Random freezes - could it be PSU?
Tags:
-
Power Supplies
-
Components
- Product
Last response: in Components
explosionman
July 12, 2011 10:53:48 AM
I'm getting random freezes on my new setup. It happens probably every hour or two and everything just slows to a halt, then after about another minute to 3 minutes it returns to normal. Could it be my PSU?
My setup is as below:
- Asus P8X68-V Pro Motherboard
- Intel Core i7 2600K with Thermalright MUX-120 cooler
- 16GB Corsair Vengeance (4 x 4GB) CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
- 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD (Boot Drive)
- Windows 7 HP x64
- XFX HD 6870 Black Edition
- Antec Earthwatts EA500 500W PSU
It is NOT overclocked but set up with XMP enabled, however I have tried disabling this and it still freezes.
I have run MEMTEST on my memory and all is OK, plus reseated the GPU and CPU + cooler so thinking it must be the PSU but just want to check with the experts first!
Thanks.
My setup is as below:
- Asus P8X68-V Pro Motherboard
- Intel Core i7 2600K with Thermalright MUX-120 cooler
- 16GB Corsair Vengeance (4 x 4GB) CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
- 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD (Boot Drive)
- Windows 7 HP x64
- XFX HD 6870 Black Edition
- Antec Earthwatts EA500 500W PSU
It is NOT overclocked but set up with XMP enabled, however I have tried disabling this and it still freezes.
I have run MEMTEST on my memory and all is OK, plus reseated the GPU and CPU + cooler so thinking it must be the PSU but just want to check with the experts first!
Thanks.
More about : random freezes psu
Richard226
July 12, 2011 12:58:30 PM
have you tried it with just 1 stick of 4GB of ram? it would be a good way to rule that you have not just got a board that 16GB does not sit well with (there can be differences in every board). I have heard most people get good results out of using 8GB and 16gb is certainly alot so my hunch would be RAM not PSU (it would normally crash not slow down). Out of curiosity what do you do that needs 16GB of ram?
Richard226
July 12, 2011 12:59:58 PM
Related resources
- Could AHCI be causing random disk stalls and freezes? - Forum
- Random freezes with no BSOD - what could it be? - Forum
- Computer crashes/freezes, display has random 'pixelated' colors: PSU, motherboard, or GPU? - Forum
- Could my PSU be causing random shutdowns? - Forum
- [CPU/PSU] Random freezes overheating/bad PSU? - Forum
vdulgerian
July 12, 2011 1:00:41 PM
explosionman said:
I'm getting random freezes on my new setup. It happens probably every hour or two and everything just slows to a halt, then after about another minute to 3 minutes it returns to normal. Could it be my PSU?My setup is as below:
- Asus P8X68-V Pro Motherboard
- Intel Core i7 2600K with Thermalright MUX-120 cooler
- 16GB Corsair Vengeance (4 x 4GB) CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
- 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD (Boot Drive)
- Windows 7 HP x64
- XFX HD 6870 Black Edition
- Antec Earthwatts EA500 500W PSU
It is NOT overclocked but set up with XMP enabled, however I have tried disabling this and it still freezes.
I have run MEMTEST on my memory and all is OK, plus reseated the GPU and CPU + cooler so thinking it must be the PSU but just want to check with the experts first!
Thanks.
Explosion, try running event viewer in Windows and see if any errors are being reported. If so, look them up online for descriptions and solutions. I've have been getting random freezes on my pc and that tool was very helpful in identifying the problem. Turns out it was an issue with windows 7.
explosionman
July 12, 2011 2:08:24 PM
Thanks for all your quick replies.
I have notched the voltage up by about 0.5v on the RAM and so far so good - it seems to have done the trick but I'll give it a couple of days until I stop worrying!
Richard226 - I went for 16GB RAM as I work on lots of complex Photoshop and Video, plus got a good deal so thought why not. Only upgrade every 5 or 6 years so it's a nice treat.
Very impressed with the set-up (when not freezing) - boots in to full Windows in less than 20 seconds and apps load in an instant. No more going to make a cup of tea when doing something a little taxing in Photoshop!
I have notched the voltage up by about 0.5v on the RAM and so far so good - it seems to have done the trick but I'll give it a couple of days until I stop worrying!
Richard226 - I went for 16GB RAM as I work on lots of complex Photoshop and Video, plus got a good deal so thought why not. Only upgrade every 5 or 6 years so it's a nice treat.
Very impressed with the set-up (when not freezing) - boots in to full Windows in less than 20 seconds and apps load in an instant. No more going to make a cup of tea when doing something a little taxing in Photoshop!
