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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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. 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?

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.

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!

thinking about the core i3 4130 with this motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130700 Thoughts? Alternatively if the g3220 would be enough for my needs I could get that with this motherboard and save 50 bucks or so.

Is a core i3 worth it over the haswell pentium?

As the title states I need a cpu and motherboard, I have the rest of the components from a previous build (list can be found below). I was thinking about the amd athlon 750k but dont know if an i3 would be a better choice. My main rig has a 3570K, but I dont need that much power in this one. Also the motherboard MUST have 4 ram slots and must be micro atx. Games to be played include AC IV, Dishonored, Bioshock series, Borderlands, Battlefield, Far Cry and so on. Radeon 7850 Samsung 830 128gb OCZ Vertex 120gb 8gb (4 x 2gb) antec neo eco 520w cooler master hyper 212 evo (or plus haha i have one of each) Also sorry about the extra "budget" in the title v_v dont think i can change it now.

well the good news is that I totally agree with having one more powerful pc than two mediocre ones (the second one was in a completely different house but I barely got to use it anyway), thats why i don't think I will be rebuilding the second one that died, but I am also not sure that upgrading the graphics in my current one is really worth it at this point in time (unless i want to spend a lot, which i don't)

My second pc just had the motherboard crap out (at least pretty sure it's the motherboard, all the ram, gnu, hdds worked, no way to test cpu). I took the gtx 660 out of it and put it in my main pc in place of my radeon 7850. I like the nvidia drivers and stuff better so I'm sticking with that in there and was going to sell the 7850. I was thinking about selling both cards and maybe getting a gtx 760 or 770 but I'm not sure that either of those would really be worth it because I really don't need more graphics power its just a matter of what can I do now. I could also try to resurrect the broken pc, but honestly I didn't get that much use out of the thing anyway so I'm not sure that it would be worth the cost to do so. Im really just looking to see what other users would do in such a situation to get some ideas on what I might do. The specs of both pcs are: Main PC: msi z77a-gd65 i5 3570k gtx 660 (was radeon 7850) samsung 830 128gb samsung f3 1tb 2x4gb corsair vengance lp ocz zx750w phanteks tcp12dx fractal arc midi r2 generic wireless card Second PC (Dead One): asrock 890gxpro3 phenom ii x4 955 graphics card removed (had gtx 660) ocz vertex 120gb crucial m500 240gb (has been moved to my macbook in place of the 128gb samsung 830 it had) 4x2gb corsair xms3 generic wireless card antec neo eco 520w asus disc drive antec 300 case I also have another antic 300 laying around unoccupied

I figured that is the repsonse I would get, although I love my samsung drives, it looks like I will branch out and try a crucial (almost got an m4 instead of an 830 for my macbook though). I also see what has been said about not really having anything to worry about since it will only be storing games really. The ocz drive that is my os drive on my second desktop I got for free from a friend and honestly have no clue how much has been written to it or how much longer it could or will potentially last. Thanks for the responses to my question!