Constant freezing, but no BSOD

[Afrosammy]

For the past week and a half or so I've been getting random freezes that last anywhere between 20 and 10 seconds, sometimes less. The part that bugs me is that for some boots I don't get them at all, and I tend to leave my computer on for a day or two at a time, and in that time it will never freeze, but if I restart, it acts normal for a bit and the freezes begin after a random (under 5 hours) period of use.

When it freezes, I can still hear sound, though I'm not sure if video continues to move or not. I'm unable to move my house or type (it could be that I just can't see the typing/moving though), and when the freeze ends, my cursor acts strangely. The cursor I have when scrolling over text becomes distorted in color, and sometimes the cursor sticks as whatever the last thing I hovered over would use (switching from window to window gives the widen cursor, hovering over links gives the finger, etc). This started happening when I updated my video drivers, but since then I rolled them back and I thought the problem was gone until it started back up again a few days later. Apparently the driver causes a lot of people to freeze though. I haven't been able to reproduce the freezes, I just know it also happens if I'm playing a game and if I'm browsing. I restarted before typing this post since I wouldn't have been able to get far with the freezing I was having, so I'm not sure if whatever is making the freeze happen can be found unless it's actually happening. An important note, before the freezing begins, I hear a BRRRRRRR sound (if I have audio playing) and it freezes for a couple seconds, but this only happens one time, after that all the freezes are silent, minus the uninterrupted audio already playing.

P.S. As I was finishing this up and getting the info, the sound happened and now I'm freezing on and off.



CPU: Intel Pentium E6600 Wolfdale 3.06GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80571E6600
Motherboard: [LEFT]P5G41T-M LX3 but for some reason, Everest lists it as "Unknown", so that might be a problem...[/LEFT]
Ram Speed, size and #sticks: Not sure about speed, but I have two 4 gig sticks.
GPU: GeForce GTX 550 Ti
PSU (do not leave this out): Coolmax V600
OS: Windows 7

Edits to come after I shut down and check the PUS and Motherboard specs

Here is the error (I think?) for the brrrrr sound that happens before the freezing begins.

Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 9/12/2013 2:10:23 AM
Event ID: 7000
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: afrosammy-PC
Description:
The PST Service service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7000</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2013-09-12T07:10:23.289459600Z" />
<EventRecordID>158918</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="584" ThreadID="588" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>afrosammy-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">PST Service</Data>
<Data Name="param2">%%2</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

[Tmagic650]

Could be a failing hard drive... Test it by going to Computer, right-click on the C drive. Select properties, tools, check now. Put a check mark in both boxes to set a disk check on the next start up. If your C drive is an SSD disregard this test

 

[Afrosammy]

Could be a failing hard drive... Test it by going to Computer, right-click on the C drive. Select properties, tools, check now. Put a check mark in both boxes to set a disk check on the next start up. If your C drive is an SSD disregard this test

I tried this and thought it worked, but I must have just had a safe session, because it just happened again today.

 

[Tmagic650]

It may be time to change the hard drive...

 

[Afrosammy]

Is there any way to test this to be completely sure? I've started backing things up just in case.

 

[Tmagic650]

Backing up important things is always important... You can download hard drive testing software from the drives manufactures support website

 

[Afrosammy]

Took me a while to get around to it, but I finally did a test and there were no errors to report. I noticed it only happens when I'm doing anything but gaming. I can play multiple games for hours on end and never come across this problem, yet things like browsing the internet or messing around in photoshop can cause it.

 

[Tmagic650]

Any yellow (!) in the device manager? Do you have the latest Adobe Flash, Shockwave and Sun's Java installed?

 

[Afrosammy]

I think that fixed it, but I ran into another snag, so I guess I have to make a new thread since it's another issue involving a Windows Update.

 

[Tmagic650]

Any yellow (!) in the device manager? Do you have the latest Adobe Flash, Shockwave and Sun's Java installed?

You didn't answer this...

 

[Afrosammy]

You didn't answer this...

Sorry, no. There were no (!)s there, under all the tabs everything was clear, but the device manager has been wrong before and told me drivers were up to date when they weren't, so there still could be a problem in there without me knowing. What I think fixed it was installing/updating Flash, Shockwave, and Java since the problem didn't persist after that, but sometimes the problem doesn't come back for a while. It seemed OK though.

 

[Tmagic650]

"but the device manager has been wrong before and told me drivers were up to date when they weren't"... The device manager only tells you that all the drivers are installed or not. It never states that they are up to date. What program told you that the drivers were out of date?

 

[Afrosammy]

I've right clicked to update drivers from the device manager and it told me that my graphics card was up to date, but when I checked the NVidia site I found out they were months old.