Completely stumped about severe hanging/freezing issues.

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NocNautilus

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Jun 25, 2013
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I've had pretty bad freezing issues going somewhere on 6 months to a year. It's been getting worse I feel. What happens is, no matter where I am, whether it's browsing in Chrome, or playing any number of games, my computer will just completely lock down – "not responding" – for 15 to 60 seconds, and then continue on as nothing happened (so it won't make me disconnect from a game, but apparently I just stand there doing absolutely nothing and get raged at by my teammates). This happens several times an hour.

I reformatted last night assuming that this was the issue of running the same OS for an eternity and all the drivers and hardware changes that have happened over time, but it didn't fix it at all! Exact same issue on a completely fresh Windows 8.1 install.

Here's my build:

[ ]Fractal Design Define R4
[ ]MSI 970A-G46 Motherboard
[ ]AMD FX-6300
[ ]Corsair H55
[ ]AMD R9 280x Gigabyte 3GB
[ ]Corsair CX600M PSU
[ ]2x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
[ ]Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD [OS Drive]
[ ]Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM HDD [Game Drive]
[ ]3TB Western Digital 5400 RPM HDD [Media Drive]

I can't think of how to diagnose what my issue is. Any help appreciated, thanks!
 
Solution
Tom Tancredi
When you have instability DO NOT OC. Turn off and go back to FACTORY until you figure things out. I can't count the number of 'minor OC' I seen posted that were incorrectly set (they believe it was fine but obvious with the instability it wasn't) and as soon as Factory was done, the issues either went away or the real 'core issue' revealed itself properly.

Your temps are very fine. I see one there on the board that is high, again clean with canned air and paintbrush all vents, fans, etc. and make sure there isn't a dust bunny stuck somewhere.

So your choices I see at this point:
1) STOP all OC
2) Wipe SSD with DBAN reinstall Windows clean
3) Disconnect the HDD and test
4) Swap PSUs and test
5) replace CPU and Mobo (as you wanted)...
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NocNautilus

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Jun 25, 2013
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Huh, I didn't know that power issues could cause hanging, I would assume it would just fail and shut down. Is there a way to test this to guarantee that's my issue before dropping money on a new PSU and having the same problem?
 
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menetlaus

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Jul 19, 2007
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I'd put money on it NOT being the PSU - if you were getting bad power then the entire system would go down in a hard crash.

What it sounds like is some sort of interrupt request that is causing the entire system to wait/pause until whatever caused the interupt request gets resolved.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how to go about fixing it, I have a similar issue that causes my system to act similarly for 1-5s - though seems to be related to storage as it happens most often in gaming the first time something new happens (since I last loaded the game).
 
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NocNautilus

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I'm at work and will check when I get home. I haven't checked my temps in a few months but last I checked I don't remember seeing anything outrageous. That being said, I'll post my temps tonight.
 
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cTs Corvette

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I had something similar happening to me a long time ago, and I finally found the cause, which will probably sound unbelievable, but I'll say it anyway, because it fixed my issue completely: I had disconnected a hard drive and left the SATA cable connected to the motherboard. I assumed that since there was nothing connected to it, it wouldn't cause any problems. After 3-4 months of my computer freezing every few minutes, I finally thought about that SATA cable that went nowhere, and once I disconnected it my problem went ways.
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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Hmmm I would try a new PSU first, just to make sure, but then I would focus on replacing the CPU with a FX-8, depending on the gaming your doing. Honestly with that other hardware it could be 'pausing' to wait on the CPU because it is over taxed. If you were running MSI Afterburner and could see the temps / specs (setting the OSDs) while in game / otherwise - AS You did a CLEAN install. IF you have a ROOTKIT then reinstall wouldn't matter, I would download and make a DBAN CD, wipe the drive clean at the BIT level then try reinstalling to the drive (assuming the SSD is the OS drive).
 
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NocNautilus

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I definitely want to upgrade my CPU, I feel I made an error in choosing the FX series, so I was waiting for the funds for a new motherboard + Intel CPU. I bought this motherboard to overclock as it advertises overclocking, but I've been warned countless times NOT to overclock this board because apparently it's terrible. Huge disappointment.
 
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capt_taco

capt_taco

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It probably is not the power supply causing this problem. It would be a good idea to replace that one eventually, but after you've solved this.

Since you've effectively ruled out a software problem, two things that could cause this are when a mechanical hard drive is starting to fail, or when the RAM is unstable. Since you have a SSD as your primary, I'd look at the RAM first. Try to set the timings and voltage yourself instead of using Auto or XMP, see if that fixes it.

It wouldn't hurt to run memtest86+ on your memory, but if it's just unstable due to settings (as opposed to physically defective), that might not show up.

It may also be a good idea to run a hard drive diagnostic on the game drive; if things are running on it and it's failing, that could cause issues completely separate from the OS.

 
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NocNautilus

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Jun 25, 2013
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Finally got around to getting those temps.
Ok so here it is idle after booting: http://i.imgur.com/CGboKjz.png
And here are my temps after running a load for a while (see Max temps since they cooled down by the time I took the screenshot): http://i.imgur.com/T2zkTMM.png

Also, I forgot I do indeed have a minor overclock, but one where I didn't change the voltage at all (because that's what I can't do on my motherboard).
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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May 9, 2013
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When you have instability DO NOT OC. Turn off and go back to FACTORY until you figure things out. I can't count the number of 'minor OC' I seen posted that were incorrectly set (they believe it was fine but obvious with the instability it wasn't) and as soon as Factory was done, the issues either went away or the real 'core issue' revealed itself properly.

Your temps are very fine. I see one there on the board that is high, again clean with canned air and paintbrush all vents, fans, etc. and make sure there isn't a dust bunny stuck somewhere.

So your choices I see at this point:
1) STOP all OC
2) Wipe SSD with DBAN reinstall Windows clean
3) Disconnect the HDD and test
4) Swap PSUs and test
5) replace CPU and Mobo (as you wanted)

About along these things SOMETHING will change from how it is at this moment and we can narrow the 'culprits' down.
 
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