Computer freezes then unfreezes, need help troubleshooting

[guitarwiz23]

I recently started having trouble with my computer freezing, at first I thought it was stuck and would just restart the computer whenever it happened, but I found out that waiting 30+ seconds would allow it to recover without having to restart. Sometimes after recovering it would be fine until I turned my computer off and sometimes it would repeat the freezing. The freezing, I have noticed, occurs the most (not exclusively however) when I am multitasking. The two times when I can always get it to freeze are if I play music on spotify and browse chrome with alot of tabs and alot of loading pages and such. The other time is if I am playing a game and alt+tab out to chrome to check something, upon trying to load pages it will freeze. I have had some freezes without chrome being open so chrome can be factored out as the cause. While trying different methods of troubleshooting my test for freezing was to run borderlands 2, with spotify playing music in the background, and then occasionally alt+tabbing out to chrome. First idea was to change the ram into different slots see if it may have any effect, no change. Then, I uninstalled all my nvidia drivers and put in my radeon hd 7850, freezing continued, graphics card ruled out. I then reinserted the gtx 660. Next I powered the computer using a different power supply, still froze, power supply ruled out. I now have the memory from my other computer in the computer and it didnt freeze with the testing, however it did get a little bit choppy at points so I havent confirmed that it is solved yet. I ran memtest with the original ram in my spare computer overnight to check those sticks and it went through 7 passes no errors.

 

I am basically looking to see if anyone has any insight into what may be causing the problem and anything else I should try. I have not tried a different hard drive, CPU, or motherboard. The specs for my system can be found below. I did have the CPU overclocked when this started occurring, but I have removed the overclock and let the motherboard resort to all auto on voltages and such. I had EVGA precisionX installed, but no overclock was put on the card (I was planning on it and haven't had time to tweak it). I uninstalled Precision X and the virtual surround program I had installed (kept activiating itself and I would lose sound in game). Also, all of my temperatures are well under control, CPU stays under 50 at almost all times. Ram and CPU usage are typically not maxed when freezes occur.

 

Core i5 3570k

Msi z77a-gd65

Corsair Vengance LP 8GB (2x4GB 1600 MHZ) [swapped out for Corsair XMS 3 8gb (4x2GB 1333MHZ for testing]

MSI gtx 660 [swapped for radeon 7850 to test]

Samsung 830 128gb boot drive

samsung spinpoint f3 1tb storage drive
rosewill pci-e wireless n card

OCZ ZX 750w psu [ swapped in antec neo eco 520w to test]

 

If anything with my description of how I tested things, or any further questions about the freezes or any additional information would help please let me know so that we can hopefully get to the bottom of this. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Tsuki]

honestly sounds like you're using too much ram. next time its acting up, check task manager to see whats using all your memory.  i'd also suggest limited startup programs so there is less things running. you can also try using a different browser for a little bit to see if that helps.(chrome tends to eat a shit ton of memory)

[zjellie]

While the PC is frozen, will turning your monitor off and on again help?

[nanowatt]

Try this go to ms config and run a diagnostic start up and do your normal work and see if it still freezes or just let it run.If it still freezes then is not related to any soft or driver you have.The hardware is not a problem since the os is on that samsung i can trust it and the ram is more that enough to handle multi tasking

 

 come back after you restart the pc and run that diagnostic start up and tell us the results

[guitarwiz23]

honestly sounds like you're using too much ram. next time its acting up, check task manager to see whats using all your memory.  i'd also suggest limited startup programs so there is less things running. you can also try using a different browser for a little bit to see if that helps.(chrome tends to eat a shit ton of memory)

Thanks for the quick response, I can check the ram usage when it freezes, but the weird thing is that I am using the same amount and couldn't get it to freeze in double the time it took with the original sticks. Obviosuly it needs more testing to confirm, but according to memtest my sticks of ram are both good. The biggest differences are ram speed and the fact that it is 2 vs 4 sticks.

[guitarwiz23]

While the PC is frozen, will turning your monitor off and on again help?

 

I can try this, but I am not sure it will help, i know its not just the monitor frozen if that is what you are getting at because the sound loops in the speakers. If there is another issue that could occur with the monitor I will give it a shot, don't  know if it makes a difference but the connection is HDMI.

 

Try this go to ms config and run a diagnostic start up and do your normal work and see if it still freezes or just let it run.If it still freezes then is not related to any soft or driver you have.The hardware is not a problem since the os is on that samsung i can trust it and the ram is more that enough to handle multi tasking

 

 come back after you restart the pc and run that diagnostic start up and tell us the results

 

I am actually at work right now, but I will try this when I get home, how exactly do you do that? Sorry for my ignorance on the matter. Should I put in the old memory sticks when I run it this way?

