System freeze

CaptainNick13

Posts: 6   +0
Recently had a hardware fiasco and had the following replaced:
HDDs
PSU
Graphics Card (Temporary 8800 while I decide which high class one to buy)

My current system looks a little something like this:

Windows 7 x64
ASUS P5E3 Premium Motherboard
E600 3.33GHz
3GB DDR3 RAM (I have a 4th 1GB stick which is about to be sent of and replaced)
NVidia 8400GS 256MB
Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Antec 900w PSU

So after all of the upset with the (apparently) dead 4870-X2 I got my system back as above. At what seem to be random intervals the system freezes, does the annoying audio loop of death sound and I have to do a hard reboot.

The crashes can happen at seemingly random times, I've noted them happeneing while doing any of the following though;
Watching YouTube videos
Playing browser games
Playing normal games (low graphics quality such as the original Dawn of War)

I can be doing any of the following for hours or minutes and for no reason the system will lock up.

Any ideas of problems or steps I can take to narrow down the problem?
 
1. What are your system temps like? All fans running?

2. Update your latest chipset drivers, audio drivers, wireless/LAN/NIC drivers, etc. for your Asus motherboard from their site.
 
Do you get Blue Screens? If so please do the following...

How to find and post your Minidump Files:

My Computer > C Drive > Windows Folder > Minidump Folder > Minidump Files.

It is these files that we need (not the folder). Attach to your next post the five most recent dumps. Notice the Manage Attachments button at the bottom when you go to post the next time. You can Zip up to five files per Zip; if you only have one or two you don’t need to zip them, just attach as is. Please do us a favor and don’t Zip each one individually.
 
No I do not get a bluescreen error. Whatever I'm doing at the time stays as a frozen image on the screen, no artefacts or black screen or anything, everything just literally stops working. Any sound occurring at the time of the crash loops. Cursor and keyboard totally unresponsive, the only course of action is a hard reset.
 
Start > Run > EventVwr.msc > Okay

Any Yellow Triangles or Red X's? If so note what they flag.
 
There are errors (red X's) for every time the system has had to be rebooted, the just flag that the system wasnt shut down properly potentially due to a crash which just states the obvious.

As for other warnings I have a wide selection to choose from, there are 580 administrative events since the 8th when the OS was put onto the new HDDs.

Other than that I'm not sure what to say, there seems to be events noticing the system has been rebooted after incorrectly shutting down (freezing) but there are no entries before that to suggest what went wrong to cause the freeze.
 
What security software are you running? Do you have another video card that you could install temporarily?
 
I'm currently running an up to date free version of AVG. I currently have a potentially dead ATI 4870-X2 and an ancient NVidia 6600GT, neither of which I think would be suitable to test with. I'm not too great with hardware but I don't think this 6600GT looks like it would fit properly.
 
What we're trying to determine is if the issue might be with the 8800. If you install the 6600GT we will see if that makes any difference.

Also, onboard audio or dedicated sound card?
 
Ok, I'm not massively confident switching out hardware but I'll have a look at it. As for sound I have both on-board on the motherboard and a separate soundcard, speakers are using the soundcard.
 
Hi,

System freezes are common if hardware devices such as keyboard and mouse are not supported by the operating system. Somehow, if you intend to run heavier applications that take up a lot of memory space, the chances of conflicts between the operating system and such applications increases. Such conflicts eventually slow down the system and cause frequent system freeze. Well, to fix this issue you need to check out the compatible version of the application and then install it on your system.
 
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