Freezing while NOT under load.

[yoghurt13]

Update1: New motherboard, still freezes
Update2: Freezing evolved, it even happens in BIOS, and sometimes I have 2-3 second freezes with 1-2 seconds between them, audio still plays.

Hello guys,

I got a newly built (3 months old) computer, I already had to RMA My videocard beacuse it was faulty, had some black screens while gaming. Now with the "new" card I have some problems again. The computer freezes with no error message, or BSOD. I have to restart it every time to make it work. The keyboard, the mouse, and the audio played at the moment of the crash freezes, (sometimes there is no audio playing and still crashes, so it's not the integrated soundcard). And I sent that card back too, and they said that there was no problem with it. But the freezes still occured, and I searched forums all day everyday and found out that many other people had the same problems with that card. Then I found a guy with the same problems, but he mentioned his HDD (same as mine) as the problem, but he fixed the freezes by not installing the MOBO drivers, but I have an other mobo than he has. So I did the same, didn't installed those drivers. It still freezed. After a month of searching I found some temporary solution, I had to download MSI Afterburner, and turn the Unofficial overclock mode on without powerplay support, and tick Disable ULPS, and set the core and memory mhz 1mhz higher than the stock under load mhz. (1076 core, 1126 memory). And while this program is switched on, and this holds the cards mhz at its maximum, there are no freezes. This makes the card a good toaster in some time. And when I RMA-d this card they said that the card has no problem in their testbench.
 

So I need some help to identify the real troublemaker.
 

No overclocks, BIOS updated, Loaded defaults, made manual settings, profile on RAM, even manual timings.
I ran memtest with each ram over nights, no errors found.

I already tried reinstalling all the neccesary drivers from their original CD, even tried the online fresh ones, even windows itself. (Tried with Windows 7 64Bit, and Windows 8.1 64Bit).

Some other problems that I had/have that might help identifying:

-When I turn on the computer, or push restart button, the computer lights up and fans start spinning for 1 second, then it shuts down immediatly, then waiting 1-2 seconds the computer starts itself up.

-In the event manager, there is a bunch of error messages regarding to Windows couldn't load registry files. Fixed by windows reinstall.

-Shutting down from windows makes screen go black, and the computer still runs for some minutes. After turning on, the previous running time is added to the current, and this makes some programs do weird things, such as the afterburner can't set the "overclock".

 

Can somebody help me what is causing these freezes?

 

My computer:

MSI 970 Gaming MOBO

AMD FX 6300 CPU @3,5ghz stock w/ Arctic 13 Limited Edition cooler

FSP Hexa+ 500W PSU

Western Digital 1TB EZEX 64mb HDD

ASUS R7 260X OC 2GB GPU (Not DC2OC)

2xKingston HyperX Savage 4GB 1866MhZ CL9 RAM

[Tedster]

Have you tried reinstalling all the drivers?

Have you tried going back to earlier drivers from the manufacturer sites?

[yoghurt13]

Yep, tried that too, and still It didn't help.

[Tedster]

Okay. I see that you've done MEMtest with no errors on each stick. I was going to suggest RAM next...

 

For the weird thing with starting, this may be intentional. Some motherboards choose to do this for whatever reason.

And for the shutting down thing, I don't know either.

I kind of want to blame the power supply but I have no proof that it could be it.

[yoghurt13]

The PSU is new too, and It's not a noname, turn-on-burn-the-house-down type of PSU. And I also checked the recommended wattage before buying the parts, the 500W is enough for this computer.

[yoghurt13]

I managed to resolve the problem with the shutdown where previous running time was added to the current time by turning off the "Fast startup" or "hybrid boot" in the shutdown settings. 

[yoghurt13]

Bumping and hoping

[Beltboy]

Do you have any old HDD in the machine? I had similar issues from an old dying HDD even though I was only using it as secondary storage.

[yoghurt13]

Nothing extra is in my computer, just the listed stuff, and everything is new.

[yoghurt13]

Still bumping

[yoghurt13]

Well, I might just save up for a whole new PC again and sell this one somehow, I spent months to figure out the cause of problems, but I still didn't got any help. 

[CalculuS]

Gigabyte 970A-DS3P (Rev 1.0) MOBO

AMD FX 6300 CPU

 

How many times do I have to tell people that about 7/10 970 boards suck absolute major ass.

Please next time you buy a Gigabyte 970 board make sure its a good one.

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database

[yoghurt13]

Well, my exact mobo wasn't on the list, only the "DS3" version, but my DS3P is definetly heatsinked, and where I bought it they said it was 8+2 powerphase. Guess it's not then. And you say that if I change the mobo to a better one, the freezes will likely to stop?

[yoghurt13]

Bumping for the opinions for buying a new MOBO will fix this

[yoghurt13]

Still bumping

[yoghurt13]

*The daily bump*

[yoghurt13]

I bought a new motherboard, an MSI 970 Gaming, and I RMA-d the card again, they immediatly sent a "new" one (but it's still an ASUS r7 260X). But the computer still freezes. I even had a spare HDD to see if that's the problem but still freezing. 

The only two things in my computer that were previously in was my RAM, and the PSU. I'm checking the ram one by one again, if no errors, then my PSU is the problem. If not, then I got a defect GPU again. This will take a long time again.

[G33k 4 L1F3]

I bought a new motherboard, an MSI 970 Gaming, and I RMA-d the card again, they immediatly sent a "new" one (but it's still an ASUS r7 260X). But the computer still freezes. I even had a spare HDD to see if that's the problem but still freezing. 

The only two things in my computer that were previously in was my RAM, and the PSU. I'm checking the ram one by one again, if no errors, then my PSU is the problem. If not, then I got a defect GPU again. This will take a long time again.

Have you stopped to think that maybe your PSU isn't efficiently giving the power to you computer, causing it to freeze? your PSU might be spiking in its voltage levels, making your computer freak out and freeze up.

[yoghurt13]

Nah, the PSU is enough for my system, I calculated around 424W of usage, and PSU is 500W and has a 85% efficency which is maybe around 425W. But the problem is that the computer freezes when It's not under high load.

[yoghurt13]

So this happened, I got the MSI 970 Gaming, and the freezes are sometimes happen in BIOS too, and sometimes I have 2-3 second freezes with 1-2 seconds between them, audio still plays. Checked RAM again, and still no errors. 

Could this be the PSU or RAM?

[yoghurt13]

Update after months, a solution: I recently saw that somehow the CPU was frequently undervolted to 0.982V while wanting to operate at full speed, also the assigned voltage was like 1.225V, and raising it to 1,4V was a pain because you can only ADD voltage to the current voltage with this mobo, if you assign it to +0,05V it will only add it after you save it and reboot, now you have to set that again if you want to add another 0,05V. Now running at a stable 3,8Ghz without any freezing.