Richard226
July 12, 2011 4:27:06 PM
neograndizer
July 15, 2011 10:36:44 PM
You have the OCZ Vertex 3 as your boot drive.
When the symptoms happen, do you notice the hdd led activity light is on (doesn't flicker-just remains on)? If so, then it's more than likely that it's the SSD causing the stall/freeze. This is happening to me with the Agility 3 SSD. Apparently there's a problem with these next gen SSDs.
Some solutions appearing are:
Make sure SSD is not plugged into the Marvell port; plug it into the Intel port instead and make sure settings are set to AHCI and not IDE. Also make sure you have the latest Intel RST drivers installed.
Enable 'Hot Plugging' for the Vertex 3.
Go into Windows Power Options and make sure Hard Disk>Turn off hard disk after>Setting: Never
Update the firmware for the SSD (I had 2.06 and updated to 2.08-so far everything seems fine 'knock on wood').
Check some of these threads at OCZ Support Forum:
[Win7] OCZ Vertex 3 120GB short freeze (Firmware 2.06)
Constant Freezing and BSOD with Vertex 3
There's many more over there...
When the symptoms happen, do you notice the hdd led activity light is on (doesn't flicker-just remains on)? If so, then it's more than likely that it's the SSD causing the stall/freeze. This is happening to me with the Agility 3 SSD. Apparently there's a problem with these next gen SSDs.
Some solutions appearing are:
Make sure SSD is not plugged into the Marvell port; plug it into the Intel port instead and make sure settings are set to AHCI and not IDE. Also make sure you have the latest Intel RST drivers installed.
Enable 'Hot Plugging' for the Vertex 3.
Go into Windows Power Options and make sure Hard Disk>Turn off hard disk after>Setting: Never
Update the firmware for the SSD (I had 2.06 and updated to 2.08-so far everything seems fine 'knock on wood').
Check some of these threads at OCZ Support Forum:
[Win7] OCZ Vertex 3 120GB short freeze (Firmware 2.06)
Constant Freezing and BSOD with Vertex 3
There's many more over there...
james_k_p
August 28, 2011 2:34:37 AM
Thanks for this info. I was having this problem. Using a OCZ3-Solid, I'd lock up and BSOD on the Marvel 6gb SATA on my Asus P8Z68-V Pro.
I had moved it to the slower 3gb intel and the problems went away besides on lock last week while playing a game and the hard drive activity light was solid.
I was on 2.06 still (on the OCZ).
I've updated it just now to the latest, 2.11, and moved it back to the Marvel controller. I hope this problem goes away.
Edit: I also updated the BIOS on my motherboard too. I'm not sure what it came with, but I upgraded it to 0606 which is the latest on the asus website as of this posting. I'm guessing it was the previous one, 0501.
I'll bookmark this and report back if it happens again.
I had moved it to the slower 3gb intel and the problems went away besides on lock last week while playing a game and the hard drive activity light was solid.
I was on 2.06 still (on the OCZ).
I've updated it just now to the latest, 2.11, and moved it back to the Marvel controller. I hope this problem goes away.
Edit: I also updated the BIOS on my motherboard too. I'm not sure what it came with, but I upgraded it to 0606 which is the latest on the asus website as of this posting. I'm guessing it was the previous one, 0501.
I'll bookmark this and report back if it happens again.
zero888
August 31, 2011 11:25:58 AM
Richard226 said:
also just noticed that your using a 500w psu..... upgrading that is not a bad idea, maybe with a cosair modular one 850w... but again depends on your budgetwhat the crap are you on about? you dont need an 850w psu unless your running dual gtx580's and an overclocked quad core CPU. 500w Antec is plenty for that setup, antec is better than corsair IMO.
james_k_p
September 7, 2011 5:15:24 AM
Well I'm updating my previous post. It looks like updating what I did fixed it. I have not had one lock up or bsod where the hard drive light stays on.
I had one other lockup/BSOD and Blue Screen 0x7A: KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR that I later traced to a Toshiba USB drive I had that was getting controller and drive errors in the windows/system event log.
I knew this one was different as the harddrive light did not stay on like all the other locks before.
So I guess I had 2 issues going on.
Anyways, with that usb drive removed, and the updates, I have been error free (in lockups and event log errors) for a week and a half.
I believe I have a totally healthy system now..finally
. Glad I found this thread. Thanks neograndizer. Without that info about these OCZ SSDs, I would have probably ended up replacing the motherboard out of frustration.
James
I had one other lockup/BSOD and Blue Screen 0x7A: KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR that I later traced to a Toshiba USB drive I had that was getting controller and drive errors in the windows/system event log.
I knew this one was different as the harddrive light did not stay on like all the other locks before.
