Random freezing.

Discussion in 'Processors and motherboards AMD' started by chazly413, Oct 20, 2010.

  1. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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    Hey all.

    Lately, my computer has been freezing and blue screening. This mostly happens when I'm playing games, but sometimes the comp will be locked up at the desktop when I've been away from it for a while. They're very random in nature. All of the blue screens have involved a memory address, not a graphics driver for example (graphics driver is up-to-date). So I ran memtest86 for 14 hours, not one error.

    My system is over there with Windows 7 64-bit, nothing is overclocked. Avast has turned up no viruses, system is defragged, adaware is ran frequently, I'm using zonealarm free firewall. Hard-drive error checker returned nothing.

    I have also been routinely checking temps, nothing is overheating. One tmpin in cpu-z hardware monitor reads 81C but it always reads that.

    I'm very stumped here, folks. Any ideas?
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2010
  2. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    Could be your PSU that's causing the random lockups. Try to use a different PSU if you can plug another one in.

    deltatux
     
  3. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Yeah, Raidmax - it's bound to be. They're bottom Tier PSU's.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2010
  4. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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    Yeah, that sounds plausible. Not sure if I have another PSU I could use, my other one is only 500W. I'll find a way to try this out, though, and I'll get back to you all.
     

  5. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    What brand/model is ur 500w? It may be better than the Raidmax.
     
  6. @renadier

    @renadier Master Guru

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    hello,
    i have just spent same days looking at my pc for asomething that has been blue screening.
    i checked my ram and found 2 strips have errors.i took them out,but the blue screens did not stop.
    i rana test,it failed a stablity test in amd overdrive and others,so i changed boot to another hard drive,it still turn up a blue screen but passed stablity test at an hours length.i have just rebuilt it piece by piece.
    i took out all pci devices,unpluged all the usb headers,sound header and fan conections.this left me with the real basics.try building up from that.

    the two main things i think caused mine to fail are the last piece of hardware installed,which is my zalman cpu cooler,i have put the amd stock back in,this might be why my ram in slots below the fan have corrupted,odd?

    or the hard drive,i have changed to using 2 drives at once instead of 4.thing is if it was the hard drives i should have got a critical error report from the raid controller,and i haven't.
    i was thinking its the ram header on the hard drive,could that be a problem?

    oh,and i read from my blues screen report that acpi 2.0 should be on in bios.i dont know if this has anything to do with my pc gaining some abilty to work again.
    i hope some of this helps.
    yours,
    @renadier

    p.s ,i could be the athlon's,but how test it and prove it?
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2010
  7. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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    Apevia 500w. I've had it since 05, been kickin' strong since.
     
  8. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    What's the model number..? Is it OEM or retail do u know?


    Heh - could hook both up if you really wanted to ..bit of messing around tho...
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2010
  9. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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    APEVIA ATX-CW500WP4 500W ATX

    Hook both up? :lol: My roommate has an OCZ 700W that he said I can borrow for a day this weekend, I know I should probably test for longer than that.. Hmm.
     
  10. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Testing for a bad PSU only takes a few minutes.....



    Just max out your 3D settings and crank up the res so it's drawing heaps of power, then walk into forest or city etc. somewhere that'll make the GPU do a heap of texture rendering.

    An unstable PSU should go into cardiac arrest almost immediately.....


    Or you cud use OCC.....


    EDIT: nvm about the APEVIA, it's just as bad, if not worse than your Raidmax...
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2010

  11. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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    Yeah, I know it should be instant but I feel like I've caught the problem early on. It usually doesn't happen right away. I guess something completely intense like GPUtool would impose the kind of loads i need.

    One night, though, my comp crashed three times within an hour when just watching YouTube. Still indicative of a PSU on its way out?
     
  12. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Yeah, have a look in Everest or OCC for the 12v amps and check for ripple if you want to be sure.

    I mean I cud say right now with prob 95% certainty it's your PSU..
    Grab your mates 700w if you want to check.
     
  13. Sever

    Sever Ancient Guru

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    apevia power supplies generally arent too bad. i had a 900w for a year and it was good enough to handle my setup.

    however that apevia 500w psu that you have seems dodgy. it looks generic and doesnt seem to have any apevia branding on it at all (from the pics on newegg) so i would recommend against using that one.

    try something brand name like a corsair 550w. it will be better for your system in the long run and corsair has decent warranty.
     
  14. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    If you want to put your mind at rest, download OCC Tools 3.1 and run it with graphs enabled.
    You'll get a log measuring 12v amps and vcore output that will show any excessive droop.

    Also (and this is prob what's happening) you'll get another log measuring 12v ripple.
    Excessive 12v ripple causes random freezes/shutdowns etc.

    Test results will show PSU is either unstable, or stable.
     
  15. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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    OK, I cannot for the life of me find this thing. I've searched guru3d, google, even put quotes around "OCC tools 3.1" and the only thing that popped up was this thread. Where do I get this thing?

    EDIT:
    OCCT 3.1??

    Also, what kind of fluctuations are we looking for? ± what?
     

  16. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Yeah I forgot the T sorry..

    ATX Standards. 120mV on 12v, accepted range is +11.40 V to +12.60 V

    After you run it you can post the results if you like.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2010
  17. chazly413

    chazly413 Maha Guru

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  18. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Those test results don't look right - your CPU should be under a consistent load, but yours is fluctuating between 45% - 100% and dips as low as 0%.
    This may explain the erratic 12v behavior. Also the 12v never dips below 12v so looks OK...

    Which test did you run? The GFX needs to be working hard to really get an accurate result...

    I'll ask Makalu for some input..
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2010
  19. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    Your test looks funny, like Pill Monster said, you need to have it running 100% like this:
    [​IMG]

    Note that my CPU hits 100% load for each loop it goes through, it only drops when it lets the CPU take a break.

    Setup
    AMD Phenom II 810
    OCZ StealthXStream 500W (OCZSXS500)

    EDIT: Cooler Master makes nice PSUs. Although I recommend Corsair or PC Power & Cooling when possible

    deltatux
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2010
  20. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Just noticed something else - that test is being run @ 1024x768 in windowed mode, which means the GPU isn't drawing much power.

    The test should be run in similar circumstances to when the freezing/ BSOD's occur.
    To recreate the same environment, the GFX card needs to be under a decent load...
     

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