Computer Dilemma

[jehuty1]

Ok, So I am having some troubles with my computer. I have had this problem for a few months now, and it seems like its getting worse every week. The issue I am having is that my Computer freezes randomly. for instance, playing Call of Duty 4, Ill be playing and the screen will freeze. All Audio stops. I cant do any ctrl+alt+del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc either. no keys are operational. I cant even turn cap locks on or off. The mouse is completely frozen as well. Only thing I can do is increase or decrease my mouse's DPI settings, so I do a hard reboot everytime it happens. Sometimes it will happen after playing for a while, and sometimes it happen after playing for only a few min. So far what I have tried is the following:

I have replace each ram stick one by one eliminating each stick as being faulty.
I have closed all non essential programs, so no programs could be conflicting.
I have run temperature monitoring programs, and my GPU hasnt ever gone above 80c.
I have cleaned all the dust from my system.

I am running low on ideas, other than replacing the GFX card, and reformatting the HDD. both of which arent too viable atm, for the reasons that I dont have money to buy a new card, and I dont want to reformat unless i really have to, lol.

Here are my system Specs:

Windows 7 Enterprise x64
Asus X58 Mobo
Core i7 920 stock
GTX 280 1GB
6GB DDR3 Ram
1TB HDD (560 available)
1200w BFG Tech PSU
Blu Ray drive

I currently run dual monitor setup, one monitor @ 1920 x 1080, and a second (primary) at 2048 x 1152.

if you would like any other Info, please let me know, ill do my best to provide it for you. Also If you have any ideas of what I can do fix this, please post them, because I am out of ideas!

Thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

What power supply do you have?

 

[jehuty1]

What power supply do you have?

Oh I forgot to post that, yea I have a 1200w BFG Tech EX series.

Ill add this to main post too

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Have you run Memtest for at least 12 hours to be 100% sure it is not a RAM issue?

I was just checking some reviews about that PSU ( overkill much? ) and it looks decent although it seems to run really hot and have a pretty high ripple.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/power_supply/bfg_ex-1200_1200w_modular_psu/5

How about CPU temps?

Are you overclocking anything?

 

[jehuty1]

Have you run Memtest for at least 12 hours to be 100% sure it is not a RAM issue?

I was just checking some reviews about that PSU ( overkill much? ) and it looks decent although it seems to run really hot and have a pretty high ripple.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/power_supply/bfg_ex-1200_1200w_modular_psu/5

How about CPU temps?

Are you overclocking anything?

I got this PSU a while ago, after the freezing had been occuring for a month or so. I previously had an Antec 500w PSU, which i knew wasnt enough, so I thought that would fix it.. it didnt, obviously, lol.
Nothing has been overclocked. In fact the only tweaks Ive done to the system were adjusting the GPU fan speeds. so that it would stay below 80c. what is a good program to find CPU temps? I tried CPUz at one point, if i remember correctly, that doesnt have a temp gauge.
I will also check out memtest, thanks for that suggestion.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Speedfan:

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Speccy:

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

HW Monitor:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

And PC Wizard 2010:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/pc-wizard.html

All great programs to have.

 

[jehuty1]

Speedfan:

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Speccy:

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

HW Monitor:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

And PC Wizard 2010:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/pc-wizard.html

All great programs to have.

Thank you sir. My CPU Temps read as this

Core #0 - 51c
Core #1 - 49c
Core #2 - 52c
Core #3 - 52c

These are max temps, after being in game for about 10 min. averaging 50-51c.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Those all look great. Try memtest overnight if you can. Freezing as it is seems to me to be a bad RAM or bad PSU problem and since you seem to have ruled out the bad PSU........It really could be quite a few things including a bad motherboard or something else as well but if I had to bet I would guess a bad stick of RAM.

 

[jehuty1]

ok, will do - and I will report my findings tomorrow then. would it effect the test results if i were doing things on my computer while it was running, like say playing games. Or could it even be beneficial to do that? also, what happens if i do play, and it freezes again? would the test need to be restarted?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Also make sure you have the memory set correctly in BIOS.....correct timings and voltage. Wouldnt hurt to make sure you have the latest graphics driver as well. Make sure you use something like Driver Sweeper when changing drivers. Even when just updating.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

See this thread for instructions:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=33&post=297363&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

Edit: Oops. Skip the install the new card part of course

 

[Deleted member 217926]

ok, will do - and I will report my findings tomorrow then. would it effect the test results if i were doing things on my computer while it was running, like say playing games. Or could it even be beneficial to do that? also, what happens if i do play, and it freezes again? would the test need to be restarted?

Memtest runs outside of Windows. You will have to create a bootable CD to run it. There are good instructions on the site.

http://www.memtest.org/

 

[jehuty1]

oh ok, i understand. thanks