Vista 64-bit "random" freezing

Hi everyone,

First of all I want to apologize because I do see a few of these threads that are similar to this, but each seems to be pretty specific to the user based on hardware and such.

I just built a new machine and I'm running 64 bit version of Vista, but I'm getting seemingly random freezes. Playing games, surfing the internet, typing in Word, etc, it will just freeze up completely - no mouse, keyboard, hard drive activity, etc. I've been scouring lots of forums and such trying to find a solution, I've done things like disabling native command queueing on the SATA hard drive, etc, etc, as suggested by people with similar setups and problems but haven't had much luck.

My setup looks like this for the PC:

EVGA 790i Ultra motherboard
EVGA GeForce 9800 GX2 SSC video card
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC10666)
Seagate SATA 500GB 7200RPM 32MB cache hard drive
An old LG DVD burner using E-IDE
Intel Q9450 processor
Vista 64-bit operating system


For those of you who have had this sort of problem - worst case scenario I install 32-bit XP and things will be stable? or are there other solutions?

Thanks in advance

Yes, I have the latest BIOS and drivers for all components in the system

I've had this problem since a clean install of Vista so I'm not sure if a third party program would be causing these freezes but I'll give it a shot. Any other ideas while I'm trying that?

What would you suggest taking this particular northbridge up to?

Did you have any luck resolving this issue? I have scoured forum after forum with no luck. Like you said, there are a lot of device and software specific problems that just don't seem to fit, it is just a random spastic freeze up.

Looks like you have a very similar set-up to myself and I've been having the exact same problems (random freezes). Just like you they've been happening right from the start and there is no rhyme or reason to the freeze ups.

This is my set-up:

EVGA 790i Ultra motherboard
Intel Q9450 processor
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Cooler
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
BFG GeForce 8800 GT factory OC'd video card - 2 cards (freezes are the same in SLI mode, two card or only one card)
Corsair XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC10666)
Vista Home Premium 64-bit operating system
Hitachi Deskstar SATA 750GB 7200RPM 32MB cache hard drive
LG DVD burner w/ lightscribe using SATA
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600 PCI TV Tuner
Nmedia C98 Media Bay

I've updated all drivers through windows update and then through each manufacturers website. I've also tried running all different BIOS versions with only the last two versions actually improving the situation at all (the 2nd to last version to date works best on my system - BIOS Version 2.053 - NF79_P07.bin
See this link for all the bios versions available for our mobo:
http://www.evga.com/support/drivers/notes/nf79_p08.htm

I put this rig together with no intentions of OCing it because the set-up is already more than what I need for what I use my computer for. However, right from the start I had major problems with stability... Windows often wouldn't even boot with the stock settings. Strangely enough the computer freezes much less since I read a thread suggesting I overclock and play with the voltages. It was no big risk to try since my machine is cooled to the max anyway and I personally would not venture anywhere beyond the Motherboard suggested limits.

Here is my most stable CMOS set-up to date (surprisingly it is almost at the max recommended OC):

CMOS settings:

System Clocks (no adjustment from defaults):
CPU Multiplier = 8X
FSB & Memory Configuration:
FSB-Memory Clock Mode = "Unlinked"
FSB (QDR), MHz = 1600
Mem (DDR) MHz = 1600
Memory Timing Settings = "Optimal"
CPU Configuration:
CPU Thermal Control - TM1 & TM2 Enabled
System Voltages:
CPU Core 1.40V
CPU FSB 1.35V
Memory 2.00V

Let me know if this helps... or you discover anything else that helps please let me know.

I do see that our systems are very similar, with our Mobo's being the main common denominator (other than the CPU and Memory - not likely the problem since my memory is well tested and CPU's are not likely to cause these type of freeze up problems (can anyone else can suggest differently to this?)), so I'm beginning to think we may have just been unlucky and got Mobo lemons?!?

EVGA was very helpful and accommodating when I last talked to them, so I'm thinking I may just talk to them about getting a replacement if we can't come up with something closer to completely stable. Thanks to all for your input and help so far.... great suggestions!

I've had the freezing issue ever since I built this computer several years ago. I had it with Vista/64. Installed the V/32 and had freezing. Reinstalled the OS back to V/64. Still randomly freezes.

The freezing is completely random. I may go several days between freezes or several minutes. Each time is about 45 seconds where I can move the mouse pointer around but cannot do anything else.

I've noticed each time this happens, my HD activity light is lit up solid - no flickering. Looking through the computer mgmt files and logs show nothing out of the ordinary.

I've just sorta lived with it but keep hoping to stumble across a solution.

I haven't updated my NVidia drivers lately. Last I got was 158.24.

Believe it or not, my random freezing came from the old EIDE burner. It would also light up my HDD activity LED and finally one day I put two-and-two together.

This is a simple test / fix though - just unplug the power to all of the EIDE devices.

Also one other thing (by this time, I've moved on to another mobo + cpu) that caused freezing (and crashes) was my memory timings + voltage. I had some Patriot Viper DDR3 memory that didn't report proper EEP profiles. A relatively painless RMA to Patriot cured that problem.

The easiest way to determine if this is hardware related is to boot another OS and see how stable that is. Luckily I am dual booting in Linux and when it couldn't get past the kernel load - I knew something was up.

Fedora (and other distros) offer Live CD's which you can boot directly to without installing anything.

Hope that helps.