thencalebthought

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Hey guys,

I built this system about 2 months ago and it's been freezing up intermittently ever since I built it. there were some initial problems with the video card that I think I cleared up ( no more bsod's)...now it just freezes. the freezes occur pretty randomly...sometimes if i'm playing music...the sound will freeze and result in noise. most of the time, the mouse and keyboard freeze and i can't enter any input...so i just have to restart. upon restart, the freezing is more likely to happen sooner, so I actually need to shut off the power supply and then it is less likely to freeze for a while.

I don't think it's overheating. Coretemp reads a consistent 41 degC

I just ran windows memory diagnostic and it was all clear on the first pass. I'm running the more thorough diagnostic now...so far so good.

I've read that it could be something else with the video card or maybe the sound drivers? (it still tends to freeze up if I enter ATI's catalyst control center). I certainly hope it's not the harddrives...but i'm not sure how to check since I don't know how to run chkdsk effectively on raid 0 configured hd's.

So...any ideas???

here are my system specs:

mobo: gigabyte ep45 ud3p
cpu: core 2 duo e8400 (using prepackaged fan w/ arctic 5)
ram: 2x2gb ocz platinum
gpu: asus eah3450 - dual monitor setup (dvi + vga)
hdd: 2x500gb seagate oed raid 0
psu: 600 W ocz

anything i'm forgetting?

thanks for your help in advance!!!
 

ibnsina

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(First of all, update the Bios, then down load the latest drivers for your Motherboard chipsets, Graphics card, sound card. Also update windows at update.Microsoft.com.)

Finding the cause of this is not very simple and can be quite time consuming. Ensure there are no conflicts shown in Device Manager; if so, make sure you install the drivers for the conflicting devices.


Using the System Configuration utility, you can disable all start-up programs (Diagnostic startup) to see if any program is causing the problem.

To perform a diagnostic startup, follow these steps:

For windows Vista
Click Start, type msconfig in the search box and then click OK.
On the General tab, click Diagnostic Startup, and then click OK.
Restart your computer.


For windows XP
Click Start, click Run, type msconfig, and then click OK.
On the General tab, click Diagnostic Startup, and then click OK.
Restart your computer

If the problem does not occur, run the program again and choose Selective startup mode to try to find the problem by turning individual services and startup programs on or off.


For more information click here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560
(this guide for windows XP, but applies to Vista as well)


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If the problem persists, then try installing the components one at the time until you find out which is the conflicting one.

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Also there are other useful tools in windows , such as Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor which provides a system stability overview and details about events that impact reliability.

To use this program do as follows.

From windows go to Start, the put mouse cursor on Computer (or My Computer in XP) and then press right button on the mouse and click Manage , once the programs opens up, In the navigation tree, expand Reliability and Performance, expand Monitoring Tools, and click Reliability Monitor.

Based on data collected over the lifetime of the system, each date in the System Stability Chart includes a graph point showing that day's System Stability Index rating.

The System Stability Index is a number from 1 (least stable) to 10 (most stable) and is a weighted measurement derived from the number of specified failures seen over a rolling historical period.

Reliability Events in the System Stability Report describe the specific failures. Look at chart can you see any x and i, below 0 . If yes then double click on it. At the bottom it gives more information about the about the cause of Error event, whether it was Application , Hardware, or miscellaneous Windows Failure .

For more information about interpreting the System Stability report, click here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749583%28WS.10%29.aspx


Also look at the even viewer more information click here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766042%28WS.10%29.aspx



 

thencalebthought

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ok, so i updated everything drivers etc...and very soon after that, the freezing got worse. I didn't really get a chance to check out the stability report, but my system was pretty darn unstable. Luckily I was able to back up all my important files to DVD...

so the system start to freeze on boot. As soon as it would get to the welcome screen, it would freeze. After a few restarts (some of which included shutting off the power supply completely), I would be able to get windows to start...and after a few minutes to an hour, it would freeze again. I think this points to a hard disk error no?

At that point I still had a raid 0 configured. Quite frustrated, I decided to forget raid and unplugged both hdds from the raid controller on the mobo, and simply set them each to ide and tried to reinstall windows completely. On each drive, the computer would freeze either while setting up windows or during the windows installation process... can both hdd's really be bad?
they are identical models...and are both still under warranty from seagate. I'm probably going to wma them unless someone else thinks there might be a different problem?

btw, the more thorough ram test showed a mts+ error or something on one of my ram sticks, so i am only using single channel 2gb ram.

could there be a problem with the mobo?

thanks ibsina for your help! any more ideas?
 
Well you could try both RAM sticks seperately. This way you can see if 1 of the sticks is bad. Also I'd use memtest86 for RAM testing.

