Help with system instability

[Bronn]

Hoping someone can help! Having stability probs. Random software crashes, especially web browsers, Chrome, Firefox, and IE. Other programs crash too. My Sound card disappears until I reinstall its drivers. I switched to onboard audio for now. Sometimes booting into Windows my USB keyboard won't work until I reboot. ive had occasional complete system freeze.

I've tried formatting & reinstalling. All stock settings, no overclocking or even turbo mode. I've tried different RAM. All drivers and firmware are up-to-date. I've disabled browser add-ons with no luck. I've also tried mem test with no issues.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Windows 7 professional 64 bit

MSI Z77 MPower

I7 3770K

MSI GeForce 660 TI

Boot Drive: Intel 730 480 GB SSD

Seagate 2 TB storage drive

Patriot Viper 16 GB RAM

Seasonic M12D 750 W PSU

Edited January 20, 2015 by Bronn

[Bronn]

Any suggestions?

[TDP_Equinox]

Try resetting your BIOS, and if that doesn't work, update it. 

[LabRat]

DO replace your motherboard battery.

 

what sound card are you using?

[Bronn]

I have reset bios. There are no new bios updates. I had a sound blaster x-fi titanium hd but just recently removed it.

[TDP_Equinox]

I have reset bios. There are no new bios updates. I had a sound blaster x-fi titanium hd but just recently removed it.

Does your mobo have a dual BIOS?

[Bronn]

Yes it does have dual bios.

[TDP_Equinox]

Yes it does have dual bios.

Try swapping to the other one. 

[tmlhalo]

Check event viewer and see if Windows can give you any insight into the issue. Try to check right after a crash so everything will be under the with in last hour tab of event viewer. If you need to know how to get to event viewer hit start, type event viewer. Normally the ones under critical and error are the helpful ones. ignore the rest. 

[LabRat]

I have reset bios. There are no new bios updates. I had a sound blaster x-fi titanium hd but just recently removed it.

 having multiple soundd rivers installed can do harm........ the internet related stuff....... update flash player. STOP running ( uninstall chrome ).........firefox........ load up on add blockers software/ghost/ browse security add ons.

 

the BIOS thing..... I mentioned battery ( replacing ) a bad battery could cause some of the problems..... new board or not. also, if you reset the BIOS and you had problems with the usb it can be a normal thing. the usb's need to be enabled for them to work..... therefore a usb/ps2 adapter very handy device.

[Bronn]

Try swapping to the other one.

This seems to have stopped the crashes. Haven't had one since switching. I'll continue to test it out & let you know for sure.

[TDP_Equinox]

This seems to have stopped the crashes. Haven't had one since switching. I'll continue to test it out & let you know for sure.

Good news!

[Bronn]

Gonna mark this one solved! Still no crashes so far, fingers crossed that it's good now. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[TDP_Equinox]

Gonna mark this one solved! Still no crashes so far, fingers crossed that it's good now. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Thank you for marking as solved lol, you have no idea how many times i have posted "Mark topic as solved please"

[Bronn]

I'm back again! I'm still having similar problems although not as severe. I realized that in swapping the BIOS it reverted back to eight updates ago. As in there are eight newer BIOS updates than what is currently installed. I currently have version 17.4 and the latest one is 17.12.

My Internet Explorer still crashes occasionally especially if I'm using my Dragon naturally speaking software. My Dragon software also crashes occasionally. And accessing my storage drives and copying files from one to the other is very slow. Should I attempt each newer BIOS and see what happens? Or just jump to the newest one? Could there be a defect with the motherboard? I'm pretty sure I still have one year warranty left on it?

[TDP_Equinox]

I'm back again! I'm still having similar problems although not as severe. I realized that in swapping the BIOS it reverted back to eight updates ago. As in there are eight newer BIOS updates than what is currently installed. I currently have version 17.4 and the latest one is 17.12.

My Internet Explorer still crashes occasionally especially if I'm using my Dragon naturally speaking software. My Dragon software also crashes occasionally. And accessing my storage drives and copying files from one to the other is very slow. Should I attempt each newer BIOS and see what happens? Or just jump to the newest one? Could there be a defect with the motherboard? I'm pretty sure I still have one year warranty left on it?

Have you tested the hard drives? Do that before messing with the BIOS. 

[Bronn]

Yes hdd's have been tested with no errors. The slowness just started after the bios swap. I've also noticed sometimes using both front usb 3 slots at the same time one will constantly disconnect and reconnect every 5 or 10 seconds. This system has been buggy since I got it. Little weird random things.

[TDP_Equinox]

Yes hdd's have been tested with no errors. The slowness just started after the bios swap. I've also noticed sometimes using both front usb 3 slots at the same time one will constantly disconnect and reconnect every 5 or 10 seconds. This system has been buggy since I got it. Little weird random things.

I'd say go ahead and try updating the bios, one version at a time. 

[Bronn]

Well I attempted updating the bios One version at a time via usb stick in the bios menu. I got to version 7 and the updater stopped working. I tried going to version 8 but instead updating, it just instantly rebooted. All attempts with any of the newer versions did the same thing, so I updated to the newest version using MSI live update in Windows & still have the software crashes same as before.

[LabRat]

...............................................

 

uninstall chrome.

skype too if you are using it.

uninstall the sound card and drivers.

unistall the sound drivers from nvidia.

under clock the gpu (ram and gpu )( not system ram )

disconnect all but main drive.

reset cmos.

go to windows updates.... install/install/install........ then go back and install some more.