[nanowatt]

I am actually at work right now, but I will try this when I get home, how exactly do you do that? Sorry for my ignorance on the matter. Should I put in the old memory sticks when I run it this way?

Start>>search and fill the bar with the following "msconfig" and hit enter.A window will come up and in the first tab you will see 3 choices normal startup,diagnostic and selective.Select diagnostic and reboot the os.Then let it run or do some basic stuff and see if it still freezes if so then your problem is not related to any soft you have but maybe the os itself.When you want to get back to normal again go to msconfig and select normal startup.The ram may be an issue but in most cases it won't let you boot anyway

[LuisCorner]

I had the exact same problem my pc used to froze like 15~30 seconds when i was multi-tasking (opening a lot of tabs in Chrome or playing a game and trying to open a web browser or listen to music) then i changed the PSU and in was still the same but only 10~15 Seconds and then later i bought 4Gbs more of ram and my pc still slow but it DOESNT FREEZE LIKE BEFORE, but i had 2 Gbs of ram and you have 8!! maybe is something in your hard drive thats causing the problem if you cant solve the problem try to use another hard drive and see if still the same

[guitarwiz23]

I am not sure if this would make a difference, I guess it may, but here is the supported RAM list for a previous BIOS version: http://www.msi.com/file/test_report/TR10_2536.pdf. I updated my bios and all my MOBO drivers when the freezes started but it didnt solve it obviously.

 

 

The RAM model number according to corsairs site (http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengeance-low-profile-blue-8gb-dual-channel-ddr3-memory-kit-cml8gx3m2a1600c9b) is: CML8GX3M2A1600C9B

[Tsuki]

Thanks for the quick response, I can check the ram usage when it freezes, but the weird thing is that I am using the same amount and couldn't get it to freeze in double the time it took with the original sticks. Obviosuly it needs more testing to confirm, but according to memtest my sticks of ram are both good. The biggest differences are ram speed and the fact that it is 2 vs 4 sticks.

 im sure your ram is perfectly fine. im thinking more of just not having enough of it. chrome is a memory hog. which is why i suggested testing with a different browser

[guitarwiz23]

I had the exact same problem my pc used to froze like 15~30 seconds when i was multi-tasking (opening a lot of tabs in Chrome or playing a game and trying to open a web browser or listen to music) then i changed the PSU and in was still the same but only 10~15 Seconds and then later i bought 4Gbs more of ram and my pc still slow but it DOESNT FREEZE LIKE BEFORE, but i had 2 Gbs of ram and you have 8!! maybe is something in your hard drive thats causing the problem if you cant solve the problem try to use another hard drive and see if still the same

This will be my last resort before contacting MSI (motherboard should still be in warranty). I can do the HDD but it is a pain, and I cant afford to change out the processor haha. The only other thing I can remove is the wireless card.

[guitarwiz23]

 im sure your ram is perfectly fine. im thinking more of just not having enough of it. chrome is a memory hog. which is why i suggested testing with a different browser

The RAM does not show as maxed out when it happens, but maybe it freezes before the meter can spike up. Isnt Firefox a ram hog? or have they fixed that in the newer releases? That is why I use chrome anyway, I also have safari installed.

[Tsuki]

The RAM does not show as maxed out when it happens, but maybe it freezes before the meter can spike up. Isnt Firefox a ram hog? or have they fixed that in the newer releases? That is why I use chrome anyway, I also have safari installed.

personally i used waterfox, so im sure about the official releases of firefox. and safari works great on mac, but i dunno about its windows compatability. i would deffinetely make a temporary, full time switch to one or the other though, just to make sure. (like dont touch chrome for a full day and see what happens). also disabling background tasks, particularly startup programs could help a lot.

[guitarwiz23]

Just wanted to post an update, ran in diagnostic mode, but had to switch to get some other functionality for tonight, but once i switched back it froze so it is not the physical ram and ram can be ruled out, so I am down to software, hard drive, cpu, or mobo

[zjellie]

Are you using windows 8.1?

[guitarwiz23]

Are you using windows 8.1?

 

No, I am using windows 7, I replaced my wireless card to see if that may be causing the issue, next step is hard drive if it still freezes.

[watts300]

Test the issue in another user account. Transfer no data to it.

If the computer doesn't freeze, the cause isn't hardware or the OS.

[guitarwiz23]

Another update, changed the network card which was running some generic driver, and no more freezes, have run 2 days with similar usage so far. I will leave this open in the case that the freezing returns but it seems to be solved.

[cesrai]

try memtest