random lockup

[Enkur]

Hello all,

I just recently put together this system and it has been running great for most part. The peculiar problem is that the hard lock up only happens when I am in IE or sometimes in Firefox. I would leave my machine running for hours on end doing Prime95 with all the ram etc and no lockups and then suddenly as soon as I am in IE within a minute or two .. hard lockup. I just finished a solid 2 hour BF2 marathon and no lockup and then suddenly in IE after checking my mail.. boom hard lock. I always have to hit the reset button to come back. The Event viewer shows no issues.

here are the specs
ASUS A8N32-SLI Bios 1009
AMD Opteron 165 at 2.4GHz 1.44v (temps 42idle and 49 max)
2GB OCZ PC-3200 platinum memory
XFX 7800GT
WD 10K 150GB x 2
Maxtor 250GB x 2

I have run all the benchmarks and Memtest etc and none of them report any error.

I have all the updates and latest drivers for everthing

any ideas on what could be the case

 

[porcorosso]

Interesting that you see the problem with both browsers. Are you using the same Java virtual machine for both of them (like the Sun JRI)? Have you noticed any specific types of sites being more likely to cause the hard lock?

 

[Enkur]

I think its the same JVM... but how can I confirm this?

I am not even sure that the websites I am surfing are even doing anything with Java. The lock up is so random that it really hasnt given me enough data to know what sites cause the problem.

After some searching around the web a suggestion was made to increase the voltage on the memory.. so I have upped it to 2.8v
lets see how that pans out.

 

[porcorosso]

I only asked the question about the JVM (Sorry, I meant to type Sun JRE, not Sun JRI.) was that that would be about the only failure-prone component the two browsers would be likely to share. Assuming you're using WinXP (and I was assuming that) you can check under Set Program Access and Defaults to see if if anything unusual is offered as an alternative default JVM. You would have had to install some kind of JVM for use with Firefox. You can check in the Advanced tab of IE's Internet Options dialog to see if the SUN JRE is being used by IE. It might be instructive to turn off the browsers' use of Javascript to see if they cause the system to lock up without it.

But if you're altering voltages and speeds from standard on the system then that would probably be one prime suspect. Another might be video drivers. Those get quite a workout from browsers these days. Might try a couple of different versions of the video driver.

Interesting problem.

 

[Enkur]

Just minutes after I posted my message ... the system locked up in IE.
I noticed that whenever it had locked up like that I had just clicked on a link (could be just coincidence). Now there is a "click" sound that IE plays everytime you click on a link, I turned off that sound in "audio devices" in control panel so it wouldnt make that sound.

Now I may be going down the wrong path and it could be a wierd combination of sound and IE.. who knows.
The only good part is that it has never locked up while I am playing... just the stupid surfing. I even let 2 instances of Prime95 run overnight and no problems.

This has been the most bizarre problem I have faced to date.

 

[Enkur]

update:
well its not IE and not firefox... the problem is now happening in other apps too or just generally using the computer. I checked the temps and volts and they are nominal

as part of some troubleshooting I swapped my memory modules and it still locked up.

the strange part is the time between lockups... some days it will happen within minutes and other times it will be days before it will lock up.

really frustrated with this.

 

[daveybrat]

have you tried running all hardware UN-overclocked?

 

[porcorosso]

Okay, so now that you know the hard lock is not limited to just happening with browser use that's a horse of a different color. Hard locks are generally (AFAIK) caused by hardware problems. In WinXP a hardware problem or a device driver problem can be pretty much the same, from the standpoint of characteristic behavior of the system. As long as it was happening only when you were using a browser I was willing to believe that it might just be that your JVM was pushing hardware (video) over the line and causing the lockups. Now I'm thinking it's probably not the video subsystem -- at least not in the absence of any other symptoms that might be attributed to such.

I think it's pretty odd that you have nothing at all in the Event Viewer and that you have seen no blue screens. Makes me wonder if you could have a flakey power supply that just burps intermittently. However, I would expect some variations on the theme (spontaneous reboots, etc.) if that were the case. I guess this could even be due to malware. (Not all of it can be detected that easily.) I'd be interested to see what would happen if you booted the system off of a Knoppix or Ubuntu live CD, or some such. If you get the same behavior there, then you know it's not a malware / Windows OS configuration issue.

PS: And, yes, like daveybrat says, it's a good idea to be sure that you've tried the system at absolutely stock settings. Seems to me that WinXP really doesn't like it when you deviate from the stock settings.

 

[Enkur]

both good suggestions on figuring this one out. I will try a week of stock settings to see how that goes and before that I will give the Linux live CD option a go too.

because of the random nature I hope that if I dont see the problem in those two scenarios its not just due to coincidence.

I am not sure if its power supply because that should atleast show some variation in the way the system responds.. frequent reboots, crashes etc... none of that here.


thanks for your help guys... lots of good tips here.

 

[porcorosso]

I hope you'll post back to let us know what happens.

*keeps fingers crossed*

 

[Enkur]

update:
last night I restored all the settings in the bios to default (no overclock)...
ran fine overnight and in the morning without problems... left it running all day.. when got back home from work the system was locked up .. had to hard reset.

next option is to try one of those live CDs...

 

[porcorosso]

I'm beginning to think that your computer is a "no mercy" system -- like a subnotebook I used to own. I owned that little puppy for three years, during which time it proved itself to be absolutely unreliable just about every time I really needed it. It gave me a vast array of different blue screen errors, never the same one twice in a row. The vendor finally got tired of me whining and (and seeing it on their test bench every couple of months) and gave me a replacement subnotebook which has run flawlessly ever since.

That system never flinched at any of the diagnostic tests thrown at it. But it would indulge in the weirdest behaviors, usually after having been left idle for a few minutes. It would start emitting weird sounds, or lock up, or blue screen. And then it would work fine for another week. It would do this under Win2K, WinXP, Ubuntu, OpenBSD...

We never did figure out what the heck was wrong with it. But it wasn't malware or an OS configuration problem. I had that experience in mind when I suggested that you try using a live cd to test your system. Problem is, I don't know what to suggest if you get a lockup while using the live cd. At least with that system you can switch out individual components for testing purposes -- kind of hard to do with a highly integrated subnotebook system.

Looking forward to seeing what you can turn up.

 

[daveybrat]

What's the make and model of your power supply?