Mini Freezes

[johnkat]

Hello everyone, I wanted to ask your opnion on an issue I am having.

I built my PC about 3.5 years ago, and for as long as I can remember I have been having mini freezes. Those freezes last half a second, maybe less and don't affect the operation at all, just that sound and graphics will stutter for a moment, then everything back to normal with no crashes, slowdowns or anything. I cannot give an exact time between them since they are not very often, maybe every hour or so, I have never monitored it but I will now and tell you the results.

All that time I have been assuming it is my PSU because I often hear a small click when they occur. Now though I have decided to find out the cause, since I will be giving my PC to my father, and I will build a new one. My specs are:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @2.66
RAM: 4x1GB DDR2 of Aeneon RAM 1066MHz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage Formula
GPU: AMD Sapphire 6850
PSU: Coolermaster Real Power M700
HDD: 2x Seagate ST3320620AS in RAID0

My GPU used to be a 4850 but I replaced it about 6-7 months ago.

I am now testing the memory @ 800MHz to see if that solves the problem, although it was supposed to be OCable up to 1200MHz (didn't actually work when I tried, so I settled for 800Mhz). I will report back if that solved the problem or with the interval between the freezes. In the meanwhile I would be glad to hear your thoughts

Thank you in advancee.

 

[Raiddinn]

Open the task manager (control alt delete and its the bottom option) and watch it like a hawk when you are doing things.

Do things on purpose to try to cause the freeze to occur, like perhaps using Prime95 or something to put a workload on the CPU.

 

[johnkat]

Well the thing is that the freezes will not occur during intense cpu tasks or anything, they seem to be completely random, like when i am browsing the web, watching a movie, playing a game or w/e... I am currently waiting for one to happen (maybe the 800mhz memory did the trick) with task manager open to see if a spike occurs. I will try Prime95.

Who knows it may be the electrical wiring in my room, but my brothers pc does not have that isue in the same toom..

 

[Raiddinn]

Do you have similar computers to each other?

Do you by any chance have the same anti-virus?

 

[johnkat]

eeh my brothers pc is 6 months old, we have the same GPU and both use Microsoft Security Essentials..

 

[Raiddinn]

When was the last time you did a full system scan? Did you ever DL and run something like Spybot S&D that specifically targets adware and spyware?

 

[johnkat]

Well I do scans regularly so maybe a month? No I have never downloaded anything like that. I am convinced that it is a hardware issue and not a software issue so far..

 

[Raiddinn]

What convinced you that it was not a software/driver issue?

 

[johnkat]

well i am running windows 7, i have reformatted once (maybe twice), and i used to have norton 360 as my antivirus. That and the fact that it happens at completely random times and while using any software have made me think so.

 

[Raiddinn]

A lot happens in the background that is completely transparent to the user.

As an example, a computer could be set to go online every hour on the hour to see if there are any available windows updates. Such a thing wouldn't have an associated message displayed every time it did this. That could cause a small slow down on a consistent interval.

I don't know that it is the case here, but it is possible.

If the times are random like sometimes 5 minutes apart and sometimes 4 hours apart, then its more likely to be some sort of hardware thing than if it happens at 6:15 PM every day or every 3 hours on the dot.

 

[johnkat]

Well it seems that changing the RAM frequency did the trick, since I have not had any mini freezes since then.

Raiddinn thank you for your help and the time you took to reply

 

[Raiddinn]

NP.

Hopefully everything keeps working.