EggXpert

Alright, I've been having this issue for awhile, and I've not done a whole lot of troubleshooting because I basically know how to avoid it, but it's probably not good that it happens in the first place so I should probably get it figured out. Basically, when doing something (I'll explain the something after summary), my computer will completely lock up, and the last sound bit that was playing will get stuck in an infinite loop, so it will just keep studdering basically. The mouse/keyboard/everything is unresponsive. Can't just press the power button to turn off, I always have to turn the surge protector off to get out of it.

Now the specifics, it practically always happens when audio is playing, and all the time when games/video are being played. At first I got a mixture of BSoD's and the freezing, I've not got anymore BSoD's anymore though. I think the BSoD's were coming from a driver error, and I did some microsoft debug thing to find that out and I started updating drivers to everything I could. And the freezing I can almost always tell when its coming before it happens, because the audio starts to studder a lot but everything keeps going, and I've managed to avoid it freezing up after this warning sign by immediately exiting whatever it was playing the audio. I think one time I was using foobar playing music, a few other times I've been playing movies in Windows Media Player, DivX Player, and VLC Media Player and its frozen or nearly did on all of those. Then another big culprit is when playing games.

I don't think its a heat issue, and I don't think its a power supply issue, but beyond that I'm not sure. The reason I rule out those two is because I've noticed when the freezing is most likely to occur. If I've left my computer on for a good amount of time (more than a few hours or most of the day, and I've used it frequently), and then play a video or game, it usually freezes. So what I do to avoid it now is, I just restart my computer right before I want to play a game or watch a movie, and it won't do it to me. For instance, I can play Counter Strike all day long after the restart as long as I don't really do anything else, and it wont freeze on me once. So it must be some specific process or memory getting hung up and causing the crash. I usually will open AIM and Firefox after the restart and before playing the game and even with using those two its never froze on me either.

BTW, this is an HP computer, and I probably do have a warranty on it, but I really don't want to send it back to them because not only will it take them awhile, they probably don't know whats wrong with it and will tell me something bogus or say nothing is wrong and send it back and I will be in the same spot and maybe out $$. Sorry for the huge post, thanks to anyone who reads it let alone solves this issue :)

Specs are:

Intel Core-i7-920

Intel X58 Express Mobo

6 GB (3 x 2 GB) DDR3

Nvidia GTS 250

460 Watt PSU

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (I used to have Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit and had the same issues then as I do now)

The video problems indicate to me that it's either a PSU or GFX card issue, but if you've ruled out the PSU for sure, then can you try swapping out GFX cards with a spare? Even if the card is older, that'll give you a good sense of if that's causing the problem. However, it doesn't explain the sound issues....

 Perhaps a bad RAM module? The sound issue is what is getting me. It really sounds like a hardware problem, and if it weren't for the weird sound bit, I'd say it was the video card.

 Sorry I couldn't be more help, but hopefully that starts you off right.

See, I was thinking bad RAM module myself. Don't know how to test it though. At first I was thinking heat and PSU when all of it first started happening mainly because the PSU is not a whole lot for what I have, and OEM computers don't normally have good airflow, but I downloaded temp monitoring programs and the temp doesn't get TOO crazy, and restarting the computer completely erases any issues, which to me rules out heat and PSU (the heat doesn't rapidly go down within the 2 minutes it takes to restart, and the PSU should bear no less trouble after restart either so it doesn't make sense that it would crash if I did not restart my computer and not crash after I restart. I initially thought it was the video card, I then googled this issue and there were so many varying answers and its not like everyone was encountering the exact issues I was running into, but the video card seemed less likely and the hyperthreading of the processor was supposedly the culprit according to some sites I came across. That makes no sense to me however. I really think it has to be the RAM because whatever I'm doing or however much I'm doing before I do the graphic/audio intensive things is causing the crash. A restart cleans the slate and I don't have any issues unless I start doing my casual stuff. What I've been testing lately is if I forget to restart and then notice the studder (the point at which I have the opportunity to prevent the crash by exiting the program causing it), I've been hitting the mute button on my keyboard and its not ever completely crashed since I've been trying that, but along with doing that I still try to exit the program swiftly. The problem with doing that is once its muted I can't tell if its still studdering obviously since I cant hear it, so I would have to leave the program open to either force the crash or see if it works. I don't like forcing the crash however because I don't know if that will be the last time I have a working computer.

1.  Open up the case and take out the RAM, then put it back (to make sure it is seated properly) (Make sure you disconnect the power and discharge static first!)

  - If this has happened since you got it, it may have just been from jarring while shipping.  Even if it is recent, maybe you moved the box or something.

2.  If that doesn't seem to help try: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

  - Burn an ISO to a CD and restart the computer to boot from the CD.  Let it run for a while, probably overnight.

Don't open your PC if it is still under warranty.

 

 

 

Memtest86+  ……………..  Read-me  Will test your ram

 

What program are you using to monitor your temps?

 

Prime95 ver 25.6

Prime 95 ver 25.6 X64           will max your CPU usage to test for stability.

 

AMD / Intel cpu 

CPUID - Hardware monitor

 

Intel 45nm cpu's 

Realtemp

 

Run the Prime95 for 45 minits (it won't stop itself) and see how high your CPU temp gets, should not go over 65c

 

 

I definitely think its faulty RAM. This exact problem has happened with me in the past, and it all turned out to be a stick of memory that went bad.

 

Like the others recommended, don’t open your computer, but instead run Memtest (burn it onto a CD and boot from it) and run a couple passes and see if you get any errors. If you do, its time to contact HP for a warranty repair.

Anyways, I ran memtest and did 2 passes (it took over 90 minutes so if I need to do more I will do it at night when I'm not using my comp), but did not report any errors.

