Vista Freezes Randomly

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Diablo69

New Member
So I was trying to watch "Heartbreak Ridge" in avi format and it will run fine for a bit but then all of a sudden vista locks up so tight that I can't even do a ctrl + alt + Del. I have to manually reboot the pc for it to work, and then when I try to play a movie again it will just freeze. I have noticed it is not limited to movies as I have seen it happen when it goes to screensaver, you will see half of the image being drawn and then it freezes. My System Temp atm is 42C, I will list my spec below so you can see what i'm working with.

Intel core 2 quad 2.83Ghz processor
EVGA NVIDIA 790 Digital pwn ftw edition motherboard
4gb DDR3 1333MHz Corsair DHX RAM
750W Corsair TX Powersupply
320 GB Western Digital 7200RPM Hardrive
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB graphics card
Stage 3: High performance Liquid Chilled Frostbite System for CPU
Tarantual Gaming Keyboard
Razer Mamba Mouse
The case is a Antec 900.

Hopefully that should help get some answers flowing to this b/c i've tried everything I can think of...Memory Test came back ok, I refered to the log files (forgot how I got there as I used google), and I read through it everything seemed to be ok..few warnings here and there but it wasn't pertinent to the problem. Any assitance to this problem would be greatly appreciated.

DJ
 

My Computer

System One

Are Nvidia driver up to date? Is your GeForce 9800 GT overheating?
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+
    Motherboard
    Asus M2N-E SLI
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2 x NVidia 8600 GTS
    Sound Card
    Integrated CM-6501
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Benq 19" + LG 17"
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024@32bit@75MHz
    Hard Drives
    1 x Seagate 120GB SATA (OS installation)
    1 x Seagate 200GB SATA
    2 x Seagate 320GB SATA (Hardware RAID 0)
    1 x Seagate 250GB IDE (in external USB box)
    1 x TrekStor 750GB USB
    PSU
    650W
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 100
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Optical
    Internet Speed
    8192 kbps / 640 kbps
Did you build your system yourself, or was it built for you?
If the first, then it could simply be a bad connection between any of the hardware.... try taking everything out and putting it back in.

Also, if you've built it yourself or not, have you checked whether your graphics card is getting enough power? It should have this extra connection to the powersupply (apart from the normal connection which goes through the PCI-E slot). Not having enough power vcould very well be the cause of something like this.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz
    Motherboard
    Asus P5K Pro
    Memory
    2 times 2GB Kingston (paired) DDR2 PC 6400
    Graphics Card(s)
    9600GT 512MB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster 226 CW
    Screen Resolution
    1680X1050
    Hard Drives
    74GB 10.000 rpm WD raptor
    750 GB Samsung F1
    750 GB Samsung F1
    2 WD 500 GB drives
    PSU
    Recom Power Engine 600 Watt
    Case
    Apevia X-cruiser Blue
    Cooling
    Auras CTC-868 CPU cooler; 7 Zalman 120mm, 1 Papst casesooler
    Mouse
    Logitech wireless trackball
    Internet Speed
    50 mbit synchronous fibreglass connection
If you don't connect the extra powersupply to the graphics card, the system doesn't boot up.
Diablo69 says the system boots, so that's not the problem.
And the PSU is 750W, I don't think it's a power supply problem.
I suggest to check graphics card heat and update Nvidia drivers.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+
    Motherboard
    Asus M2N-E SLI
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    2 x NVidia 8600 GTS
    Sound Card
    Integrated CM-6501
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Benq 19" + LG 17"
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024@32bit@75MHz
    Hard Drives
    1 x Seagate 120GB SATA (OS installation)
    1 x Seagate 200GB SATA
    2 x Seagate 320GB SATA (Hardware RAID 0)
    1 x Seagate 250GB IDE (in external USB box)
    1 x TrekStor 750GB USB
    PSU
    650W
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 100
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Optical
    Internet Speed
    8192 kbps / 640 kbps
The system was at 42 degrees celsius, I got the drivers directly from Nvidia, and it says they are up to date. It just froze while loading firefox so the probably is getting worse..any ideas? What do you need from me in order to be able to better assist me? I purchased the computer from Digital Storm.
 

