Computer Freezing, possibly a motherboard issue

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rjkucia

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My computer has a freezing problem, usually occurring during gaming. When it freezes, the screen does not change from the previous frame, and the speakers play loud sounds (possibly the last few milliseconds of audio repeating). The only solution is to do a hard reset of the computer. I believe my motherboard is the problem because everything worked fine until I upgraded my motherboard, CPU, and memory and added an SSD. The SSD is using Smart Response. Memtest goes through a complete run just fine, however since this is an intermittent problem I may try to run it overnight. The BIOS is fully updated. Temps appear fine, as I have more than adequate cooling.

My hardware is as follows (all stock clocks/voltages):
ASUS P8Z68-V
Core i5-2500K
G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1333MHz
Radeon 5850
OCZ Vertex Plus 60GB
Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB Hard Drive
CM Hyper 212+ Cooler

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
 

rjkucia

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Thanks for your quick reply. I don't record them while I'm playing, but I use Core Temp and Prime95 to test the "maximum" temperature. And playing a game should not make as much heat as Prime95, in my experience. If I remember correctly, the temps never went over 70C.

An additional piece of information: When I restarted after the previous freezing, many files were corrupted and I'm currently running chkdsk to fix them.
 

jmartinezmp

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Those are very good utilities to stress the processors, but not the remaining system. Try to run SpeedFan before playing the game and check the temperatures. Then play the game and switch to the utility from time to time to get any spikes. The processor might be fine, but what about the memory, chipset, etc. Getting those temperatures while playing would be my first try.
 

rjkucia

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I see what you mean. Asus has its PC Probe software that *might* give me even better temperature readings, especially for the mobo and RAM. Does SpeedFan have logging? That way if the system crashes, I can look back at the temps. Also, do you know of any programs I can use to simulate a game, but goes automatically? I know benchmarks like 3DMark do this, but they don't loop, at least in the free version.
 

jmartinezmp

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I had a similar problem; it just crashes when it wants to crash. It was a short. Try reseatting all components back to their places.
Another way to make sure it´s temperature related, open the case, put a really big fanthose household fans) directly into it, and try playing like that. Leave it overnight if you see it still hasn´t crashed. A friend did that until he got a better cooling system.
 

rjkucia

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One thing I keep thinking about is that when I installed the CPU cooler, it seemed like I may have overtightened the screws, because the paint on the PCB came up a little bit. When I realized this I stopped doing this, and you would think that no important wiring would be in such a place, but it keeps popping up in my mind. Anyone have any insight into this?
 

jmartinezmp

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After you try to troubleshoot as much as you can on the software side, I would go back to the hardware and reinstall that heatsink. Upon removal, carefully clean it and check on the PCB if there´s any of the copper conducts/traces/lines that´ve been compromised.
Also, careful with ESD.
 

MrBurns_20

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I had 2 different builds that I used the same Graphics card. A evga 280. The first computer froze in the exact same way you are describing. On this computer 2600k Msi GD65 the screen would start to show artifacts just before it would lock up with a sound loop. Either way, try a different graphics card if you have one. BTW I sent that card back to EVGA and it was defective.
 

jmartinezmp

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If the PCB got compromised, I would take it to a shop to get it looked up. They might fix it by tracing back the lines, but no guarantee, since that mobo might use different layers on the PCB. Do your best reading off those temperatures on the background even if it takes hours.
 

rjkucia

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I would have considered the graphics card, but it worked fine in my previous build, so I don't see any reason why that would be it. I also don't experience any artifacts. And hopefully it doesn't come to that :\
 

hal9k

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Hi,

I had and identical problem with this board. Drives/Cards/other periphery was similar but not the same. I ended up ditching for an ASRock Z68 Pro Gen 3. The ASRock board Works like a champ with no lockups or blue screens. Before I ditched the Asus board, I had narrowed the issue down to the Virtu and Intel HD drivers that were causing instability.
 

rjkucia

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Personally, I adore this board (except for this problem). If it's just a Virtu/Intel HD issue, that would be great! I don't even have any software that uses Quick Sync, so unless the library of software that utilizes it expands I would have no problem disabling it. Did you completely uninstall both drivers, or just disable the integrated graphics?
 

jmartinezmp

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Good call;Nice utility. Please make sure to disable those components one by one and testing at each attempt. Disabling all at once might fix it, but then you won´t know which one was the culprit.
 

zanegray

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Hey all,

Just wanted to get into this discussion - My build is displaying very similar if not identical problems. When I play Battlefield Bad Company 2 for what seems to be a random duration (10 min to 2 hours), my computer will freeze up. The screen shows the last screenshot that was present, and a sound loop plays that sounds like a machine gun almost. Hard reset required. Interestingly enough, this has also happened while my computer is idle, running iTunes.

My Specs:
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
XFX 6950
CMPSU-850TX 850W
Intel Core i7-920
CORSAIR XMS3 6GB
Windows 7 64 bit

So far, what I have tried is this:

Updating graphics driver

I have run memtest86+ overnight. About 7 passes, without a single problem.

I have changed BIOS to manual clock the memory to rated specs (1600, 9-9-9-24), and tried X.M.P settings

Tried to disable my onboard sound via BIOS - I am using the sound output via HDMI on the Graphics card.

Underclocking graphics card via ATI suite.

I have run FurMark 3D to stress test the graphics card and I have run that program for 2 hours without any problems.

I have also logged temperatures and computer state when a crash happens using AIDA64. Temperatures are fine I think. Graphics card is about 82 at max, I can't remember the exact numbers, but I can post the log if it would help. I really don't think this is the issue since I have had this happen during idle.

I am still not sure if this problem is software or hardware??? I have a separate hard drive running Ubuntu, but I don't really have any graphically intense software to test. And haven't been able to reproduce the crash in Ubuntu as regularly as I can in windows. I have only had my system crash once in Ubuntu.


At this point, I am kinda stuck. If anyone has any ideas about what I could try I would be VERY grateful.

Thank You in advance!
 

rjkucia

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Try OCCT, got my system to crash better than FurMark. For me I'm 99% sure it's related to the integrated graphics (whether it's the hardware, driver, or Virtu, I'll figure out later), but you don't have that. But it's most likely software related, at least in my case. Does this occur in other games?
 

jmartinezmp

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I think we are entering another side here with the "idle" fact. If it also crashed while on idle, then I would check Power Management to configure it for Full Performance disabling any device who would want to turn off while not being used. If you use AVG Antivirus, check that "Game Mode".
 
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