So I guess I had 2 issues going on.
Anyways, with that usb drive removed, and the updates, I have been error free (in lockups and event log errors) for a week and a half.
I believe I have a totally healthy system now..finally
. Glad I found this thread. Thanks neograndizer. Without that info about these OCZ SSDs, I would have probably ended up replacing the motherboard out of frustration. James
james_k_p
September 7, 2011 3:28:22 PM
So I had to open my big mouth and post this last night right?
I wake up this morning to a wonderful BSOD with the same 0x7A: KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR.
I'm ticked off. I'm getting ready to throw this OCZ POS out the window.
I've seen some posts on different forums saying that when you get this error, it could be a harddisk issue, or even a bad cable. I did buy some new 6gb SATA cables to test this if I got another BSOD...so I'll try to make this change swap of cables tonight.
Mind you I'm still using a 3tb WD USB harddisk too.
I'm thinking about just buying another brand ssd and installing everything to it and make this drive a secondary.
I wake up this morning to a wonderful BSOD with the same 0x7A: KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR.
I'm ticked off. I'm getting ready to throw this OCZ POS out the window.
I've seen some posts on different forums saying that when you get this error, it could be a harddisk issue, or even a bad cable. I did buy some new 6gb SATA cables to test this if I got another BSOD...so I'll try to make this change swap of cables tonight.
Mind you I'm still using a 3tb WD USB harddisk too.
I'm thinking about just buying another brand ssd and installing everything to it and make this drive a secondary.
neograndizer
September 8, 2011 12:54:07 AM
james_k_p
September 8, 2011 2:25:08 AM
neograndizer said:
This problem with OCZ is pretty annoying. I'm on v2.08 and most of my issues seem resolved. I still, however, suffer from the occassional crash in a few weeks. I heard the M4s are better than the OCZ.Good luck with the wires. Hopefully it'll fix the current issue.
Yeah, I really don't know what to make of it. I changed the cables out, we'll see how long I get until the next bsod. I've read that motherboards sometime pack cheap cables. But seriously, what cables aren't cheap?
This is what I bought and installed on the 6gb ports: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
If another one happens, my plan is to buy a large internal drive, disconnect the usb (to eliminate usb drives altogether), then buy another ssd and reinstall everything to it. It will take a few weeks to get together the money.
But what I'm not going to do is reinstall everything from scratch onto this OCZ to make sure it's not some corruption or some other bull. Because I have so much setup on here for video recording/editing and other things I do with this, it would take too much time. If I would and the same thing happened, I'd probably destroy the pc. lol
Then I'll probably use the ocz as a secondary drive to install large games on, but keep it away from being a boot drive.
I'll keep you informed.
Take what I write with a grain of salt but I'm here to speak about what i hear.
Basically from what i understand, in the tech industry (actual big companies, giant servers etc), OCZ and other's SSD's are usually considered blazing fast when it's working but when SHTF, they usually fail completely. Hence why most companies prefer intel ssd's not because they're fast as the other ssd's from other companies, but they're damned reliable...
Just sayin
Basically from what i understand, in the tech industry (actual big companies, giant servers etc), OCZ and other's SSD's are usually considered blazing fast when it's working but when SHTF, they usually fail completely. Hence why most companies prefer intel ssd's not because they're fast as the other ssd's from other companies, but they're damned reliable...
Just sayin
james_k_p
September 8, 2011 4:49:24 AM
Well I'm totally open to any brand ssd.
I didn't know Intel's were deemed the most reliable. I was looking at the crucials as they were rated pretty high on newegg.
I don't need to have the fastest transfer rate as it's so fast already being an ssd, I wouldn't notice different.
I may go with an intel then. I know it's pretty new technology, but at this point, I just want it working solid. Thanks for the tip llotimz.
I didn't know Intel's were deemed the most reliable. I was looking at the crucials as they were rated pretty high on newegg.
I don't need to have the fastest transfer rate as it's so fast already being an ssd, I wouldn't notice different.
I may go with an intel then. I know it's pretty new technology, but at this point, I just want it working solid. Thanks for the tip llotimz.
james_k_p
September 14, 2011 7:17:11 PM
Ok, here's a little update.
I changed out the sata6 cable for the heck of it thinking it wouldn't help. I was right, a BSOD here and there. The thing that kept bothering me about it was that whenever it did BSOD, the harddrive light didn't stay on anymore.
In a way, this made me think I "might" have something else going on as the OCZ crashes always had the hard drive light pegged solid, which is how we know it's a hard drive thing in the first place.
I kept researching the BSODs, and the last few I had gotten had no codes whatsoever which was really confusing.
