Windows 7 Crashing/Freezing/Locking Up

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CodemasterRob-1373358

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Recently my computer has begun to lock up during or after a game is closed. During a game, it only happens during a loading screen (this is on any game, no specifics). After a game, when exiting to the desktop, the computer runs fine for 10-20 seconds before becoming completely unresponsive (accepts no form of input and all items on screen freeze, along with any sound freezing and turning into a buzz). I've already ran anti-virus, defragmented my disk, reinstalled drivers, uninstalled applications, changed power settings, and standard clocked every piece of hardware. This only happens with games, not after closing any other application, and it never happens during actual gameplay, only during loading screens and start screens. Games run fine at the normal frame rate and such. I'm suspecting the hard drive, as my motherboard and GPU had to be replaced after an incident involving a drop of water.

System specs:
i7 3770k @3.5 GHz
ASRock Extreme 3 LGA 1155
2x4 GB GSkill Ripjaws X
Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti 2GB
500 GB HDD

This is a recurring problem. Last time I fixed it by deleting FRAPS, or at least that's what seemed to fix it. I haven't been able to fix it doing this this time. I'm open to any and all suggestions, including re-installing Windows 7.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I just installed an update and on start up I got an error message. The window header said "ie4uinit.exe - Application Error" and the body said "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b). Click OK to close the application".

From my research, this is the Internet Explorer updater, and it's a system32 application. I don't understand how, but could this be the source of my problems? It's the first time I've seen this.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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1) My temps are the average for GPU and CPU under load and idle; i.e. 60C - 90C and the case internal never goes over 30C
2) I have a 750W Bronze Certified PSU (That's my bad for not including that)
3) I haven't run a Memtest yet, but I will when I get home.
4) I have not checked the status of the drive yet. I will also do that
5) It occurs during or after every 3D game
6)Will do

Hopefully this'll help pinpoint the problem. Thanks for the suggestions Tom.
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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1) 90C is bad, over 70s is bad in general for cards. Are you OCing ?
3) Okay waiting to see results
4) Okay waiting
5) Okay based on the temps I am more worried your cooking your card. I would make sure it is dusted out (canned air), use a incense near the fans to see the airflow, make sure hot air is bing pushed out in the case, check cabling, and potentially look for a better cooler (instead of stock).
6) Still should do this, as a bad driver install could misleadingly tell the GPU to keep cranking when it shouldn't and drive up the temps as well. So let's make sure we eliminate this potential issue.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I mistakinly only put the CPU temps. I'm sure the GPU was far lower than 90. Anyway, I can't post pictures on here apparently, but I just got home and when I turned on my monitor I was greeted by "FRAPS error 8" saying "DirectX 9 failed to initialize, please make sure drivers were properly installed and your DirectX installation is up to date."

I'm going to run the memtest, check the drive status, and reinstall the drivers in a few minutes after I get some work around the house done. I'll leave Battlefield open and have the GPU monitor run so I can get you the temp results.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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Alright, GPU temp idles at 30C and after running Need for Speed Rivals for a few minutes it hit 39C before I alt-tabbed to check the temp and got the inevitable crash. I noticed horrible texture pop-in while I set the car up on the street in-game too.

Also, I don't think it's possible to reinstall DirectX 9 as it's built in to Windows 7. That'd essentially require a full reinstall. Which I'll likely do if I can't fix this today or tomorrow. Doing the memtest and all of that now.
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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Yes you can download and update DirectX, I have 7 and you still need to especially if key files (as told to you) got corrupted then run a WEI (Windows Experiance Index) scan, because many times without WEI run, it won't allow you to turn at the graphics levels you try as your system is 'rated' far below (stupid I know but I had it happen many times).
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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Belarc Advisor showed C drive as healthy. The WEI clocked my processor and RAM at 7.7, all graphics at 7.9, and hard drive at 5.9. I also attempted to install this (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35) and I was told I'm up to date. I also ran dxdiag.exe in x64 mode and it returned this: "The file nvd3dumx.dll, nvwgf2umx.dll, nvwgf2umx.dll, nvd3dum, nvwgf2um, nvwgf2um is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer."

