Random freezing

[DRuM]

I've noticed some occasional freezing when streaming videos, and it means pressing reset to reboot computer. But because I haven't played any games yet or watched many videos (mostly been fiddling with computer rather than actually using it), I haven't yet had it happen enough to determine any sort of pattern, or if it will happen when gaming for any length of time. So, far it's happened once when streaming bbc iplayer after 20 minutes of a documentary, two or three times a couple of weeks ago when streaming UFC on sopcast, and once or twice when moving mouse fast opening folders in windows. I'd uninstalled the ati software and reinstalled it a couple of weeks ago, but that didn't stop it freezing it tonight. I've now installed the very latest drivers 9.9, so I'll have to see if it happens again. Could it be ati software related, gpu hardware related or perhaps my XP install, like maybe a corrupted driver? I had flashed the bios back and forth a few times when I first had this computer, so I don't know if windows was affected by that. I'll be receiving windows 7 this week so maybe that will sort the problem, or maybe not. Any clues?

When the freeze happens, I hear a continuous loud low pitched buzz not unlike a foghorn, through headphones.

[obsidian]

Control Panel > Admin Tools > Event Viewer.

Check through the logs and see if you can find the critical error at the time of crash (you'll likely also see a bunch of other errors that aren't part of the problem so be sure to note the time of the crash and match it up with the error).

[DRuM]

Control Panel > Admin Tools > Event Viewer.

Check through the logs and see if you can find the critical error at the time of crash (you'll likely also see a bunch of other errors that aren't part of the problem so be sure to note the time of the crash and match it up with the error).

Well nothing I can really pinpoint. Only error I could find for the time of last nights crash is an aspi32 error



For the sopcast freeze up last month. there's these:





There's various errors at other dates, a few of which are faulting application avgrsx.exe.

[Captain]

Post your CPU temps and voltages.

[DRuM]

Oh my temps are really low. With full load of any of the stress testers, cpu only goes up by 3 or 4c. Right now, room ambient is 21.2c, cpu idle was 35c and is now 38c with orthos small FFT's, 100% cpu load. Core went from 18 to 21c. Thing about my core temp though is that although it goes up by only 3c same as cpu/bios temp, the core temp sensor is obviously wrong, because it's always below ambient. I'd actually love to know what my real core temperature is. I suppose it has to be 2 or 3c above the cpu temp, or 10c or more above ambient. Anyway, there's never any heat it's always really cool.

Actually, here's a screenshot. Ignore the 78c, that's a known dead/bogus sensor on the mobo, confirmed to me by gigabyte. It's always 78/79c, regardless of load or idle.

[Captain]

Hmm, try decreasing your CPU voltage to 1.30V and see what happens.

You see, I had the same exact issue with random and seemingly illogical freezes throughout April and May. The computer could freeze up in the middle of a Youtube video, gaming, or just chatting on MSN and listening to music. If any sound was being played through the speakers, it would either loop or turn into a continuous beep.

After trying almost everything to troubleshoot, I decided to ditch Vista for Win 7 RC1. After a couple weeks of problem-free usage, the freezes began to occur again. Once again troubleshooting did nothing and around July I formatted and installed Win 7 RTM. Things were solid for a few weeks until I had a few freezes and BSODs in August. I went into the BIOS right away and noticed that even though SmartFan was enabled, my CPU temps were hovering around 85 Celsius. After setting the fan speed to 85% instead of automatic (still quiet btw), the CPU temps hover around 30-40 even under load and the freezes disappeared. I also set the CPU voltage from 1.40V to 1.30V.

Then I had a couple freezes about a week ago while playing Arkham Asylum, both times nvlddmkm.sys being the culprit. Updated my video drivers from 182.50 to 191.07 and things are finally solid again. Hopefully it lasts \o/

[GONNAFISTYA]

Do you have several SATA drives hooked up?

My computer randomly freezes and it's usually because I have more than one SATA drive connected to the mobo. If my machine only has one SATA drive hooked up it never freezes at all.

If you have several drives you might want to try just having the system drive running for a while and test it in that configuration.