Well I ran into some forum talking about BSODs and they said to get a free app called "whocrashed" that would read the minidumps and help you figure out what was going on.
Well Well Well....guess what I found? Sure enough, something unrelated to the OCZ! I do alot of video capturing and on this machine I have a Hauppage HD-PVR usb capture device. The WhoCrashed app said it was a driver for this that caused the last crash, so I did some googling and found that the Arcsoft software that come with this device installs some "lower device filter" that does cause BSODs.
This guy's blog talks about it and how to easily remove it with Imgburn:
http://babgvant.com/blogs/andyvt/archive/2008/11/07/fix...
Of course coming here and posting is usually the kiss of death, but since I've done this, not a single crash.
In the end, I was dealing with multiple issues which made it extremely tricky. It seems that the firmware updates to the motherboard and the OCZ drive did resolve my problems with the issues known with the OCZ. I also did what some on the OCZ forums suggest to do after updating the firmware (unplugging, resetting bios on mb, checking a few settings/switches on the motherboard).
I'm pleased to put this behind me now as this machine should last me quite a few years. That's the latest and I hope this helps some people someday. I'll come back if another crash surfaces, but I think I'm good now.
James
I changed out the sata6 cable for the heck of it thinking it wouldn't help. I was right, a BSOD here and there. The thing that kept bothering me about it was that whenever it did BSOD, the harddrive light didn't stay on anymore.
In a way, this made me think I "might" have something else going on as the OCZ crashes always had the hard drive light pegged solid, which is how we know it's a hard drive thing in the first place.
I kept researching the BSODs, and the last few I had gotten had no codes whatsoever which was really confusing.
Well I ran into some forum talking about BSODs and they said to get a free app called "whocrashed" that would read the minidumps and help you figure out what was going on.
Well Well Well....guess what I found? Sure enough, something unrelated to the OCZ! I do alot of video capturing and on this machine I have a Hauppage HD-PVR usb capture device. The WhoCrashed app said it was a driver for this that caused the last crash, so I did some googling and found that the Arcsoft software that come with this device installs some "lower device filter" that does cause BSODs.
This guy's blog talks about it and how to easily remove it with Imgburn:
http://babgvant.com/blogs/andyvt/archive/2008/11/07/fix...
Of course coming here and posting is usually the kiss of death, but since I've done this, not a single crash.
In the end, I was dealing with multiple issues which made it extremely tricky. It seems that the firmware updates to the motherboard and the OCZ drive did resolve my problems with the issues known with the OCZ. I also did what some on the OCZ forums suggest to do after updating the firmware (unplugging, resetting bios on mb, checking a few settings/switches on the motherboard).
I'm pleased to put this behind me now as this machine should last me quite a few years. That's the latest and I hope this helps some people someday. I'll come back if another crash surfaces, but I think I'm good now.
James
james_k_p
October 2, 2011 9:31:30 PM
I'm back.
Well.....the crashes came back. Starting becoming more frequent than they were. I got to the poing where I figured the windows install got messed up from all the bsod's.
I ended up ordering an Intel 510 drive, reinstalled win7 64bit on it and thought I had it fixed......nope....another crash.
So that takes the whole OCZ thing out of it. Although I know I had fixed that once I updated the firmware as the hard drive light would stay on when it crashed.
I then started thinking it has to be the motherboard (and it still may be).
So I then moved the OCZ back in and to the intel controller (sata3gig) and off the marvel sata 6gig port. I'm suspecting maybe that's what it is. Especially the BSOD I received on the new install on the intel drive was caused by supposedly the marvel driver. Of course everything is updated the to very latest from the asus website.
Moving on, last night I was using it...think I was gaming while capping something off TV and I got this really weird error.
This thread kinda describes it as this person had the same issue:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f217/failure-to-...
While not a bsod...it was something new I had never seen before. It was quite bizarre. I could alt tab through the open apps, but it was like the windows explorer crashed and I couldn't see icons, taskbar, nor did it allow me to pull up the task manager to end tasks, restart explorer.exe or anything.
I had to kill power.
Doing research for this crash, I found several threads..many of them very old and vista related. But in one someone eluded to his power supply was "arcing" or something and was bad and changing it fixed it.. Hmmmmmm really?
This is the one thing I have not updated with all the new parts. It's a 2 year old cheap-o special that I bought years ago. I didn't add it on my sig as I couldn't even remember what it was..until last night when I took it out. It's an Apevia 700watt. I looked it up on my newegg history and I paid a cool $39.99 for it back in '09.
So for one troubleshooting reason or another, I had already bought another 700w coolmax a year ago that I never even plugged up. It just sat in the box, waiting for something like this.