Last thing to do is uninstall and reinstall all of the drivers. Here goes nothing.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I've reinstalled the graphical drivers after using Driver Sweep to completely uninstall them and it's done nothing to change or help the problem. I can't help but feel like this is something wrong with my hard drive because of the ludicrous amount of texture pop-in I get. Also, my mouse does not work until 10~ seconds after I login (I also noticed the login success sound playing long after I've logged inl). I also always get a UAC prompt for Net Command when logging in as well. Any other recommended course of action?
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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Well ultimately it comes down to then two ideas. You can run DBAN and wipe the drive clean then do a clean install of Windows, Drivers and Apps. This will also TEST the HDD, that such amount of 'work' done would stimulate any errors to determine the drive is failing. If clear reinstall of windows drivers (BTW there is a new Beta out I just DL'd it), and you reduced graphics levels in the game and no matter what it still occurs, then something is hosed in Windows and a clean reinstall would be the next step.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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That may be what I need to do. However, last night I gave in and switched over to integrated graphics and none of the freezing occurred when running or exiting games. As soon as I switched back to my 660 Ti the problems re-emerged. I'm going to try switching the PCI-e slot it's in and see if that helps any.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I switched PCI-e slots, reseated the RAM, and cleaned off everything and the problem still persists. And I was misusing my terminology. The texture mapping is what's a problem in-game, not pop-in. The mountains in Need for Speed Rivals take really simple form and slowly you see large patches of squares and such and the mountain seems to build itself. Same goes for the road and shadows. Sounds like the memory on the card is going bad.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I'll ask my computer management instructor if I can borrow the GTX 650 one of the class computers has, or I'll take mine in and test it on a different computer. It's well under the 3 year warranty, but it's the second card I've had as my last one died due to a power outage. Gigabyte's RMA service was horrible and it took them a month and a half to get me a new card. I dread doing it again.

Mind you though that on the integrated graphics my framerate on the game was so slow that the computer had plenty of time to load textures far before I ever got near objects. So it's not the most reliable test. I'll try a few lower end games and see if the results are the same. Maybe even disable the integrated graphics and see if that's affecting anything.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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Coming back to confirm that this is a hardware problem. It's either the graphics card or the motherboard, but I'm not sure which yet. I wiped the drive, installed Windows 8.1 and started up Gmod. After a few minutes of Trouble in Terrorist town, I closed the application. Something new happened this time though. The display crashed, as well as the sound, but the sound persisted and continued to play in the background after a few seconds of materializing. After unplugging the HDMI, neither the on-board graphics or 660 Ti responded to it being plugged back in, so I'm pinning the motherboard as a possible source of the problems too. I'll run more test with the integrated graphics and see if that freezes up after a low load game too. If it does, that leaves me with the motherboard (or POSSIBLY the PSU?)
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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Undervolted PSU, easiest to test with a spare / friend's PSU say 600W or more? Check the Google search for computer watt calculator to determine based on your components what your power draw is. Then from there you can determine to try a different video card, and still a issue then your down to Mobo/CPU

Scolling back you said that was the CPU temps, they were still bad for CPUs and your cooking / cooked and damaged the CPU (when high stress involve it 'breaks'), also we never established what your GPU temps are (easiest run MSI Afterburner will HUD in the settings so you can see in games what your doing).
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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No, I got the GPU temps. They were 30C to about 40C under heavy load (I've got about 4 case fans and a fan sitting next to me that indirectly gets some cold air in). I'll rerun the CPU temps with a heavy load game and see what comes up again. I haven't put thermal paste back on it in ages, but it's never given me problems. After I run the test I'll take the heatsink off and give it a look. May be time for a liquid cooler.

