Why does my computer freeze?
Tags:
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Power Supplies
- Computers
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Graphics Cards
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Windows 8
Last response: in Windows 8
Jord711
September 21, 2013 4:50:36 PM
Issue: My computer freezes only under a heavy graphics-type load it seems, or perhaps only during long periods of playing games which are 3D. What it does when it freezes is it doesn't give me a BSOD, it just freezes whatever screen it's on and plays a noise through the speakers, which I believe is the last noise that was played before the crash. I must press the reset button on the computer. I've run a few tests which my tech friend suggested, Furmark Burn-in test, and it ran for quite some time with absolutely no crash. I'm running windows 8 and an AMD 7870, and suspect it could be a driver issue but I've tried the newest drivers, the ones before that, even the beta drivers, and had a bad time during it all, any ideas what could be the problem?
More about : computer freeze
swifty_morgan
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Windows 8
September 21, 2013 4:59:37 PM
Jord711
September 21, 2013 5:10:05 PM
swifty_morgan said:
if you have the speakers running off the jack on the motherboard, try disabling the amd hd hdmi sound. either in the device manager or in the add/remove/sound........... options.
Sorry I meant headphones I typed speakers by mistake, and they're plugged into the front panel jack...
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Windows 8
September 21, 2013 5:19:05 PM
Please get HWmon and check out your system temps. Check them often as this program does not log the temps.
Most times an unstable system is still stable enough to blue screen and spit out an error, but if things are very unstable, you may run into this kind of issue.
I would also run a memory test(like memtest86+) overnight after you have confirmed things are not overheating.
Also it may be a good idea to check to ensure the power supply fan is still spinning and if you have a multimeter see what the the voltages on the power supply look like(please note this will not show ripple or other noise in the power that can cause problems, but a 12 volt like at 11volts could be a bad sign.).
Most times an unstable system is still stable enough to blue screen and spit out an error, but if things are very unstable, you may run into this kind of issue.
I would also run a memory test(like memtest86+) overnight after you have confirmed things are not overheating.
Also it may be a good idea to check to ensure the power supply fan is still spinning and if you have a multimeter see what the the voltages on the power supply look like(please note this will not show ripple or other noise in the power that can cause problems, but a 12 volt like at 11volts could be a bad sign.).
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Jord711
September 21, 2013 5:44:31 PM
nukemaster said:
Please get HWmon and check out your system temps. Check them often as this program does not log the temps.Most times an unstable system is still stable enough to blue screen and spit out an error, but if things are very unstable, you may run into this kind of issue.
I would also run a memory test(like memtest86+) overnight after you have confirmed things are not overheating.
Also it may be a good idea to check to ensure the power supply fan is still spinning and if you have a multimeter see what the the voltages on the power supply look like(please note this will not show ripple or other noise in the power that can cause problems, but a 12 volt like at 11volts could be a bad sign.).
I have downloaded both programs and I am going to monitor the temps as best I can, and I'm going to run the memtest overnight, though I don't think it's an overheating issue due to the fact that the temperatures of the CPU nor GPU go that high. I check CoreTemp every once and a while and my graphics card has a program for controlling the fan speeds and that tells me the temperature of that there. The PSU fan is indeed still spinning. My tech friend suspects that it could be my PSU though due to the fact that my PSU(Rosewill 630W green series) gives off 2 6-pins at 50amps and he read somewhere that my graphics card(HIS radeon 7870 iceq) recommends 2 75amp connectors. I figured that it wouldn't be a power issue though due to the fact that I was able to run that burn in test and never saw temps above 63C at max GPU usage, and no crash there. The only other details I can give about the crashes would be that I've only gotten them in three different games so far, battlefield 3, league of legends, and a browser game my friend sent me. All three games I got the same type of crash, frozen screen and the noise.
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Windows 8
September 21, 2013 9:38:13 PM
A few things to clear up
6 pin pci-e connectors only push 6.25amps(75 watts) and 8 pin or 6+2 push 12.5amps(150 watts). The card also has access to at least 75 watts from the motherboards pci-e slot
50 amps would be 600 watts and 75 would be 900 watts. So I think someone is confused.
A defective power supply certainly can cause this type of issue, but in general, 600 watts is more than enough for your card.
The noise is just what the sound card has in its buffer looping over and over.
6 pin pci-e connectors only push 6.25amps(75 watts) and 8 pin or 6+2 push 12.5amps(150 watts). The card also has access to at least 75 watts from the motherboards pci-e slot
50 amps would be 600 watts and 75 would be 900 watts. So I think someone is confused.
