Jul -- Computers and Technology: Bizarre, Inexplicable Freezing

Post 894/1311 (41 days), online 1 day ago

Posted on 11-11-09 11:33:40 AM

I had that exact problem with my new computer (from 7 months ago) as soon as I got it, it'd freeze every few days or sometimes more, depending on what I'm doing ...

I never figured it out, but underclocking the FSB from 333 to 300 MHz (and CPU from 2.66 to 2.4 GHz) fixed it, while only lowering the CPU multiplier to 7x (2.33GHz) didn't ... so I'm guessing it was the RAM or something else linked to the FSB

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Posted on 11-12-09 01:32:33 AM

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You can try new RAM. That may fix the problem. If it doesn't, you gotta get a new computer. I had the same thing happen to me to a two year old computer. Never did figure out what happened, changing the timings may help but if it doesn't, the problem is more inherent to the motherboard, and you gotta let it go.

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Posted on 11-12-09 01:36:56 AM

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Hm. I already have it set to 'Cool n' Quiet' which has it clocked at half its normal speed and decreases FSB. On the other hand, I may try a memtest86 on it to be sure about the memory. Otherwise... yeah. It might be the motherboard itself.

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Posted on 11-12-09 06:28:58 AM

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I had a laptop that did this after two years of use...it was a Dell, for whatever that's worth. It would randomly just completely lock up like you're describing. Only it would eventually become insanely frequent. I'm talking like, every couple of minutes. Ended up being that the motherboard had a short, in that case. Hopefully that's not the issue for you though, since that's never a fun thing to have to go and replace.

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Posted on 11-12-09 06:05:33 PM

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Well, for whatever reason, the freezes have become less often again after I did a full reboot, so there is a minute chance it had to do with Windows not having shut down properly and instead having frozen for the last 10-20 times it was turned off.

Hopefully.

I'm still looking out for any more bizarro freezes.

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Posted on 11-12-09 10:51:06 PM

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Update any chipset firmware too, but it sounds like you may have the beginnings of a motherboard failure.

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Posted on 11-13-09 12:18:15 AM

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Chipset firmware... hmmm... maybe. The motherboard even came with a program to do that much more casually than before (even without the old floppy drive method.)

I'll have to check out my Asus A8R-MVP's bios versions to see if there's some bug they squashed. Or if it keeps happening, flash it and see what happens.

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Posted on 11-13-09 12:23:18 AM

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It's worth checking. My athlon's motherboard had a persistent bug for a couple of years before it was fixed in a chipset driver update.

That said, I had to wait two years for said fix.

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Posted on 11-13-09 12:25:05 AM (last edited by Metal_Man88 at 11-12-09 09:46 PM)

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It says it'll freeze on Athlon 4800+ things at random. (I'm using a 4200+.)

However, this is even more informational: ASUS A8R-MVP Discussion

Turns out the motherboard is unstable by nature, and multiple people report inexplicable freezes. So, in short, I bought a hunk of garbage for a motherboard. The only difference is I figured out how to keep it running.

However, if the 4800+ causes random freezes, I get the idea that a firmware flash might cut down on the freezing insanity--since apparently the motherboard's BIOS is unstable by nature.

So, my plan is...

1. Wait until it starts freezing again.
2. Write down why it froze.
3. If it stays up for more than a week after a proper reboot, forget about freezing and continue on with life. (Once a week is fine. Abnormal and stupid, yes, but it won't waste too much time.)
4. If it keeps freezing frequently, track them some more.
5. Prepare to flash BIOS to newest version. Luckily, it has a backup BIOS recovery option, should something go wrong.
6. Otherwise, see what happens with new BIOS, and pray it doesn't make it worse.

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Posted on 11-13-09 01:59:06 AM

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Computers are fun!!!

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Posted on 11-20-09 09:08:41 PM (last edited by Metal_Man88 at 11-20-09 06:09 PM)

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It finally froze again, 8 days later.

I'm beginning to suspect the video card, as I pinpointed the freeze as being JUST when it was supposed to come out of a 'displays turned off' sleep mode.

I think I'll turn that off and see what happens, as it appears to have issues with turning its output on and off.

Similarly, it freezes shortly after TF2, which generally involves a lot of display rate changing.