My Computer

System One

Diablo69 said:
So I was trying to watch "Heartbreak Ridge" in avi format and it will run fine for a bit but then all of a sudden vista locks up so tight that I can't even do a ctrl + alt + Del. I have to manually reboot the pc for it to work, and then when I try to play a movie again it will just freeze. I have noticed it is not limited to movies as I have seen it happen when it goes to screensaver, you will see half of the image being drawn and then it freezes. My System Temp atm is 42C, I will list my spec below so you can see what i'm working with.
...
Click to expand...

The way to deterministically troubleshoot lockups is to attempt to trigger a bugcheck (BSoD) once the machine locks up, and then to analyse the resultant memory dump with a debugger to see what state the OS was in, and whether perhaps there is any indication of a hardware malfunction. This procedure is one way to trigger a bugcheck:

http://www.vistax64.com/general-dis...nd-loop-no-bsod-error-report.html#post1028378

A minidump is insufficient and the system must be set to generate a "kernel" dump which will be on the order of 100MB to 500MB in size. They zip up really well but that's still far too big for uploading here so if you upload to say rapidshare.com or somewhere similar and then paste the link someone may be able to download and check it out for you. By the way, don't be doing your internet banking at the time because you don't want too much personal info finding its way into the dump :)

Otherwise, nobody can tell you why the machine is locking up and it's all just guesses. Sooner or later, someone may stumble upon the correct reason, but you're likely to have lost a lot of hair to incorrect guesses by then.

Also, the list of components is almost irrelevant when troubleshooting lockups (not that including it is a problem). The fact that it happens consistently during movie viewing and similar activities suggests a software cause, possibly to do with codecs and/or video drivers.
 

My Computer

System One

Ok so I did what was recommended, I edited the CrashOnCtrlScroll and I tested it the first time with a ps/2 keyboard and it worked. However I played HeartBreak Ridge again and sure enough it froze the pc, so I very happily hit ctrl scrollock scrollock and nothing happened...so back to square one. What can I do now?
 

My Computer

System One

Diablo69 said:
Ok so I did what was recommended, I edited the CrashOnCtrlScroll and I tested it the first time with a ps/2 keyboard and it worked. However I played HeartBreak Ridge again and sure enough it froze the pc, so I very happily hit ctrl scrollock scrollock and nothing happened...so back to square one. What can I do now?
Click to expand...

Bummer. That means even a PS/2 keyboard (driver) is not running at sufficiently high IRQL to trump whatever the software problem may be - or indeed it's a hardware issue.

You may want to do some research into whether your hardware offers any means of triggering an NMI (Non-Maskable Interrupt) via a button or toggle switch or some other means. That ability would be useful in this instance because it can trigger a bugcheck at an extremely high level of priority (IRQL) that's sufficient to deal with almost any software lockup. NMI "buttons" are nowadays standard fare on server-class hardware, but on most home systems the relevant circuitry on the motherboard/processor is not wired to a physical switch and there's no way to artificially invoke an NMI.

Without a memory dump, you're left with trial-and-error. Since you know it happens when you play video, try:

- different video formats: does say AVI behave differently to MPEG?
- different players
- boot in "basevideo" (VGA) mode to bypass the video driver: BCDEDIT /SET VGA ON
- reinstall the entire OS as a last resort and test playback before installing anything or even going online.

If that all leads to the same consistent lockup symptom, it's almost certainly hardware, and very likely the video card.
 

My Computer

System One

Update: I also tried to switch the SATA connectors around per similar post and that did nothing. The computer still locked up with the movie at 8mins35secs.
 

My Computer

System One

When in doubt..reformat. Seems to of fixed my problems...I noticed this time I didn't have Zone Alarm Security Suite...so things seemed to be running better. Thanks for the help :)
 

My Computer

System One

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