Windows 7 always freezes within 1-10 minutes

triplej

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Sep 17, 2010
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Specs:

Gigabyte P55A-UD3 Rev 2.0 Bios F11
i5-760 with Hyper 212+
Corsair Dominator 2x2gb ddr3 1600 mhz
GTX 460 1 GB Zotac brand, updated driver
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB
Antec True Power 750w
Sound Blaster Xtreme Music
Asus DVD
HAF 922

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I've had the system for about a year now and it's had problems with freezing and blank screens.

Sometimes when turning the pc on, random black horizontal lines will be through the bios splash screen. From there, if I load windows, lines will show up in the windows loading words and picture and the computer will freeze or the screen will turn blank. If I go into bios, random things will happen like the letter P will be swapped with a blank space everywhere the letter should have been (C U TEM ERATURE). I tried using a different motherboard (ASUS P7P55D-E LX) and the lines still occur but windows will actually finish loading and it looks like its in safe mode. This usually happens on the first boot and restarting usually fixes it but sometimes the system needs to be turned off before starting again.

I was using the system for a while and possibly after changing bios settings the random freezes were less frequent but still happened and usually weren't while I was gaming but more often while I was using internet explorer or google chrome, and for some reason most of the time I was watching a YouTube video.

Before I swapped motherboards I ran chkdsk, memtest86, furmark, prime95 and they all worked. The video card idle is 38-48 C depending on the outside temperature and will stay at 98-99 C in furmark. The CPU idles around 24-30 C and has gone upto 50-60 C in prime95 or starcraft 2.

I tried reseating the ram and video card and reinstalling windows 7 but that didn't help. On the first reinstall attempt the system froze at 5% but on the second it made it through. I installed the video and sound drivers inbetween freezes and now I've been trying to install windows updates. I have tried the bios settings for "load fail-safe defaults" "optimized" and turning off power saving features. I tried the ram at 1333 and 1600.

On the nvidia forums I see lots of complaints with the gtx 460 and other people have had problems with the same two motherboards I tried, so a possibility is the p55 chipset and gtx fermi are incompatible, a gigabyte tech support said my board is meant for ATI cards but can use nvidia too. I'm wondering if I can change the bios settings for the CPU and RAM and that will make it stable. This is my first homebuilt computer so I don't know what all the voltages and settings like BLCK do yet.

If you have any experience with these parts and advice let me know
 
My opinion is that your video card is defective in some way. Certainly 99C is a high and unexpected temp for that card. Especially in a HAF 922 case.

Always remember that when you go looking for complaints on any part you will find them. Happy users do not post normally.

Still, I would say breadboard the system first. Review this checklist and then breadboard:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-perform-steps-posting-boot-video-problems
 

triplej

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I read that the gtx 460 is meant to be able to go upto 99 C and anything higher than that they will accept for an RMA... but you're right if you go looking for complaints you will find them. I'll read that link now
 
What the video card is rated to handle and what is an expected temp are two different things :)

A well thought out RMA request, that includes
-Ambient temps
-Case and fans
-voltage and temp readings via HWMonitor

Might result in a better response from them.