Computer Freezes, need advice

[Trasgress]

Hi there,

I am in quite the pickle here, I recently put together a new rig (I have been doing so myself for the past 10 years) and i´m running into some strange problems. The thing is my computer freezes sometimes in such a way that the monitor turns black, the sound does it freeze thing where it hickups for a few seconds and then stops but the fans and lights on the cpu are all still going. I have to manually reboot the system after this and the monitor for some reason does not pick up a signal for some reason but the computer seems to be booting up, i usually have to turn it down completely and then turn it on again to get everything to work.

Now here´s the problem, This has only happened for a totaly of 5 times so far, and its been 2 weeks since i put together the system. I have ran Furmark, Prime95 and memtest86+, to stress test my gpu, cpu and my memory, i have had all of these processes ran for over 12 hours without problems. Gpu maxes out at 63c , cpu at 69c so it doesent seem to be overheating issues.

3 of the 5 freezez occured in games running the Source engine (TF2 and CS:GO) , 2 out of 5 it happened while playing GW2, and it happens from 30min after starting a game up, and even after 4 hours of straight gaming.

My rig is as following

Video card - Gigabyte HD7850OC PCI-E3.0 2GB GDDR5
Cpu - Ivy Bridge I7 3770K
Memory - 8gb (2x4gb mushkin blackline 1600mhz) running in dual channel mode
Motherboard - Gigabyte S1155 Z77-D3H
Case - Thermaltake Level10 GTS
Cpu cooling - Thermaltake Contac39
OS - Windows 7 ultimate 64bit
PSU - Thermaltake Smart Series 750W
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 1tb 7200rpm 64mb

I am pretty much out of ideas what could be the problem, seeing as all the stress tests have shown that the hardware seems to be working fine,

Any ideas what could be the issue ?

(english is my 2nd language so i am sorry for any spelling errors)

 

[COLGeek]

Are you overclocking anything (CPU, GPU, memory)? If so, does this also happen when running at stock speeds?

Please provide more info.

Good luck!

 

[Trasgress]

Initially i was Overclocking, I overclocked my cpu to 4.2ghz, The gpu comes slightly overclocked and i pushed it to 1150/5600 @ 1.25v , was able to have it stable at that, didnt overclock the ram though. After the first crash i removed the overclocking on the cpu, still crashed, then i proceeded to remove the overclock on the gpu and still the computer froze.

After that i underclocked the gpu down to "stock settings" removing the overclock that comes native with the gigabyte card, and still the computer froze.

Atm the cpu is running at 3.5ghz (stock value) , and the gpu is running at 800/4800 @ 1.15v.

Still the computer froze, so im at a loss atm, have no idea what might be the problem.

 

[COLGeek]

Are all of your drivers and Windows up to date? Also, is your BIOS up to date? Have you run memtest on your RAM?

 

[Trasgress]

Yeah, all my drivers are up to date, including the bios.

I used Memtest86, to test the ram and had it run for 12 hours with 0 errors reported ;(

 

[COLGeek]

These are the classic signs of a heat/power issue. But, that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Could also be the signs of a defective GPU or PSU. Do you have access to another GPU that you could swap in for troubleshooting purposes?

 

[Trasgress]

I could swap in an old nvidia 9800GT that i have, but would problaby take a few days to find out if thats the problem. The problem is i use this setup for approx 8 hours everyday, and have for the last 2 weeks, and only 5 crashes have happened so far, and having the hardware actually do over 12 hours of stress testing it would make one think it wasnt the hardware.

I guess il try swapping out the gpu, and if the problem persist i will need to find out a way to stress test the PSU somehow, what would be the best way to go about testing the psu ?

 

[COLGeek]

You actually have tested the PSU to the extent you can. If swapping the GPU "solves" the problem, then I would suggest you RMA your current GPU.

Swapping the PSU would also be a way to rule it out. However, only switch one component at a time until we isolate the problem.

 

[cin19]

I think there is problem GA-Z77 MB with Ivy Bridge, please check the Gigabyte site
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=8885.0

Do you update the bios yet?

 

[Trasgress]

The bios is updated to the latest version yes, Im gonna start by swapping the gpu´s out see if the problem persists with my 9800gt, if so il try out some of those things mentioned in the link Cin19 linked.

*crosses fingers*

 

[Trasgress]

Quick update, i think i might have fixed it, been running smooth for 5 hours now ingame.

Thanks alot cin19 for that link btw, it put me on the right track.

It seems that the Z77 chipsets and the Ivy bridge cpu´s dont get along well alot of the times. What made me get my computer to be stable is turn of turbo boosting, make the cpu have the same cpu speed at all times (i left mine at 3.9ghz for the time being) and The Cpu Block to 100.1 < Crucial thing.

Also Turn of Ch3 and Ch6 for power management and Ch1 in the bios, since that screw up *** also, alongside with turning off Pci-express power management in the power settings in windows.

By doing that it seems to have become stable atleast, been running Teamspeak3 and listening to winamp while playing CS:GO for about 5 hours now and no crashes.

 

[Trasgress]

And it´s still broken, ***

Anyone have any ideas ?