Computer freezing while under load

OK, new plan of action for now....

I am going to at some point tomorrow (hopefully) get MemTest86 running, and run that for at least 24 hours.

If that works, I am TEARING this computer apart, and rebuilding it piece by piece. The ONLY thing I can think of that changed recently is that I moved from the Antec 900 to an Antec P280 case. I DID take everything apart and clean it and re-apply thermal paste, but perhaps I goofed. Also, I took apart my 4870 and cleaned it too. If I fudged it up, I am going to be LIVID. I managed to fudge up an ATI 9800 All-In-Wonder a few years back when it was a really nice card.

Maybe I will borrow parts from my wifes desktop, since it hasn't been powered on in over 6 months. Same socket, just running a C2D (E2600 so something I think?) different memory, and an 1950 (or 1900) XT.

It is killing me to know that my laptop out-performs my desktop because it can run youtube videos and SC2 with no issue....
 
Well, Today I had time on my lunch break, so I removed manually ALL of the ATI/AMD drivers, folders, Registry keys on this machine, with the help of this guide.

how to properly uninstall ATI/AMD Software Drivers for Graphics Cards.

I took the XFX Radeon HD 4870 out, replaced it with an HIS X1950XT, and installed proper drivers. The SAME thing is happening, but now I have noticed a development. Before it freezes, I lose monitor signal. Sometimes it stays frozen with no signal. A few times in the SC2 menu it went black and the GPU fan revv'd up to 100%, then it came back. Did this a few times, then froze with black screen.

JUST NOW, I was at the windows desktop, got the black screen, screaming fan, then it came back, still fine a few minutes later. Right after it came back, I had a notification in the tray area, and a pop up down there that said "Display driver atikmdag stopped responding and has successfully recovered."


I HAVE to imagine that this is some kind of hatred between ATI/AMD drivers and perhaps something corrupt on my Win 7 install. I am going to at some point do a fresh install of Win 7.

Windows event manager shows the following info:


Code:
- System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  Display 
 
  - EventID 4101 

   [ Qualifiers]  0 
 
   Level 3 
 
   Task 0 
 
   Keywords 0x80000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2013-01-12T02:21:31.000000000Z 
 
   EventRecordID 23506 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer AntecP280 
 
   Security 
 

- EventData 

   atikmdag
 
Well....

I was sitting here in my office this morning, working from home, and I had a thought.... What if this freezing issue is the SSD I am using in this computer? I have seen some similar reports on the OCZ forums, and MANY of them suggest to update the drive firmware.

The thing I do NOT get, is that I have the EXACT SAME drive in my laptop, which gets MUCH more use than my desktop. Also, the laptop has NO battery, because it died a while back, and I have had SOOOO many power losses on it with bad power brick cables, and my wife accidentally hitting the wall switch and turning off the outlet, and I NEVER have trouble with that drive. Oh well.....


So, here is the SMART data from my drive, shows drive life is at 0.... great.... I will try a firmware update (hopefully sometime in the next few months, time is a precious resource I don't have much of). If that doesn't do it, I am SWEARING OFF SSD's, because this is ABSURD how SHORT this thing lasted. Hardly a year I would say. Can't recall for certain, would have to do some research to see when I got them.....


Code:
[B]Model:[/B] OCZ-Agility3
[B]Capacity:[/B] 60 GB
[B]Firmware:[/B] 2.15


SMART Data

Model Number:	OCZ-AGILITY3                            
Serial Number:	<---OMITTED--->
WWN:		<---OMITTED--->