Edit: Yes, I know, shame on me for poor maintenance. I had to replace almost the whole thing a few months ago (August) and since then I haven't wanted to open it up in the event that I may cause all of the parts to fail again.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I ran OCCT and it returned these results:

Core 0: Min 33 C; Max 84 C
Core 1: Min 32 C; Max 88 C <---- this caused "Core #1 over maximum value!" to show, ending the test. (Max value is 85)
Core 2: Min 30 C; Max 83 C
Core 3: Min 29 C; Max 82 C

CPUTIN: Min 33 C; Max 51 <--- This seems to be the overall temp, for as long as the test will allow itself to run at 100% usage before Core 1 reaches it's maximum value
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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Sorry for the huge headache Tom. I made sure everything was plugged in right (didn't remove GPU, CPU, or RAM), and started up the computer. Turns out the motherboard speaker hadn't been plugged in all the way. Anyway, now when I turn it on, this happens (in order):

Boot screen (TV shows 1360x760 DVI in the top right and has for a while, even though I use an HDMI cord)
Screen goes dark
Motherboard makes a single, short beep
Computer restarts
Boot screen
UEFI loads Windows 8.1 recovery after saying "Diagnosing computer problems" or something along those lines

And it refuses to boot into the actual Windows partition. Now, ASRock's support website states that 1 beep code means everything is okay. Other websites state that on AMI BIOS's that 1 beep is a DRAM failure, something to do with timing. I haven't pulled the CMOS or reset with jumpers. Should I? The most I've done is reset the BIOS to default settings from within it.
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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Okay in order of my thoughts:

Temps tell us the CPU been cooked for a while and potentially CPU (when heated) the 'cracks' may have occured separation (at microscope level) and thus 'breaking' the processing and causing errors. I would cease all functions and repaste, then try a better cooler for the CPU. Try to get temps down to 50s-60s (normal).

Second: PSU may be undervolting across the board too, but I am more of the mind the CPU AND Mobo may be damaged / failing at this point (considering the temps and all that when 'under load'). When switched (before) to Integrated, there is less processing being done (lower performance from Integrated) and the CPU isn't as stressed to process the RAM data to pass to the GPU to render (which the 660 would demand more to do).

Further your latest problems with a CLEAN install of Win8 (the last thing we should worry about) all still suggest issues. Do you have any Diagnostoc modes in BIOS you can try? Give them all a test OR seek ASRock's website and see if they have any CD/Flash Drive based tests (to eliminate the HDD and Windows) that can really give us a better picture.

Personally I see CPU overheating / probably damaged is a issue, mobo failure, need to test with different PSU, test 660 in another computer to VALIDATE it's health / failure due to all this as my solutions at this point.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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I'll look into new thermal paste and I'm looking to get a job soon, so I may go for a Cooler Master liquid cooler for that i7 (which would be hella expensive to replace).

I'm going to take the whole thing with me to Georgia next weekend while I visit my dad and have it tested at a local shop. So he'll be able to pinpoint any problems by swapping things out.

I actually just got W8 working again. I guess the last crash messed up the system files somehow, as it finally got around to recovering properly and it restored my computer back to Thursday's install.

After all of that, I noticed that my memory mode switched from Single Inline Memory to Dual Inline Memory, something that went completely over my head and I remember actually trying to change a while ago without being able to. I'm going to try again and see if the problem persists.
 
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CodemasterRob-1373358

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Hey Tom. Just coming back to tell you I've made some (not much) progress on this. I went on the Nvidia control panel (something I failed to do this entire time) and lo and behold it had power options. I set that to maximum, and now the system doesn't freeze. Instead, it's doing the same thing it did when I first got the replacement parts. I'll open a game, and within seconds of opening it or seconds of starting any 3D action, the application just closes and I'm sent to my desktop. No error, no message, anything. I had a problem with Serious Sam 3: BFE wanting to turn into a gray screen instead of closing (I guess this is Windows 8's "Not responding" window?). Anyway, I could switch between windows and see chrome and task manager over the top of it for as long as I held alt+tab, and they were rendered fine, so I'm still not sure what to think. Windows Event Log shows absolutely nada in terms of what could be causing this, as there's no event logged at the times of the games closing.
 
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