Unknown cause system lockup with sound repeat

[Phate]

Computer Specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0ghz
4gb OCZ Reaper RAM
ASUS P5Q/e Motherboard
NVIDIA GTS250 Video Card
Forgot wattage of PSU, but its 600+
2x Acer 22" Widescreen Monitors

Problem: Computer locks up unexpectedly, doesn't BSOD but becomes completely unresponsive. Last sound byte being played goes on infinite repeat. Occasionally the sound glitch will turn into random "scratchy" noises that are extremely rapid.

Things I've Tried: Truthfully, I'm more at the jumping off point on fixing this problem.

every time this has happened, I just rebooted and got back to what I was doing (hard-boot through power button on tower). I noticed something about System Error Dump Files, but I couldn't find how to access them on Vista. I think that if I had stored logs from every time a crash like this happened, that would be the quickest route to finding the problem / solution.

I'm going to bed right now, but I will keep an eyeball on this thread and supply any information and try any theories whenever I can.

Thank you.

-Phate

 

[carnageX]

The crash dumps should be located under: C:\Windows\Minidumps.

Zip/upload them to a file hosting site if they exist from any of the dates your crashes occurred.

 

[Phate]

So I looked in the file you specified, and there are indeed 12 minidump files there, in .dmp format. I'm unable to open these, and web searching hasn't yielded a simple solution.

However, if these were creating records every time I crashed, there would be hundreds, and the most recent recording was on 1/25/10, and I've had crashes as recently as last night.

Any other places to check for dump files or anything?

Anything else I should check?

Edit: Also, I am somewhat cautious of uploading these without taking a look at them first, will they contain any personal information? (IP Address, any login information for the PC, etc)

 

[carnageX]

No they don't contain any personal information.

If you want to analyze them yourself... BlueScreenView by Nirsoft, or WinDbg by Microsoft (you also need to download the appropriate Symbols package as well).

Can also try checking the Event Viewer to see if it gives any indication on what is causing your most recent problems.

 

[Phate]

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There's the minidumps, just took all of them, I can't remember if any of the dates on the files corresponded to crashes, they were months ago.

I opened up the Event Viewer, but I can't quite decipher it, where would I look in there to search for crashes?

 

[Phate]

Just an update: Crashed twice tonight, at 9:45pm and 10:22pm, using the Windows Vista search tool, I searched for any files created at those times, to no avail. Nothing for a couple hours before 9:45 (I was at work), and nothing until 9:47 after, and nothing closer to 10:22 than 10:18 and 10:23.

So it seems nothing is being logged about these lockups.

Any ideas?

 

[Phate]

Bump

Anyone got any other ideas to help fix this problem? I'll try anything