Home Built Freeze Issues

[onedeviantone]

Hey guys,
Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I built this rig last year in an effort to better understand computer basics and to also be able to play a variety of games.
I am using:
Q6600 Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.4 Ghz
MSI P35 Neo-2 FR Mobo
2Gbx2 OCZ Reaper PC2 6400
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS
500Gb HDD Sata
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 610w Power Supply
Windows XP Home SP2

The issues I am having appear rather frequently lately. I play a lot of Steam ( Valve) based games and when I load in to game sometimes it locks up on the map or when loading to the next map. I can turn off the comp via power button and when it restarts it boots but will not load Windows. then I have to power down and restart it again. Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated as I am quite a noob when it comes to properly troubleshooting comp issues. Thanks again.

 

[graffspree]

Have you checked your temps with PCWizard or a similar program?

After you restart does it run normally until you try to play a game again?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Just a thought but have you defragged lately? Steam seems to really run better with a defragged drive and even has an option to defrag game files for you. That shouldnt make your computer not load windows after locking up though. If running Steam is the only time this happens try reinstalling it.

 

[Twoboxer]

When a year-old rig freezes, there are lots of possibilities. So eliminate the easy ones quickly.

Drivers: Uninstall all nVidia software except mobo chipset stuff (I didn't check your mobo specs). Download the latest drivers (let nVidia try to detect your gcard) and install. Fixed? If no, did you update drivers recently before the crashes started? If so, try going back to a previous driver.

Steam: Steam itself, if the only source of freezes, as mentioned above.

Heat: Use CPUID Hardware Monitor and watch your core and gpu temps. Any Correlation?

Stress test: If no correlation to heat under normal load, run Prime95 for at least an hour, if temps allow. This will drive memory and cpu without agitating your gcard. Does it fail? If so, this tends to eliminate gcard, and point to psu, mobo, timings, memory.

Memory: If Prime95 fails and its not heat-related, remove one stick of memory and redo the stress test. Then the other. If both these tests fail, increase memory voltage by small steps up to but NOT OVER 2.1V. Repeat tests.

Finally, I don't like the trouble rebooting after a power off. You might try clearing CMOS and making whatever few changes in BIOS you really need, then save and try again.

Have these freezes *always* been there, and are now just getting more frequent. If so, tell us more.

 

[onedeviantone]

I appreciate the responses guys. I will try these options out when I get home.

Twoboxer: It may have been one freeze every 30-45 days and then the comp seemed to slow down. I cleaned the registry and that didn't fix it so a friend suggested I format it which "we" did. This drive is Partitioned three ways, as well. It was formatted within the past month. It worked great for a couple days then back to the freeze issues.

 

[marco324]

could be your memory more juice timings ?

 

[skora]

Any specific games in steam or all of them? V-sync always seems to cause problems for me in UT3 on steam, so I unchecked it. No problems since. Same thing with FO3. Well, it fixed some, but that game is still full of bugs.

 

[Twoboxer]

Twoboxer: It may have been one freeze every 30-45 days and then the comp seemed to slow down. I cleaned the registry and that didn't fix it so a friend suggested I format it which "we" did. This drive is Partitioned three ways, as well. It was formatted within the past month. It worked great for a couple days then back to the freeze issues.

Disk size and percent used?

Hehe I once had FRAPS installed to watch frame rates in MMOs. But this particular time I had assigned an obscure key combination as the Hotkey to "take a video". While playing WAR, I then cleverly assigned the same "obscure" key combination to a combat macro.

Could not understand it when my system slowed to a halt . . . full disk . . . how did that happen . . . listed files by size . . . HOLY CRAP, what are all these movies?

 

[onedeviantone]

Any specific games in steam or all of them? V-sync always seems to cause problems for me in UT3 on steam, so I unchecked it. No problems since. Same thing with FO3. Well, it fixed some, but that game is still full of bugs.

Skora, I play a lot of L4D and TF2. Left 4 Dead is where the majority of the problems have been. Some times it's slow to load. It will "burp" while playing or lock up or freeze when changing maps.