A defective power supply certainly can cause this type of issue, but in general, 600 watts is more than enough for your card.
The noise is just what the sound card has in its buffer looping over and over.
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Jord711
September 21, 2013 10:53:50 PM
nukemaster said:
A few things to clear up6 pin pci-e connectors only push 6.25amps(75 watts) and 8 pin or 6+2 push 12.5amps(150 watts). The card also has access to at least 75 watts from the motherboards pci-e slot
50 amps would be 600 watts and 75 would be 900 watts. So I think someone is confused.
A defective power supply certainly can cause this type of issue, but in general, 600 watts is more than enough for your card.
The noise is just what the sound card has in its buffer looping over and over.
Thank you for letting me know this, I tried running the memtest boot up from USB and got no errors, however it stopped after a single pass and only went for an hour and I was a bit perplexed as to how to make it run for longer. Is one pass not enough though? Forgive me as I only have 2 days left to RMA any faulty hardware. Is it possible that windows 8 and my drivers aren't compatible? My friend is running the same setup as me just with the FX8350 not the FX6300, and he has a asus sabertooth motherboard and I have a m5a97 r2.0, but he's running windows 7, not windows 8. He hasn't had this happen to him at all though... I'm unfamiliar with posting on forums like this, is there anything more that I can do or anymore info I can provide that can help me solve this problem? Thank you for what you've told me so far by the way...
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Windows 8
September 21, 2013 11:25:23 PM
Memtest86+ should run on its own forever, please ensure it was this one.
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
For real bad memory 1 pass should catch errors, but sometimes it can take longer(thus I tend to recommend running it over night.).
Bad ram that failed rather fast
![]()
I would recommend you test some of your parts on your friends system or test your friends parts on your system. That may be the fastest way to rule out parts.
Power supply then video card may be a good idea.
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
For real bad memory 1 pass should catch errors, but sometimes it can take longer(thus I tend to recommend running it over night.).
Bad ram that failed rather fast

I would recommend you test some of your parts on your friends system or test your friends parts on your system. That may be the fastest way to rule out parts.
Power supply then video card may be a good idea.
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Jord711
September 22, 2013 5:24:40 PM
nukemaster said:
Memtest86+ should run on its own forever, please ensure it was this one.http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
For real bad memory 1 pass should catch errors, but sometimes it can take longer(thus I tend to recommend running it over night.).
Bad ram that failed rather fast

I would recommend you test some of your parts on your friends system or test your friends parts on your system. That may be the fastest way to rule out parts.
Power supply then video card may be a good idea.
This may sound weird and I'm a little confused as if I did it correctly, but I burned it to a disk, went into the bios and booted from it, ran the rest without touching anything, simply letting it run, and it stopped after one hour...
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Windows 8
September 22, 2013 5:47:56 PM
Did it freeze by any chance?
The little + on the memtest86+ at the top of the screen blinks to show it is still running. I have run it for 18 hours before without it stopping. It does not even stop when it gets errors.
If you burned the ISO, it should just run like the screen above, but without all the red errors one would hope.
The little + on the memtest86+ at the top of the screen blinks to show it is still running. I have run it for 18 hours before without it stopping. It does not even stop when it gets errors.
If you burned the ISO, it should just run like the screen above, but without all the red errors one would hope.
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Jord711
September 22, 2013 6:06:10 PM
nukemaster said:
Did it freeze by any chance?The little + on the memtest86+ at the top of the screen blinks to show it is still running. I have run it for 18 hours before without it stopping. It does not even stop when it gets errors.
If you burned the ISO, it should just run like the screen above, but without all the red errors one would hope.
I do believe when I had it running it was still blinking even after it had stopped, I shall run it once more to see. I was looking things up all over online thinking that I may indeed have a bad PSU, or one that can't give the kind of power my system needs, or at least that the graphics card needs. Anyways, I looked in windows' Event viewer and noticed that I have Critical level things in it scattered across some time.They all seem to be Event ID:41, Source: Kernel-Power, "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly." I've looked up this issue and it does seem that this issue is typically caused by a PSU issue. Could this have anything to do with the fact that I have it plugged into a surge potector perhaps? Thank you for all your input by the way, as I'm truly very stressed at this issue.
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Windows 8
September 22, 2013 6:13:11 PM
A power supply defect may cause this issue. All cases of bad memory I have had caused many blue screen errors.
Event ID 41 is just as it says, the system shut down improperly. Even a power out will cause that error, so freezing that requires you to reset will cause that issue.
