Computer freezes, suspect the GPU failing

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ahangu

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Dec 1, 2011
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I have a 3 year old system that I made myself and recently started to freeze randomly and when it does, only reboot works. It does not only freeze under heavy load, sometimes works for a full day, sometimes at every start (at windows logon, or 10 sec after windows has loaded)
It freezes in Safe Mode also,
- Windows 7 is freshly installed,
- all drivers up to date
- PSU can handle the hardware
- Voltage / Temperatures register fine
- I have 2 DIMMS of RAM, checked them by removing them one by one, performed a MEMTEST, still freezes
- I have replaced the HDD, worked well for 2 days, then froze again (both were used WD Caviar 160GB and 320GB)
- I have removed newly installed Sound Card, no success
- Cleaned the PC for dust, changed cables for SATA and different power slots, changed port for GPU unit
- Updated BIOS
- CPU fan works well, no temperature fluctuation
- I use an UPS (before buying this one a year ago I had issues with the electricity spiking. When a short fluctuation was happening, only the GPU fan was going off disabling the display. In this case a restart was required)

So after my troubleshooting I suspect the GPU failing, motherboard (which I don't know how to check other than watching the voltage leds and temperatures) or could be both the HDD (awful coincidence that would be)

Next step is to borrow a GPU from a friend to check it out for a week

My hardware:
Asus Crosshair Formula III (motherboard)
AMD Phenom Quad-Core 905e (low energy usage processor)
AMD Radeon HD4770 512MB DDR5 (graphic card)
Asus Xonar DS (sound Card)
2x Western Digital Caviar SATA HDD (160GB and 320GB)
550W Power Supply
4GB DDR3 Kingston (2 DIMMs)
additional case Fan
DVD-RW pioneer
600W UPS unit (only for the unit, not the monitor)


Opinions?
 
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chugot9218

chugot9218

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May 8, 2012
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I would guess that those power fluctuations were probably sourced from your PSU, not the wall. Can you post more information on that? It is recommended to have ~450W for that GPU and with the rest of your components you could be hitting a ceiling if it's a bad brand.
 
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ahangu

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I have changed the PSU a year ago as I was suspecting that myself. The old one was 450W and the new one is 550W. The later, in combination with the UPS, never gave me the power fluctuations again. I have made a necessary calculus on consumption and I found that 450W was enough, but bought a more powerful one anyway

 
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ahangu

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Dec 1, 2011
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SO, I have tested today another GPU from a friend and in the first 10 seconds it froze like before. Not the GPU then

What remains is mobo. How do I test this?
 
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ahangu

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Dec 1, 2011
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I have figured it out! It was the CPU temperature which for this type of processor, AMD Phenom II 905e, should be less than 40 degrees C. I have changed the cooling paste and the temperature never got more than 37 degrees C as opposed to 45 before that. This value was not high enough to raise an alarm, but it seemed to have caused the freezing. There are 4 days since the computer works well.

Hope this will help others
 
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