I would seriously consider trying a different PSU, if you have one laying around or if you can borrow one from a friend. Maybe the PSU is having some temperature issues. OCZ PSU's are okay, but not always the best, so it may/may not be an issue. There are far worse PSU's to have, so keep that in mind.

I would pull everything out of the case and lay it out onto a non-conductive surface (cardboard works well). Plug in only the essential parts (DVD, 1 HD, 1 RAM stick, CPU, & GPU) and then see if you can power up without any issues. If you do, than maybe you have a screw or some metallic part that is shorting out the mobo.
 

thencalebthought

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Well you could try both RAM sticks seperately. This way you can see if 1 of the sticks is bad. Also I'd use memtest86 for RAM testing

i tried the separately, and only 1 had the mts+ error, so I am currently only using 1 stick.

i didn't think it was temperature, because while it was still running i had a cpu temp monitor up and running and the cpu and system hovered around 41 deg and it would still freeze. the psu itself has fan...how would the psu heating up cause a system freeze?

I would pull everything out of the case and lay it out onto a non-conductive surface (cardboard works well). Plug in only the essential parts (DVD, 1 HD, 1 RAM stick, CPU, & GPU) and then see if you can power up without any issues.
i'll give that a try...
 

ibnsina

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As suggested, try to setup the system out side of the case.

Then do a fresh installtions. ( if you like you can try to use Windows 7 Enterprise 90 days trial, download here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx?ITPID=wtcfeed )

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As for the harddrive, you can use SeaTools for Windows, which is a diagnostic tool that helps you quickly determine the condition of the disc drive in your hard drive. It includes several tests that will examine the physical media on your disc drive. download here http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools/
 

thencalebthought

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thanks again for your help guys, here's what i've managed to accomplish so far...

luckily, i had a external sata connector from a previous project lying around, so I did Long Diagnostic Tests on both my harddrives and neither returned any abnormalities...so I guess that rules out a harddrive error.

I ended up also just getting a new graphics card (Zotac 9400 GT) because I want an s-video out on my graphics card anyways and the ATI 3450 didn't have one.

finally, I unplugged everything, took everything out of the case, set everything on my table (which is non-conductive) and tried booting up with only the cdrom, hard drive and monitor (i may have touched some of the solder points on the bottom of the mobo...i don't think that made a difference though). for the most part, things seemed to work fine...with the one exception that when i tried to shutdown, the system froze on shutdown. I have no idea why... but that didn't seem like too big of a deal considering i was actually able to get into windows.

I noticed upon taking everything apart that I screwed up the f_audio port connection on my first install. both the mobo and case support HD audio ports, but their pins are different. I had used the HD pins initially, but since they don't match, do you think it's possible that that might have shorted the system? In any case, I reverted back to simply using the AC '97 audio ports.

now things are working better, but something quirky that is coming up is that after shutting down and restarting, I get a BSOD on windows startup. The system reboots itself and on the second time around, everything is fine. This has happened twice in a row where I get BSOD and then normal startup...any thoughts?

I am now in the process of updating drivers and updating windows...hopefully this takes care of things...I'll keep you posted.

 

ibnsina

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You should try Windows 7, (90 days trial), If its driver related issue, this might solve it. it's a quick installation. Do Update Windows after installation. Then see if you get a Flag next to time/date, this will notify you of any driver issues.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx?ITPID=wtcfeed

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it could be Bios setting that's causing this. Try entering the bios, by pressing Del, then Load default setting. Save and Exit. (updating the Bios might help as well).


 

thencalebthought

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i just tried a windows 7 custom installation twice...the first time i got up through the "expanding windows files" around 70% or so and then got a BSOD with a win2k.sys error.

I rebooted with the fail-safe conditions on my mobo and again got upto around 70% or so and got the BSOD with Ntfs.sys error - "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA"

stop: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFF8A00E2DAD60, 0x0000000000000001, 0xFFFFF88001CC90DF, 0x0000000000000002)

maybe it is a harddrive failure and the seagate check didn't pick it up?

i should add that i am installing the 64 bit windows 7
 

thencalebthought

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ok, i think the bsod's were due to me forgetting to delete partitions that still had xp setup files or something in them...

after running windows 7 installation again and deleting all existing partitions and formatting everything...i got this error at about 90%:

"windows cannot install required files. The file may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files required for installation are available and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070570"
 

thencalebthought

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I think we did it guys...

I now have a fully functional version of windows 7 and I haven't had any issues yet.

I'm not sure what the exact solution was (it could be any one of 3 things), but on my final attempt at fixing this issue before deciding to call my computer an expensive I unplugged the front audio plug from mobo, I switched the ram to a different slot, and I re-burned the windows 7 image to a new dvd using imgburn...

so far, everything is running flawlessly!!

thanks for all your help!!