Freezing on a system that was previously fine!

[jamesleecartel]

Hi There,

My homebuilt system that I made in Sept 2011 has recently been playing up...it's now become unusable due to freezing, occasionally not booting up and most of all stuttering.
It has also for a few weeks been unsafely shutting down and rebooting on it's own.

The first thing I notice if the machine boots up is that when moving the mouse around it is stutters. If i play music through spotify, you'll occasionally hear a stutter in that too which sounds like a digital artifact noise.
The strange thing is that occasionally I can use the computer fine for a while...maybe an hr, even playing new games like Sleeping Dogs really smoothly...until the stuttering starts and effects the game with the brief pauses.

I should mention that i tend to leave my computer on for long periods of time... a habit from work where we don't power down our machines at all.
Another thing that i have done relatively recently is re-install windows and freshen up my computer. I don't know if it's co-incidence that the problems happened after this event.

My exact specs are:
-Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Vengeance Memory Kit CL9 1.5V
-Intel Core i7 2600k 3.4GHz Socket 1155 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
-Asus P8P67 Pro R3 P67 Socket 1155 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard
-KFA2 GTX 560Ti OC 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card
-Seagate 1TB 3.5" Barracuda SATA-III 6Gb/s Hard Drive - 7200RPM 32MB Cache
-Coolermaster CM690 II Lite with Coolermaster GX 650W PSU *Special Offer Bundle*
-Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler

I've tried several things trying to get to the root of the problem.
Most recently I thought it could be bad RAM. So i did a memtest. When I did the first test with both sticks of RAM in there in the 2 & 4 slot...after about 2hrs i got loads of faults and err's.
So I took one stick out and tested again. This test was fine for the length of time i ran the test for...only 3hrs again.
I then put only the other stick of RAM in(in it's original slot) and tested it. I got the err's again.
I thought it could be the slot that was the problem so put what seemed to be bad RAM in the other slot i knew was fine...again i got err's.

So I deduced that that stick of 4gb corsair RAM was bad. I was really pleased as I thought i'd solved it! But when I booted up the computer with the one stick of 'good' RAM the stuttering problem persisted.
I'm now at a bit of a loss... it's a bit strange as if it wasn't the RAM, was it co-incidence that the RAM is bad? hmmmnnn...

What else could it be...I know it could be a multitude of things, but that's the problem, what is my next port of call?!

Would really appreciate the help. My comp used to be so good and smooth...running everything from my editing progs to high end games....now i can't do anything on it! eeeek.
I don't mind replacing parts and stuff...just need to know what to replace!

Thanks in advance for any response!

 

[scout_03]

first rma those memory sticks since they must be working in dual channel and came as a kit

 

[jamesleecartel]

Heya scout_03, thanks for the reply.
Could you explain what you mean...i'm probs being a bit dense but didn't get what you said.
Are you saying I can't just use one of the sticks of RAM on it's own...and they must be used only in the dual channel slots of the Mobo?

 

[jamesleecartel]

Sorry..you're telling me to return the memory! Good idea... I will do that.
Do you think the memory is the root of the problem then?

 

[scout_03]

will new good memory sticks we will be able to go further on test if needed

 

[PanicMaster85]

have you tried updating your bios?

 

[jamesleecartel]

Hi panic master. No I haven't tried that. I will do... Although I woke this morning after running another memtest(no problems) and rebooted the computer hoping to get into windows to download a bios updater and do that... But now it won't boot up! It gets stuck on an image of Asus motherboard text and where it says press DEL to enter EFI BIOS.
This is getting worse! Does this symptom narrow down the issue now... Could it be failing power supply?

Getting a bit desperate to get to the root of this now...

 

[PanicMaster85]

no if it were a failing power supply it would start and then stop(off) it sounds like a slow roasting motherboard

 

[jamesleecartel]

Heya panicmaster.
Ok..slow roasting motherboard it may be huh! oh well... if it is, then at least I know what to replace.

Update...i managed to boot up my machine by reading another post on a similar issue. They recommended me unplug all usb devices and then boot up. It worked! I'm now in windows on my machine, and although it took longer to get into windows(i presume this is because it's now on 4GB instead of 8GB) it seems to be working fine with now stutter.

Now, i've downloaded a CPU temp monitor, to see if my CPU gets hot...and maybe if it does the stuttering will start again. I'll keep my eye on that.

I feel it may be overheating because, when I took the bad RAM out initially and rebooted my machine it was still stuttering, I feel this may have been because i hadn't left my computer off to cool down?
Now this morning, even though it's been running memTest all night, could the computer still be cooler and allowing it to function better?

Do you still recommend I try updating the bios at this stage?

Cheers!

 

[PanicMaster85]

well what are your temp readings underload... also it may be have you tried or thought about putting on a new coat of thermal paste..