The temp at idle for GPU is about 54C, the processor is about 45C*.

The moment I turned on Prime95 and started the test, CPU went to 68C*.

*Average of the cores.

I did do the maximum heat and power consumption test on Prime95, and I'm writing this as I'm doing it, and as about 5 minutes in the temperature did not rise on the CPU from the average 68C. GPU stayed at 53C-54C. HDD at 29C.

I was using speedfan to test the temperatures, mainly because someone had recommended it to change fan speeds, but my comp does not support that I guess.

40 minutes later and it stayed relatively the same, maybe moved up to an average of 70C. The moment I stopped the tests, they all dropped to about 52C, and the GPU stayed relatively the same the entire time.

68c is gettin kinda warm. Whats the ambient temperature?

Did it get any warmer? Turn the test off if it goes over 70c or you could damage the cpu.

I'd run memtest another pass just to make sure.

 

Well 2 of the cores would hit 71C, and the other 2 were consistently below 70C at about 67/68C. I didn't check the ambient temp. And that was the max temp that it got to. I'll run memtest tonight and do like 5+ passes and just leave my computer on the whole time. It said on the site that people commonly leave it on overnight or even a couple days so I don't see that being an issue. But I really can't see it being a temperature issue at all, as that would make no sense with what I've said earlier. A restart completely clears whatever the problem is, and I can play a game right after restart all day and it will not crash. The temp would be consistent throughout all that which to me says temp plays no part in this. If its drivers/firmware causing this, I don't have the slightest idea how to fix that, because I have updated drivers on everything I could. If its hardware, it has to be hardware that caches/has memory of processes, atleast from what I've explained makes the most sense. And if its not faulty hardware and its faulty software which somehow messes up the hardware in some shape or form, I'll have to troubleshoot each program individually to attempt to cause the crash, but I don't have or run any obscure programs, and it seems extremely unlikely its a virus because its done this from the moment I got the computer.

Though something just hit me, because I have a 64bit processor, is there any possibility that some program I have that maybe is only meant for 32bit causing this? I don't really know much about processors or anything, but maybe I'm running some 32bit program that can somehow cause problems for the processor and then playing a video or game escalates into a crash?

In 99% of cases, 32 bit programs will run fine in a 64 bit environment. Windows uses an emulator to run them. I would imagine that only really obscure/badly coded programs would cause something like this and they probably wouldn't work in a 32 bit environment either if they were that bad lol.

Damn your PC is running hot!!!! Typically under full load you should be under 60, 60C tops. Is it an old PC? It could be that the temperatures are messing with other components near the CPU. Also, sometimes old PC's get gummed up with dust bunnies, which could cause shorts. One of my friends thought his RAM had died until I got a bike pump and blew out huge balls of dust- turns out it was shorting things.

I got it back in July (2009), and it was doing this then as well. I don't know if I'm explaining the reason I think its logical to rule out the temp well enough. I'm pretty terrible at converting thoughts into words so let me try this again.

I've been running my computer all day doing various tasks and what not. I decide I want to play a game, perhaps The Sims 3. At this point, the temperature (for example, I'll call this idle temp as well) would be 46C for CPU, 53C for GPU. Now if I don't restart my computer, and I turn on the game, and play for about 5 minutes. The temperature (for example) might be about 65C for CPU and maybe 60-70C for GPU since I'm playing a game and not just browsing the web. And now all of a sudden I hear audio stutters coming and I know the crash is near. If I exit the program quickly, my computer wont lock up so long as audio/video is not introduced again. I then restart my computer. Once my computer is back up within about 1-2 minutes, the temperature is probably back to idle or maybe slightly higher since it was hotter when playing the game. So now the temp is 46C CPU and 53C GPU. I start The Sims 3 up again, after about 5 minutes the temperature probably rises to about 65C for CPU and 60-70C GPU, just as before, because I'm playing the same game. But since I just recently restarted my computer, this time it will not crash. I could play for 5 hours straight and it wont crash. (I've done this before sadly enough so I know haha)

And its not a specific game or video causing it. One time I was playing Counter Strike and the audio started stuttering so I quickly quit and got back to the desktop. I was like ok I wont play that game anymore and I won't have that issue. I started up firefox, and it asked me if I would like to resume last session, I hit yes. Well unfortunately for me, one of the tabs I had open before was youtube, and that video started playing as soon as it loaded, and my computer locked up.

Alright. So it seems like a memory issue then- I would leave it running Memtest for a couple hours and a few cycles, and see if it returns any errors.

Update: Ran memtest overnight and it got through 6 passes, no errors.

Hmm... okay, so not the memory. The next most likely culprit is something with the graphics card. Maybe try reinstalling the drivers. If you've already tried that and it doesn't work, I'd think it might be something wrong with the graphics card, maybe the vram, although that doesn't seem likely if you can restart and keep playing like its fine.

You also want to make sure the problem isnt specific to the games/videos you're watching/playing. Do a quick google search to figure out if there are any compatibility issues.

I'm pretty sure its not the graphics card driver, because I had to update/install a newer driver for that when I upgraded from Vista to 7. And as far as specific games/videos, videos I'm watching are in standard divx or avi formats, and I've played them in Windows Media Player and the crash has still occurred. While that doesn't rule out specific issues with games, it does seem to convey the issue is likely not caused by what is actually making the computer crash, because I highly doubt Windows Media Player would have such a big problem. The only thing I can think of is that its specific to a program I use not related to playing games or videos. The problem with that is, its extremely hard to duplicate conditions and do trial and error with different programs I have on my computer without it taking a prolonged amount of time. This issue almost seems unsolvable.