 ID ATTRIBUTE                         	STATUS	VALUE	WORST	THRESHOLD	TYPE	UPDATED	RAW
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate               	0x000f	092	092	050	Pre-fail 	Always  	0/18471572
  5 Retired_Block_Count               	0x0033	100	100	003	Pre-fail 	Always  	0
  9 Power-On_Hours                    	0x0032	099	099	000	Old age  	Always  	1660h+11m+11.580s
 12 Device_Power_Cycle_Count          	0x0032	100	100	000	Old age  	Always  	126
171 Program_Fail_Count                	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
172 Erase_Fail_Count                  	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
174 Unexpected_Power_Loss             	0x0030	000	000	000	Old age  	Offline 	4
177 Wear_Range_Delta                  	0x0000	000	000	000	Old age  	Offline 	2
181 Program_Fail_Count                	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
182 Erase_Fail_Count                  	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
187 Reported_Uncorrectable            	0x0032	100	100	000	Old age  	Always  	0
194 Temperature_Celsius               	0x0022	030	030	000	Old age  	Always  	30 (Min/Max 30/30)
195 ECC_On-the-Fly_Error_Count        	0x001c	120	120	000	Old age  	Offline 	0/18471572
196 Reallocation_Event_Count          	0x0033	100	100	003	Pre-fail 	Always  	0
201 Uncorrectable_Soft_Read_Error_Rate	0x001c	120	120	000	Old age  	Offline 	0/18471572
204 Soft_ECC_Correction_Rate          	0x001c	120	120	000	Old age  	Offline 	0/18471572
230 Life_Curve_Status                 	0x0013	100	100	000	Pre-fail 	Always  	100
[COLOR="Red"][B]231 SSD_Life_Left                     	0x0013	100	100	010	Pre-fail 	Always  	0[/B][/COLOR]
241 Lifetime_Writes_from_Host         	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	478
242 Lifetime_Reads_to_Host            	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	895

[EDIT]
Ok, TOTAL failure on my part..... I think I am reading the info incorrectly. I was under the impression that the VALUE colum was starting values, and the CURRENT values were far RIGHT column, which would make SSD_Life_left 0, essentially dead...

Ugh. I need to get over being flipping sick already, been sick since BEFORE Christmas, still feel like garbage. Ugh!
[/EDIT]
 
Last edited:
Well, I still for the life of me can't figure out why the computer freezes. Haven't had a chance to do a fresh Win 7 install on this machine yet either.

I did make an impulse buy early yesterday morning, SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD500BW 500 Gig Got it for $279.99 total, with $60 off instant, and another $60 off with code. Not too shabby for a 500 gig drive. Cheapest dollar / Gig ratio I have gotten on an SSD. I really hope that solves this issue. This will give me the perfect excuse to re install Windows.
 
Well, I have further isolated the issue, and I believe I have found a sort of work around.

I started FRESH on the 500 Gig SSD, no dice. The issue reared its head after less than 3 minutes of playing a game. This was about 2-3 weeks ago.

Yesterday, I got lots done around the house, and FINALLY had a chance to take a look at this dang thing again. Got around to running MEMTEST. With MEMTEST, I have confirmed ALL 4 sticks are good. The issue has something to do with the motherboard and the memory.

2 sets of Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Newegg.com

It turns out that the computer is JUST FINE with a single stick of memory, ran a full game of StarCraft 2 with only 1 gig of ram, not a SINGLE ISSUE. A combination of 2 sticks just DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. Further investigation lead me to find that the motherboard was running the Crucial memory at 1.8v, but it is 2.2v memory. I stepped up voltage up to 2.2v but the issue was still present.


I stole 2 sticks out of my wifes PC, and she has 1 set of corsair memory that runs at 1.8v. I moved the MB settings back to 1.8v, and STILL it won't play well with 2 sticks.

1 set of CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5C - Newegg.com


So for SOME REASON, the mobo just can't manage to run more than 1 stick of memory. At this point, I have 'traded' memory with my wife, so she still has 4 gigs, but I can run a 2 gig stick rather than a 1 gig stick.


Then the plan is to sneak a motherboard, CPU, memory into my server build budget so I can get this machine addressed too.
 
Well, previous post was from my laptop. This post is from the desktop, which has been running SC2 games since the time that previous post was put up. All good now.

I may just get a single 4 Gig stick or something rather than upgrade. This machine runs ALL I need it to without issues, other than the memory trouble.
 
I recently had a pc freezing to lock up too, I checked the bios and found it set to optimum, I reset it to the default normal settings and it hasn't locked up in two days. Have you reset the bios to it's defaults yet?
 
Yeah, I reset the BIOS more than a few times, and tried tweaking various settings. No use.... I am just going to keep on keeping on with a single 2 Gig stick on this machine. I looked up the prices on 4 Gig sticks of DDR2 to be AMAZED that they are more than DOUBLE the price of 4 gig DDR3 sticks.... absurd. FORGET IT. I would rather spend the $80-$100 on upgrading mobo/CPU/RAM than getting a workaround 4 Gig stick when it isn't REALLY needed, 2 is plenty for now...

So yeah, this thread is pretty much concluded at this point. The next one will be the upgrade of the mobo/CPU/RAM, which likely won't be until I complete the plan for the rack mount server build, and get those parts ordered.
 
Back
Top Bottom