Any luck on getting a friend to lend you a power supply.
Power supplies are one of the most important parts of the system. It by it self can cause all kinds of issues to ANY part of the computer. Quality power supplies are always good to have. I have not had any experience with the unit you have so can not comment on how good or bad it is.
Event ID 41 is just as it says, the system shut down improperly. Even a power out will cause that error, so freezing that requires you to reset will cause that issue.
Any luck on getting a friend to lend you a power supply.
Power supplies are one of the most important parts of the system. It by it self can cause all kinds of issues to ANY part of the computer. Quality power supplies are always good to have. I have not had any experience with the unit you have so can not comment on how good or bad it is.
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Jord711
September 22, 2013 8:15:32 PM
nukemaster said:
Memtest86+ should run on its own forever, please ensure it was this one.http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
For real bad memory 1 pass should catch errors, but sometimes it can take longer(thus I tend to recommend running it over night.).
Bad ram that failed rather fast

I would recommend you test some of your parts on your friends system or test your friends parts on your system. That may be the fastest way to rule out parts.
Power supply then video card may be a good idea.
nukemaster said:
A power supply defect may cause this issue. All cases of bad memory I have had caused many blue screen errors.Event ID 41 is just as it says, the system shut down improperly. Even a power out will cause that error, so freezing that requires you to reset will cause that issue.
Any luck on getting a friend to lend you a power supply.
Power supplies are one of the most important parts of the system. It by it self can cause all kinds of issues to ANY part of the computer. Quality power supplies are always good to have. I have not had any experience with the unit you have so can not comment on how good or bad it is.
I intend to buy a PC P&C 950W psu, overkill I know, but not too much morr expensive. My system consists of:
ASUS m5a97 r2.0 motherboard, Amd FX6300 processor, Gskill 2x4g ram, seagate 1tb hdd, asus optical drive, and most importantly I would think would be the HIS radeon hd 7870 iceq ghz. I thank you again for all you've told me about this, as it has indeed been very helpful
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Jord711
September 22, 2013 9:47:01 PM
nukemaster said:
A power supply defect may cause this issue. All cases of bad memory I have had caused many blue screen errors.Event ID 41 is just as it says, the system shut down improperly. Even a power out will cause that error, so freezing that requires you to reset will cause that issue.
Any luck on getting a friend to lend you a power supply.
Power supplies are one of the most important parts of the system. It by it self can cause all kinds of issues to ANY part of the computer. Quality power supplies are always good to have. I have not had any experience with the unit you have so can not comment on how good or bad it is.
I let the memtest run for a good 3 hours, I needed to use the computer, so I doubt that it's the ram, I'm gonna order the new power supply tomorrow and hope that that fixes the problem, I'll update when it arrives with news
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Windows 8
September 22, 2013 10:34:53 PM
Jord711
September 25, 2013 9:40:56 PM
Jord711
September 28, 2013 4:51:10 PM
Best solution
swifty_morgan
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Windows 8
September 28, 2013 4:56:29 PM
stop using headphones. uninstall the drivers for it. uninstall your amd drivers from add/remove programs. shut down. reset cmos. reboot. when the machine reboots, do a custom/advanced install and ( only install the graphics driver ) for the video card............... no other sound drivers for anything.
use the machine for a while.
use the machine for a while.
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Jord711
September 28, 2013 7:40:29 PM
swifty_morgan said:
stop using headphones. uninstall the drivers for it. uninstall your amd drivers from add/remove programs. shut down. reset cmos. reboot. when the machine reboots, do a custom/advanced install and ( only install the graphics driver ) for the video card............... no other sound drivers for anything. use the machine for a while.
I re-installed windows 8, didn't install catalyst, only graphics card driver, didn't touch any other drivers, and I've played a few games without issues, fingers crossed
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Jord711
September 29, 2013 9:16:16 AM
swifty_morgan said:
stop using headphones. uninstall the drivers for it. uninstall your amd drivers from add/remove programs. shut down. reset cmos. reboot. when the machine reboots, do a custom/advanced install and ( only install the graphics driver ) for the video card............... no other sound drivers for anything. use the machine for a while.
So far so good, what I did in detail for someone who may be having a similar problem and doesn't know what else to try is: Blow out your slots with compressed air, I switched my ram sticks to the other's slot, so they were still in dual but they were just switched around. I reinstalled windows 8, downloaded ONLY the graphics card driver for hardware drivers that is, and that's it. Thank you both for all of your help and I hope I won't have to revisit this thread for the same issue.
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