PC randomly freezes after instaling new r7 260x

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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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Hellou,

after days of troubleshooting I decided to ask around here for some help, seeing that I learned most things about computers from this forum. Before I continue, this is my rig:

PSU: Corsair GS600 80 PLUS® Bronze Certified Power Supply “2013 Edition”
MOBO: Asus sabertooth 990fx r2.0
CPU: AMD FX 8350
CPU cooler: Hyper Evo 212+
RAM: 2 sticks of Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333 Mhz XMS3 CMX4GX3M1A1333C9
HDD primary: Seagate Barracuda ST3250410AS 250 GB - to be replaced with Samsung EVO 256 GB SSD
HDD storage: Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB
GPU: Asus R7260X-OC-2GD5

I bought the PSU, MOBO, CPU and RAM about a year ago and with it had a PowerColor HD3870 GPU which started failing so I replaced it with an 260x. After I replaced the card my PC started to randomly freeze, be it while installing a program, copying files or just being idle (once even during windows update after restart). The PC would freeze after 10 minutes, or after 10 hours, no rules. Also, while playing games no problems occured.

First i suspected my primary HDD could be causing the freezes so i ran Seagates Seatools on it and it found 11 bad sectors which it replaced.

I reinstalled Windows (HDD formated), tried updating to the newest omega GPU driver, and tried the driver that Windows found, but it didn't help at all. I also ran memtest86+ on both sticks of RAM, and individually on each stick and found that one was faulty (1 error in 3 passes) so i took out the faulty stick and, but the computer would still freeze randomly.

Afte that i installed the latest version of Ubuntu, and the computer worked fine for a few hours, but than I had to go to work. The computer is still running and I will check and post if it froze or not when i get home.

My question is how should i proceed with testing and finding the faulty component. I suspect the GPU because the freezes started to occur after installing it, but I'm open to any suggestions on what component to check. If it runs normally on Ubuntu does that mean that the drivers are faulty? If it froze on Ubuntu as well I will try placing the card in a different PCIe slot.

All parts were bought in a store and are under warranty (except the old seagate HDD) so it's not a problem to replace them, I would just like to find out what it is i need to replace so any help is much appreciated.
 
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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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Damric, thank you for your reply.

I just got home and found the computer running smootly on ubuntu (64-bit) for the last 24 hours. I will leave it on for at least another 12 hours, but I'm starting to think that the freezes occur only on windows.

First I had windows 7 (64-bit) which was running on my computer for at least a year, and the freezes started when I instaled r7 260x. After the freezes started I installed windows 8.1 (64-bit), but no progress was made until booting Ubuntu.

As I've read on this forum (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1677802/hardware-software-freeze.html), a 32 bit Windows OS is more tolerant for bad sectors than a 64 bit version. It also states that "linux for example, do not allow for them ever."

If that's the case, and my PC didn't freeze on Ubuntu, I am a bit confused. Is it right to assume that the windows drivers for my GPU are faulty, or should i run seatools for bad sectors again?

Thanks for your help with fixing this problem.
 
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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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UPDATE:

So, i tried installing windows again (on the old seagate) and they worked well for a day and a half but started to freeze again. After that i installed windows on a separate HDD (WD caviar green) and windows froze as well.

The one thing that is in common to all freezes is that I installed the latest amd omega drivers for my gpu just before they started to occur. Now I reinstalled windows again and am going to test how it works with windows "standard VGA graphics adapter" driver.

Does this mean that my GPU is faulty (because it fails when I update drivers) or are the drivers faulty (which would be weird, because I guess they work on other systems, since it's an official driver)?
 
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damric

damric

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Sep 17, 2010
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I'm sorry I've been following but I'm at a loss here. I'd really like to see a new drive (HDD or SSD) in that rig.

BUT, something I just thought of:

You can make a bootable linux disk or flash drive that will simply run in RAM and not even need a HDD/SSD. So make one. Be sure to unplug all your drives, then start stress testing. I would say some prime95 blend to really test that CPU and memory. I should have thought of this before.
 
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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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Thanks, great idea, I'll do this over the weekend and post results.

By the way, the other drive I installed windows on (WD caivar green) is new, bought it a few weeks ago.
 
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damric

damric

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It might be a problem with the SATA controller on the motherboard. It's going to be hard to diagnose that problem. You may end up having to RMA that Sabertooth. Regardless, let's try the bootable linux and stress everything else over the weekend so that we can eliminate all other possiblilities.
 
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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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Sorry for not posting in a while, I've been busy. I haven't run the bootable linux and stressed my PC yet, but what i did do is try the last 6-7 versions of drivers from AMD and the freezes occur on every version.

As before, when I uninstall drivers (with amd catalys instal manager and Guru3D DDU) everything works fine. I'll put try the asus drivers now, and if this is still going to happen I'll RMA the GPU and get an R9 270 and see if that helps.

Also, I'm trying to get my hands on some other GPU that i could borrow and test my PC that way. When i make some progress, or complete all the tests, I'll post back. Once again, thanks for your help.
 
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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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Sorry for the long absence, It's not as easy to RMA a PC component in my country. The r7 260x is currently at the place where they will diagnose it and tell me their opinion (don't know whats the word in english for that).

Luckily, a friend borrowed me his radeon 6570 and so far it's working nicely, I installed it today. The drivers for both cards are the same (amd omega) so I'll post back in a few days when i see if everything is okay now.
 
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Frcko

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Dec 2, 2013
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It's Croatia. Anyway, ecerything worked with my friends card, and I finnaly got mine replaced and everything is working fine, glad to say :) Thank you for your help Damric, I appreciate it!
 
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