So suspecting my power supply could be flaking out, I swapped it out last night. Of course it's only been a day, but Sunday's I really work my PC hard. I do some streaming stuff and also recording of some football games on the machine, and the last 2 sundays while doing this, it's crashed. Today I even upped up the ante a little and recorded TWO games at once while doing streaming stuff, and no problem.
I figured this was my last straw as I actually had requested a RMA from ASUS to return the motherboard.
Sooooo so far so good. The only thing not to be changed or checked at this point is the RAM, the motherboard, and the cpu itself.
Anyways...I figured I'd come back to update this for those who were originally following my plight. lol I was going to tear down the PC tonight and return the MB tomorrow, but since this might have nipped it, I'll put it off for a week since the RMA is good for 30 days. If I can make it a week without any issues, I know I'm good.
I'll be back in a week. It's quite ironic though how the thread starter asked if his could be PSU related. LOL
James
Well.....the crashes came back. Starting becoming more frequent than they were. I got to the poing where I figured the windows install got messed up from all the bsod's.
I ended up ordering an Intel 510 drive, reinstalled win7 64bit on it and thought I had it fixed......nope....another crash.
So that takes the whole OCZ thing out of it. Although I know I had fixed that once I updated the firmware as the hard drive light would stay on when it crashed.
I then started thinking it has to be the motherboard (and it still may be).
So I then moved the OCZ back in and to the intel controller (sata3gig) and off the marvel sata 6gig port. I'm suspecting maybe that's what it is. Especially the BSOD I received on the new install on the intel drive was caused by supposedly the marvel driver. Of course everything is updated the to very latest from the asus website.
Moving on, last night I was using it...think I was gaming while capping something off TV and I got this really weird error.
This thread kinda describes it as this person had the same issue:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f217/failure-to-...
While not a bsod...it was something new I had never seen before. It was quite bizarre. I could alt tab through the open apps, but it was like the windows explorer crashed and I couldn't see icons, taskbar, nor did it allow me to pull up the task manager to end tasks, restart explorer.exe or anything.
I had to kill power.
Doing research for this crash, I found several threads..many of them very old and vista related. But in one someone eluded to his power supply was "arcing" or something and was bad and changing it fixed it.. Hmmmmmm really?
This is the one thing I have not updated with all the new parts. It's a 2 year old cheap-o special that I bought years ago. I didn't add it on my sig as I couldn't even remember what it was..until last night when I took it out. It's an Apevia 700watt. I looked it up on my newegg history and I paid a cool $39.99 for it back in '09.
So for one troubleshooting reason or another, I had already bought another 700w coolmax a year ago that I never even plugged up. It just sat in the box, waiting for something like this.
So suspecting my power supply could be flaking out, I swapped it out last night. Of course it's only been a day, but Sunday's I really work my PC hard. I do some streaming stuff and also recording of some football games on the machine, and the last 2 sundays while doing this, it's crashed. Today I even upped up the ante a little and recorded TWO games at once while doing streaming stuff, and no problem.
I figured this was my last straw as I actually had requested a RMA from ASUS to return the motherboard.
Sooooo so far so good. The only thing not to be changed or checked at this point is the RAM, the motherboard, and the cpu itself.
Anyways...I figured I'd come back to update this for those who were originally following my plight. lol I was going to tear down the PC tonight and return the MB tomorrow, but since this might have nipped it, I'll put it off for a week since the RMA is good for 30 days. If I can make it a week without any issues, I know I'm good.
I'll be back in a week. It's quite ironic though how the thread starter asked if his could be PSU related. LOL
James
Related resources
- Computer Hard Freezes at random - PSU to blame? Forum
- SolvedPc Sudden Freeze Could be PSU? Forum
- SolvedMy PC freezes randomly and a lot! PSU's fault? Forum
- PC freezes randomly, could it be the GPU? Forum
- What could be wrong when my pc randomly freezes? Forum
- Random Game freezes...is it my PSU? Forum
- Hello , Im having a problem . Could pc randomly restart and freeze couse of bad motherboard or cpu ? Forum
- Random Freezing issues: Is it the GPU, the Motherboard, the PSU? Forum
- Computer randomly freezing then the screen turns to black. What could be the issue? Forum
- Random freezing - PSU issue surely? Forum
- SolvedRandom freezes, even in BIOS Forum
- SolvedRandom Freezes After a Few Hours On Computer Forum
- SolvedPC Random Freezes Forum
- SolvedRandom system freezes Forum
- SolvedWindows 8 computer random freezes requires manual restart Forum
- More resources
Read discussions in other Components categories
!