And on Youtube videos, which involve video playback.

The evidence is beginning to pile up.

In fact, if it wasn't the display freezing, odds are I'd be able to see what was going on.

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Posted on 11-20-09 11:59:40 PM

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Yea... it might be time to buy a new video card after all...

At least I've never had a video card die on me, it was more the cables that died on me

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Posted on 11-22-09 04:23:37 AM

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This problem seems to have tons of different possible causes. Mine's been doing it off and on after heavy activity until I reinstalled and partitioned the hard drive: You may want to check for hard drive damage, as what may seem like RAM or video card issues could really just being your hard drive eating itself.

Just a fair warning from someone with a similar problem.

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Post 905/1311 (41 days), online 1 day ago

Posted on 11-22-09 04:49:06 PM

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I've had a dying video card myself, and it sometimes caused video glitches like this before crashing

Underclocking it kept it going for a little longer before it really broke down ...

But the only experience I've had with a dying hard disk was one that suddenly stopped working (wouldn't be recognized at all), so I can't help there

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Posted on 11-22-09 07:25:35 PM

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Eh, I'm fairly sure it isn't the hard drive. No amount of drive grinding or gnashing or load seems to freeze it, even when it's backing everything up ever. Also, heavy activity doesn't freeze it--in fact, it most often freezes while idling or doing video playback.

I updated the video driver and am now seeing how long until the next freeze.

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Posted on 11-30-09 06:11:48 PM

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It froze again, this time 10 days later.

I was adjusting the digits on a clock program I was using--one which DID use the video card, but ever so lightly. I had just finished playing a Youtube video too.

I'm still not quite sure if it's the motherboard or video card, but, this freeze also occurred after I was switching back and forth between this display and an Xbox 360, which this card might not like...

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Posted on 03-01-10 12:22:10 AM

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Metal_Man88's Post

I think I've figured it out, as when I doubled the memory, it took twice as long to freeze.

The issue is memory leaks piling up until the system can't take it, then it can't allocate the next piece of memory, say, in a song, so the system hangs up trying to allocate memory when there's no free space left and it freezes endlessly.

TF2 and other programs decrease this time by eating more memory and leaving more fragments behind, but, in any case, my 2 GB of memory seems to give me a good buffer compared to before.

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Posted on 03-01-10 07:14:51 AM (last edited by Gunstar Green at 03-01-10 04:21 AM)

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	Originally posted by Metal_Man88 The issue is memory leaks piling up until the system can't take it, then it can't allocate the next piece of memory, say, in a song, so the system hangs up trying to allocate memory when there's no free space left and it freezes endlessly. I kinda doubt that. When Windows runs out of physical RAM, it should start thrashing the swap file or giving you error messages, and not just lock up cold. Besides, a LOT of us keep our systems running 24/7 and haven't encountered this problem (my current uptime is 22 weeks, and CachemanXP reports 1.27 GB of free RAM). Originally posted by Metal_Man88 Turns out the motherboard is unstable by nature, and multiple people report inexplicable freezes. So, in short, I bought a hunk of garbage for a motherboard. This still seems like the most plausible explanation to me. ASUS has really dropped the ball in recent years, it seems. I seem to be one of the select few that has a perfectly stable setup with this particular board (M2N-E). ____________________

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Posted on 03-01-10 07:20:11 AM (last edited by Metal_Man88 at 03-01-10 04:23 AM)

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Metal_Man88's Post

Well, yes, though there's a bit of a hole in the unstable mobo explanation--it routinely happens at the same time period (about a week) which then mysteriously doubled to two weeks when I doubled the RAM.

I also don't run XP--I run XP x64 edition, which is actually Windows Server 2003 in disguise and hacked to behave like XP.

This freezing behavior has been exhibited by both my upstairs and downstairs computer, and both run XP x64; the non-XP x64 computer in our house, on the other hand, doesn't do this.

It should be thrashing virtual memory, but the problem seems to be some internal OS hole causing it to instead just crash. (Memory is, in fact, free at the time this happens--yet it chokes and dies trying to allocate a piece of memory and gets stuck in an infinite loop.)

I also checked--my capacitors are all in fine shape.

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