Computer unstable

[Andvari]

I built this computer a few weeks ago, and until a few days ago it was running fine. Now, sometimes, when I try to play a game, I can't get past the opening menus. Once the actual 3D part of a game loads up, like the levels, the comp hard freezes and I have to shut the power off.

It doesn't happen every time, and I don't know if it's going to happen or not until I get into a game and try it. But it's getting annoying to have to reboot two or three times and cross my fingers every time I want to play a game.

It started happening when I got an eSATA drive and hooked it up to the PC. I thought maybe Windows was "confused" with the new hardware addition, so I removed the drive and haven't used it sinse. Yet it continues to happen from time to time. I don't know if it was just a coincidence that it started with the eSATA or what.

Any ideas? I don't know where to start. Software related? Hardware related? Driver related? Obviously I'm assuming it's hardware related, since I'm posting in the hardware forum.

Moved from General Hardware
General Hardware Moderator -- MarcVenice

 

[olmer]

Unlikely e-sata related unless you have moved paging file there - most likely memory or graphics if at all hw. Check memory/CPU with memtest just in case. Try this http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=32&threadid=2158696

 

[imported_wired247]

I'm going to go with ... driver problem, or GPU heat problem

 

[tynopik]

well the first thing is to set everything back to stock speed (no overclock)

 

[Roguestar]

Check graphics card temperatures with nTune (google it).

 

[Andvari]

Here is a video of it happening (13mb, about 2 minutes long. freeze happens towards the end obviously if you want to skip there):

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/1.avi



If it is a driver problem, then there is nothing I can do because I have the latest drivers. I also don't see how it could be a heat problem with the GPU, because the problem arises at boot. In other words, whether or not my games are going to freeze up is determined as soon as I turn the PC on. If I turn it on, load a game, and everything works fine, then it won't freeze no matter how long I play or how many games I play, or how many days the PC is on. If I turn the PC on, load a game, and it frezes, then that's it. It's locked up hard and I have to reboot and try loading a game again until it doesn't freeze anymore.

The best way to describe it: basically I'll either get a "good boot" or a "bad boot" and won't know which I've got until I try to play a game. The only way it could be a GPU heat issue is if the GPU fan isn't starting up on some boots. But it should, because I hear it rev up like it's going to lift off into the atmosphere.



Here is what Windows supposes the problem to be:

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/6.jpg <-What I see when I go to Problem Reports and Solutions Center under admin account

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/5.jpg <- What I see when I click "See problems to check"

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/1.jpg <- Details of the first problem

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/2.jpg <- Details of the tenth problem

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/3.jpg <- Back in the main window, if I click "problem caused by Intel ICH9"

http://www.auburn.edu/~goldema/4.jpg <- Back in main window, if I click "problem caused by NVIDIA graphics driver"



EDIT: Also, I've tried going back to stock speeds and whatnot. If anything, it seems to happen less when OC'ed, although I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

 

[Andvari]

Just downloaded and ran ntune. I'm idling at 58 celcius. Though my PC has been on for the past several days. =p

 

[Andvari]

Any new ideas?

 

[olmer]

Did you go through the steps above? Do your memory/cpu pass memtest, other stress testing?

E-SATA via a separate controller card? Is it still in? Try moving it into another PCI slot/uninstalling/removing drivers if any. ICH9-related freezes - try to move your drive to another SATA channel/controller (if any) and disabling those which are not in use. OC-wise - make sure you have correct and set PCI-E frequency (100MHz). Also your sb may just not take oc and cause SATA-related issues. Check cooling on it. Do you have IDE hdd to test? Soft-wise (just in case) - update you dx. Open dxdiag and let it confirm/check all related drivers. Check on conflicting global and a/c 3d and audio settings. Make sure correct chipset drivers/management soft are installed. Do you use your HDDs in IDE mode?

 

[Andvari]

Memtest passes for overnight. Prime 95 passes for like 2 hours too. I forget how long I left it running.

I've even returned the clocking back to normal at 2.4ghz and it still happens (again, randomly). The eSATA is not a controller card, no. Just plugged straight into the mobo via an extension adapter thingy. It's not actually plugged into a PCI port. I also tried switching the drives around to different SATA ports, problem persisted. I removed the second drive completely (so it was back to my original single drive), and the problem persisted.

Although manually setting the clock speeds and voltages back to normal didn't fix it... I've loaded the "fail safe defaults" in the BIOS, and so far I haven't had the problem again. Although as I said, it is random so I won't know if it is fixed for sure until after a few days worth of rebooting. I may have just been lucky and got a "good boot."

nVIDIA and ICH9 drivers are both up to date. My mobo BIOS is the 10th version of the BIOS (11 being the newest). The 10th version is what it came with, I haven't flashed it and would prefer to avoid that.


Now the last couple of things you mention:

Originally posted by: olmer
Check on conflicting global and a/c 3d and audio settings. Make sure correct chipset drivers/management soft are installed. Do you use your HDDs in IDE mode?