[DRuM]

I went into the BIOS right away and noticed that even though SmartFan was enabled, my CPU temps were hovering around 85 Celsius. After setting the fan speed to 85% instead of automatic (still quiet btw), the CPU temps hover around 30-40 even under load and the freezes disappeared. I also set the CPU voltage from 1.40V to 1.30V.

Then I had a couple freezes about a week ago while playing Arkham Asylum, both times nvlddmkm.sys being the culprit. Updated my video drivers from 182.50 to 191.07 and things are finally solid again. Hopefully it lasts \o/

Yeah, glad you got sorted!

Actually someone said to me on overclock.net that he had similar freeze problems and he reckons it's the cat drivers, he said they havent yet brought out stable ones. So, like you, it might be a case of gfx drivers. I might try reducing voltage, though my cpu is meant to be at 1.34v. I've got smart fan enabled and can disable it anytime with easytune6 to get cpu fan to full speed. I might try keeping it at full speed next time I stream a video, though can't see that really making much of a difference, particularly since my temps are never even close to hot.

What about coolnquiet, would it make a difference to keep that disabled in bios? Far as I know, coolnquiet holds cpu speed back until more speed is needed so I assume it would respond automatically anyway. But maybe it's better off.

Do you have several SATA drives hooked up?

My computer randomly freezes and it's usually because I have more than one SATA drive connected to the mobo. If my machine only has one SATA drive hooked up it never freezes at all.

If you have several drives you might want to try just having the system drive running for a while and test it in that configuration.

Actually, I now have a sata dvd drive added to my one and only sata hard drive. But this was happening when I only had the sata hard drive. I do however have 2 IDE hard drives connected to the IDE socket, don't know if that would affect anything. But would streaming video freeze ups be affected by a hard drive, or does it cache files to the drive as it streams? Only other thing I can think of is that my onchip sata type in bios is set to Native IDE instead of ACHI. Also, the sata port the drive probably should be in wasn't recognising it, so I connected it to the one above. I don't know if that is very important or not, but certainly the hard drive works fast and efficiently.

I did prime95 small fft's last night for 5 and a half hours, no problem. Blend today for 30 mins, no problem. Memtest 86+ for 25 mins today, no problem, but will do memtest overnight. I've done furmark stability test for about 20 mins with no problems, but maybe I'll try that overnight tomorrow. But aside from video freezes, there are still the rare freeze ups when just doing something in windows. So I don't know if there's two different causes for freeze ups or all from the same problem. Got W7 arriving tomorrow, will see how that goes. And I'll set bios to AHCI with that install.

[GONNAFISTYA]

I had a system with one SATA drive and two IDE drives. It worked for a while but then it didn't. One day my computer simply refused to recognize my SATA drive while the IDE drives were connected. Perhaps there's an issue there for you.

At the time of my problems my "IT guy" told me that getting SATA/IDE systems to work in harmony was a real bitch and not always practical. He suggested I put my IDE drives into USB housings and connect them that route.

Also remember that the system needs to only lose its connection to the drive for a millisecond and it could fuck up. This is weird since SATA is supposed to be hot swappable. You'd think it would just automatically reconnect and go but apparently if it loses connection while the disk is writing - which I'm sure your drive is while streaming - it doesn't work too well...at least according to my IT guy.

I dunno really...it's just a guess.

[DRuM]

I had a system with one SATA drive and two IDE drives. It worked for a while but then it didn't. One day my computer simply refused to recognize my SATA drive while the IDE drives were connected. Perhaps there's an issue there for you.

At the time of my problems my "IT guy" told me that getting SATA/IDE systems to work in harmony was a real bitch and not always practical. He suggested I put my IDE drives into USB housings and connect them that route.

Also remember that the system needs to only lose its connection to the drive for a millisecond and it could fuck up. This is weird since SATA is supposed to be hot swappable. You'd think it would just automatically reconnect and go but apparently if it loses connection while the disk is writing - which I'm sure your drive is while streaming - it doesn't work too well...at least according to my IT guy.

I dunno really...it's just a guess.

It's a good guess methinks. You may well be right there. IDE drives could be causing a problem, or even my sata drive in the wrong port. I'll need to run more streams to see if I can get it happening more regularly, then disconnect ide drives and see if it makes a difference.

Meanwhile..

It'll make a change not to be dodging WGA checks, lol.