Freezing without BlueScreen

[laurezard]

Hi guys, it's just as the topic states: my brand new system (turned it on for the first time today) freezes at seemingly random times. It doesn't go to bluescreen, but usually there are some distorted, scary pixels that look like they're scratching across the screen (if that makes sense). Basically, the video gets really messed up on one spot (like a horizontal line in the middle of the screen). Other times though, it's frozen without any distortion at all: it just hangs without changing the screen.

I'm gonna install all my Windows updates overnight, but if that doesn't fix the problem, I'd like some feedback so I can fix it when I wake up. I've installed all the drivers from my motherboard's cd, and also downloaded the drivers for my old NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS which is running just fine.

At first, I was having issues with my RAM being incompatible, but the Memory OK! function on my ASUS mobo set it so that it works now. I'm currently running on only one stick of RAM instead of 2, and that's stopped my problems, but I'm not sure if my freezing has stopped because of that or because of some other thing I did.

Do you think I should test one stick at a time in the different stots on my motherboard, and then together in different configurations? It would take forever to test since the computer runs for a minimum of 10 minutes before freezing.

The first time it happened, the computer had been running flawlessly for about 3 hours and a few minutes after plugging in headphones into my front jack, it froze. It seems like when I plug in my headphones, and switch to them with my Realtek HD Audio driver thing, the computer works for a few minutes and then freezes. Again, this could just be a coincidence. I have speakers coming out the back which have no issues and work properly.

My computer doesn't even crash while gaming: I played a good half-hour of Skyrim with no issues whatsoever, and my tower doesn't seem to be overheating. Because of this, I think it's a driver issue.

I tried upgrading my bios with the official rom from the ASUS site, but it gives me an error that says something about the file not being an EFI BIOS file. I renamed it to 8 characters, which I was advised to do, but that didn't do anything either.

Finally, if you guys know how to enable the integrated graphics via EFI BIOS, please let me know. I can't install Lucid Virtu because it says there is no SandyBridge device detected... here's my other post. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/338059-33-enable-intel-integrated-graphics

I know this is long, but I thank anyone who tries to help me. I'm pretty sure it's an issue with my RAM.. opinions?

I have an i5-2500k, an ASUS P8Z68-v PRO/GEN3 motherboard, and 8GB (2x4GB) of low-power (1.35V) G.Skill RAM.
I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

[Raiddinn]

What is the exact part number of the RAM and is it on the motherboard QVL?

Sounds like a RAM problem to me though, too.

I would suggest you type in

Asus P8Z680-V Pro Crucial Ram in google and go to the crucial link (probably the first one) where they tell you RAM guaranteed to work in your computer and then pick one off that list and buy it instead.

RAM problems are such a big headache.

 

[laurezard]

All right, thanks for letting me know. Strangely enough, the computer didn't crash when I left it on for 10 hours last night to download Windows updates and Steam games, hm.. I'll see if there are any more issues after I restart to apply the updates, but either way I'm ordering new RAM. Thank youuuu

PS: My RAM is not on the QVL, silly me, thinking it wouldn't have any problems.

 

[Raiddinn]

You know, I used to think RAM was RAM a long time ago myself too. I once had a DELL computer and I wanted to upgrade the RAM in it, it was $100 on the DELL site. I searched online and found this PQi ram that had 2 sticks of the same size as the one I would get from DELL and it would be only $80.

I searched for reviews of people saying that they tried that exact RAM with my exact computer and every one I found said it worked without any problems. I took the deal and it went on mine also without any problems.

Anyway, my wife is cheap with her computer so when she got hers it was like the cheapest generic RAM on the market. Some time later she was having out of memory problems so I decided to get her another of the same exact part number of the generic RAM.

Long story shorter, it took me like 7 hrs to get the thing to work. She had the same sort of RAM problems that every third or fourth person in here has.

I kinda learned from that over time. Now I suggest people to only ever get things on QVLs. 7+ hours worth of headaches just isn't worth it to save $5 or $10 on RAM.

No matter what my wife says in the future she is getting Crucial RAM in all her future computers. Myself too.

Life is too short for RAM problems.

I mean... maybe the RAM won't be a problem if people just get a generic brand (almost every brand is generic, even Gskill, Kingston, etc aren't OEM for their own RAM chips), but your life is miserable if you are one of the substantial percentage of people whose generic RAM doesn't work right.

$10 is $10. Its better to have it than not, but at least for my part I will suck up the loss elsewhere to get good RAM in the future every time.