[Flamzypants]

Over the last couple days I've been having issues with my computer. It's been freezing, with no way out other than a hard reboot. It occasionally carries on the sound that was playing for a short while afterwards in slow motion. I haven't made any changes to the hardware recently, or downloaded anything new to the PC.

Tried a system restore, did some housekeeping and removed a bunch of rubbish, virus scan picked up a few things but it appears clean now and the problem persists. I've checked the PC temperatures after a crash, appears that the processor is at normal operating temps. Also cleaned out all the dust from it a few days ago.

I'm thinking it may be a hardware issue, but I'm not sure which bit of kit could be causing this. I'm posting from the PC at the moment, it's still fairly reliable. Seems to crash 1-3 times a day.

Specs:

Quad core 2.4 proc
4gb ram
nvidia 9600gt gfx card
3 HDDs
Windows 7.

Please let me know if you can think of anything that may be causing this!

Cheers.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Hello,

Could you please upload a BSOD report?

http://www.techsupportforum.com/for...-instructions-windows-7-and-vista-452654.html

That will hopefully give us some clues as to the cause of these freezes.

In the meantime, start on some hardware tests. Run all three Prime95 tests: CPU - Stress Test with Prime95 - Windows 7 Forums

For hard drive: SeaTools for Windows | Seagate

A good program to run overnight: RAM - Test with Memtest86+ - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Flamzypants]

Here ya go! I'll get started on those tests tomorrow, thankyou.

 

[Flamzypants]

New development - computer is freezing more frequently and in the last instance it suddenly turned off, then turned on again.

I'm guessing this is most likely a power supply issue?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Hmm...

Event[99]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Processor-Power
  Date: 2011-04-01T01:08:32.750
  Event ID: 6
  Task: N/A
  Level: Error
  Opcode: Info
  Keyword: N/A
  User: S-1-5-18
  User Name: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
  Computer: xBlade
  Description: 
Some processor performance power management features have been disabled due to a known firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware.

I looked no farther; I went directly to the BIOS date:

BIOS Version:              American Megatrends Inc. P1.20, 20/02/2008

Your motherboard wasn't listed in the jcgriff2 report.

Try updating your BIOS before running those stress tests; if you need help, please post your motherboard model.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

 

[Flamzypants]

ASRock > Products > Motherboard > 4Core1333-GLAN > Download

The latest update is only slightly more recent than the one that's currently on the computer, there don't appear to be any more recent BIOs versions for my model. I'm going to try updating to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Flamzypants]

I updated the bios, now the computer runs in slow motion. Takes about 30 mins to boot up, once it's started the CPU is at 100% usage, as msmpeng is spazzing out I'm guessing the new bios has screwed up the processors or something. Trying to roll back atm.

Why does changing the bios matter?

 

[Flamzypants]

Ah, fingers crossed. But the system has been behaving for the last 8 hours or so. I sorted the BIOs and put it back to the original. During my stress testing (Ramping up gfx on games) I noticed that the highest end settings were blocked out. Thought my card might have died, but it turns out that the drivers needed updating and low and behold I haven't had a crash yet!

With any luck I won't have to bump this thread with a sad face. Pray for me =D

 

[Jonathan_King]

I wonder if perhaps the BIOS didn't install properly the first time? You might not want to touch anything if it's all working well, but if the problems return, give that new BIOS update a try again, see if that's any better.