I don't know how to check for these things. It's possible I've got the wrong settings somewhere, as I went through and disabled a thing or two in the BIOS. Not the clocks and voltages, but other things. As I said, the clocks and voltages (whether default or OC'ed) still cause problems. Other settings though, like disabling Floppy, changing boot priorities, enabling USB keyboard in BIOS, etc... Maybe something in that area was screwed up. I'll find out whether or not the "fail safe defaults" work as time goes on. If they don't, then I don't know what else to do.

I guess if they don't work I'll try reformatting and getting fresh installs of drivers/software. If the problem persists, I guess it is indeed a hardware issue.

 

[jkresh]

have you tried looping 3dmark (run for an hour and see how hot your gpu gets), try running overnight and see if it crashes (also a good idea to try prime95 (running all 4 cores) for 8-12hours to see if it is really stable, 1-2 hours is nothing).

 

[Andvari]

I've tried it all. Drivers. BIOS settings. Memtest. Stress tests. It all comes down to whether or not I get a "good boot" or a "bad boot." On a good boot, my computer is as stable as hell and handles anything I can throw it at. On a bad boot, it hard locks as soon as I load a game.

The only thing I haven't tried yet is reformatting. After that I'm out of ideas. I guess I'll have to start swapping in and out hardware one by one until I find the culprit. The problem is that I don't have spare hardware lying around. Maybe I can RMA some of the parts for replacements. Don't know where to start though. I guess it could technically be anything, except the DVD burner heh.

 

[Andvari]

And to clarify, not that it makes much difference, each game behaves slightly differently. These are the games I have insalled, and how they freeze.

Team Fortress 2: The game loads up, and the menus all work fine. I can search for games, adjust options, etc. As soon as I join a game, once it loads, one of two things happen. A) The framerate is REALLY slow on the character select, like 5 fps. A few seconds later, the PC hard locks. Or B) the PC hard locks before it even gets to the character select. Both cases it is accompanied by looped glitchy sound.

Crysis: Game loads up, and again all the menus are fine. Once a level loads, it looks like colored vomit all over the screen for a few seconds before the PC locks up.

BioShock: Game loads up, and the menus AREN'T fine. The mouse feels laggy/choppy while navigating the menus. If I proceed to load a level, the PC locks up. The laggy menus are actually a good thing, as it is the only way I can tell if I got a "good boot" or a "bad boot" without having to actually load a game and lock the computer up completely.

AudioSurf: Seems to run fine for about 5 minutes or so, then the PC locks up.


Thankfully I have BioShock, because right now after I reboot my computer I immediately load it up, and if the menus are laggy, I reboot and repeat until I get smooth menus in BioShock. That way I know I have a "good boot."

 

[MarcVenice]

Moving this to Computer Help, you've got quite a weird problem, and hopefully you'll get some more answers there/here.

 

[Andvari]

No ideas here in the computer help neighborhood?

 

[olmer]

No need to reformat. I trust you have tried all above suggestions (especially all from my first post and reducing load on PSU) and your current/sensory/hdd smart readings are okay. First try moving DVI/RGB to another port just in case. Hw-wise reseat everything, (try loading different rails on PSU) clear bios and load defaults/optimised defaults. (Make sure your drives are in IDE and DMA if available). Now to eliminate soft issues - Create a separate partition/use another drive and install os from scratch from a media. Install chipset drivers. Restart. Install all other hw drivers with restarts as prompted and not delayed. Update os. Install al nv-related fixes if nor picked up by windows update. Update DirectX, let it verify the drivers. Defragment. Install one game. Try it.

So you used esata in onboard sata port ? you have restarted pc every time when needed to put the external drive on i hope. (pc off/drive on/pc on to get it recognised properly) Otherwise this along with incorrect bios setting for this port may have indeed caused the problem with drivers ? should be software fixable in this case.

 

[Andvari]

Originally posted by: olmer
So you used esata in onboard sata port ? you have restarted pc every time when needed to put the external drive on i hope. (pc off/drive on/pc on to get it recognised properly) Otherwise this along with incorrect bios setting for this port may have indeed caused the problem with drivers ? should be software fixable in this case.

No I didn't turn the PC off when connecting the esata drive, but that was only for the first night. Vantec's own description of the product claims that it is hot swappable, which is why I didn't turn the PC off. After it didn't work though, and I googled around, I found it that it is NOT hot swappable (at least not in esata mode). After that first night I tested to see if it was hot swappable with USB2.0 and it was. After that, I haven't even connected the exteranal drive in nearly a month.


I've tried most of your other suggestions, except some of the things I didn't know how to do. I'll try a fresh install of the OS though. What is HDD smart? It's disabled in my BIOS by default, and I never enabled it because I didn't know what it was for.

 

[Andvari]

Well I tried different rails on the power supply. It's modular, so I simply swapped the wires and sockets around. So far the problem hasn't repeated and I've rebooted several times. At the risk of jinxing myself, I think it may be solved. *knocks on wood*

Only time will tell though. Maybe a few more reboots down the line and I'll discover that the problem is still there.

In the mean time, thanks for all the help!