconds, and then it'll unfreeze, and freeze a random amount of time later. I had this issue before and seemed to have fixed it by removing one of the two hard drives that I had in my computer (one was old and I only had it in there to transfer files to the newer one because I was pretty sure it was broken anyway.) I took out the older one and my computer has been working fine for the months leading up until a few days ago, when the problem resurfaced.
 

bubububu22222

Honorable
Oct 17, 2013
8
0
10,520
Install any monitoring tool/program that gives you a glimpse of your CPU, HDD, VGA temperatures, try to save log files from your monitoring program.
Having 4 HDD is dropping the performance of your computer if you use RAID 0.....better to use RAID 1 (but will loose one drive) or either use all 4 HDD in RAID 5. for more details search the web about RAID.....I advise to unplug all other 3 HDD and run your PC only with the OS HDD to see if happens again....then add one by one to see/notice changes .....However if you peek any increasing temperature on your CPU or VGA card, i advise to clean radiators, fans, and replace the thermal paste (look and search the internet for how to do it....lots of DIY=Do It Yourself).
I recommend the "Wolf fence" algorithm before doing something that may cause your system crash....trying to isolate/identify the cause instead of running endless tests....Hope you will find the bug...

FYI the "wolf fence" algorithm {Edward Gauss described this simple but very useful and now famous algorithm in a 1982 article for communications of the ACM as follows: "There's one wolf in Alaska, how do you find it? First build a fence down the middle of the state, wait for the wolf to howl, determine which side of the fence it is on. Repeat process on that side only, until you get to the point where you can see the wolf."}
 
Solution

Vintagehotdog

Distinguished
Feb 14, 2010
4
0
18,510
We have 2 computers both running Window 7. One 64 bit one 32. Both will just freeze for 10 to 30 seconds. randomly. I just removed all software form HP (bought a different brand printer) and neither one has froze up since.
So if you have Hewlitt Packard software I would try removing that first.
 

DavidAtl

Reputable
Aug 31, 2015
1
0
4,510
rainedrop - I had a similar problem on a Windows 7 PC. The PC had intermittent freezes that would last up to 10 minutes. After much troubleshooting, I discovered that I had 2 antivirus programs installed: Trend Micro Client/Server security agent (which acts as an antivirus) and Avast antivirus (free version). The Trend Micro agent was unintentionally installed several months ago (possibly when Microsoft Office was installed). Avast was intentionally installed several months ago. Things seemed to work fine with both installed until late June 2015 when the intermittent freezes started, possibly after a windows update or an update to Avast.

After uninstalling both antivirus programs, the problem went away. I've since installed BitDefender Antivirus (since I've read that BitDefender puts less load on the system compared to other AV programs), though reinstalling Avast should have also worked. The system is now quite stable. Hope this helps.