Can this cause freezing?

[GTX590]

So I am convinced that this PC that I sold has a corrupted OS. He played on it fine for 2 hours and the installed steam. The installation went wrong and it started to constantly freeze. A system restore did not help, but after he uninstalled steam it was fine for a day. After he booted it up the next day it started to freeze like crazy again playing wow and such. I am convinced he corrupted the OS with the steam install and the system restore. So I will walk him through step by step on wiping both the SSD and storage drive, but I really don't think it's a hardware issue as it worked great before steam and after steam but the issue came back. He hammered it for 24 hours as well.

EDIT: He said he can play on it no problem, but when he opens up 2 programs at once it hard locks up. Here are his specs:

I7-3770K

8GB DDR3 1600MHz

HD 7970GHz

120GB SSD Boot

1TB Storage

Corsair 400R Case

600W Corsair CX Modular

Corsair H100I CPU Cooler

He says after 5 minutes of having chrome and say wow open it freezes up the PC.

[GTX590]

To add, single games run great its just when he opens other programs, which he was able to before but now he cannot.

[Wats]

Go over there, hop into the Bios and set a fixed Vcore of 1.2V.

Make sure XMP is enabled.

Also make sure the H100 is bolted down very tight.

wait, H100..? lol..why?

Re-install Windows too, make sure he only has the drivers he needs. Nothing more.

Could prolly run HD Tune as well.

[GTX590]

Go over there, hop into the Bios and set a fixed Vcore of 1.2V.

Make sure XMP is enabled.

Also make sure the H100 is bolted down very tight.

wait, H100..? lol..why?

Re-install Windows too, make sure he only has the drivers he needs. Nothing more.

Could prolly run HD Tune as well.

Sorry it's an I7-3770k, it's at stock speed though. He lives 1400 miles from me and it's been a nightmare. First PC arrived damaged and UPS, despite insuring it told me they don't pay claims sorry (3 employees and a supervisor told me this), so I had to pull 600 out of pocket to fix it. He's not very technical so check anything inside won't happen. I would assume since he plays games full on it's not overheating, it's just whenever he opens say google chrome or IE, or any background programs it freezes after 5 minutes.

[Wats]

Oh wait, didn't you start a thread about UPS effing you?

Chrome crashing and lock ups..It does sound like not enough Vcore to me. That could be because of an old Bios update. If you can walk him through the Bios with skype, facetime or something so you can see what he changing.

Btw, what mobo?

[GTX590]

It is a brand new motherboard that we replaced it with. What gets me is he was able to run games+chrome open with all day, but after a reboot it got fubared. He is how everything happened.

Opened PC and played wow + IE/Chrome

Installed steam (got corrupted)

Started to freeze

Tried steam on C: Drive

Still froze

Windows updates

Still froze

System restore

Still Froze

Uninstalled steam and rebooted

Ran everything great, 2 wows+Chrome+streaming

Booted next day

Started to freeze with more than just WoW open.

Here is the mobo:

[h=1]BIOSTAR TZ77B LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS[/h]

[Wats]

Ohhhh. Nvm what I was saying. You're right, that's a corrupted Windows.

Have you had him do a full re-install? He knows how to get drivers and the order to install them in right?

[GTX590]

He has a 90 dollar gift card to BB and is buying a retail copy. I will walk him through it step by step. I just want to make sure there isn't anything else I can do. I really don't think it's a hardware problem. Too inconsistent especially since he can game very well on it. I used a copy I had which was fully activated but didn't charge him. He paid me 1750 for the PC, parts were about 1450+shipping, but after paypal fee's I made about 175 on it, but had to shell out 600 to buy a new mobo and gpu.

Me and my business partner are convinced it is a corrupted registry, but I want to me 100% sure as this customer has been through hell with this PC purchase. And since their payment went into the PC, I cannot simply refund his money unless I wholesale the product.

[Deviantsteam]

Before reinstalling I would try a system file scan first. It only takes like 5 min on an ssd and sometimes can take care of most corrupt system files, but I guess it could be better for you and him to start from scratch

[GTX590]

Before reinstalling I would try a system file scan first. It only takes like 5 min on an ssd and sometimes can take care of most corrupt system files, but I guess it could be better for you and him to start from scratch

EDIT: Nvm found it lol.

[AMICLG]

Oh wait, didn't you start a thread about UPS effing you?

Chrome crashing and lock ups..It does sound like not enough Vcore to me. That could be because of an old Bios update. If you can walk him through the Bios with skype, facetime or something so you can see what he changing.

Btw, what mobo?

UPS sucks I only use fedex.

[GTX590]

Before reinstalling I would try a system file scan first. It only takes like 5 min on an ssd and sometimes can take care of most corrupt system files, but I guess it could be better for you and him to start from scratch

Nothing found he said, it was worth a try.

[GTX590]

Any other ideas before we have him reload it next week?

[HEXiT]

go into bios and set hpet to enabled and 64. if you have a 64bit o.s. if not then set it to 32. you need to set this if your running vista,7 or 8.

not doing so will cause random lockups. chances are when you installed steam it tried to use high precision events and because its possibly set to 32(most motherboards either have hpet disabled or set to 32 by default) the system just crashed.

if you have eufi bios it should be in the settings of the ahci menu.

[GTX590]

go into bios and set hpet to enabled and 64. if you have a 64bit o.s. if not then set it to 32. you need to set this if your running vista,7 or 8.

not doing so will cause random lockups. chances are when you installed steam it tried to use high precision events and because its possibly set to 32(most motherboards either have hpet disabled or set to 32 by default) the system just crashed.

if you have eufi bios it should be in the settings of the ahci menu.

I have NEVER had to do this before. All I check is to make sure AHCI is enabled. Even my main rig I never set that, I would assume a brand new Z77 motherboard would be enabled. My question to you is, how come for a full day he could play 2 wows, stream, and have chrome up and the next day he couldn't?

[HEXiT]

go into bios and set hpet to enabled and 64. if you have a 64bit o.s. if not then set it to 32. you need to set this if your running vista,7 or 8.

not doing so will cause random lockups. chances are when you installed steam it tried to use high precision events and because its possibly set to 32(most motherboards either have hpet disabled or set to 32 by default) the system just crashed.

if you have eufi bios it should be in the settings of the ahci menu.

no mate its in the ahci menu in bios . its hpet, (high precision event timer). its not the ahci on/off option im on about its another setting.

you should see something like this

ahci menu....

ahci ----- enabled

some other options then

hpet ----- enabled/disabled

------ 32/64

[HEXiT]

go into bios and set hpet to enabled and 64. if you have a 64bit o.s. if not then set it to 32. you need to set this if your running vista,7 or 8.

not doing so will cause random lockups. chances are when you installed steam it tried to use high precision events and because its possibly set to 32(most motherboards either have hpet disabled or set to 32 by default) the system just crashed.

if you have eufi bios it should be in the settings of the ahci menu.

i did look at your motherboards spec and it does have an hpet option, you just have to dig around for it in bios.

it has been around since the first vista supported motherboards but if the bios didnt have an option for it, it normally means either the motherboard isnt vista complient or its enabled by default.(often the case on msi motherboards) but gigabyte and others do have a switch that needs enabling to get the board to work with high precision events.

[GTX590]

go into bios and set hpet to enabled and 64. if you have a 64bit o.s. if not then set it to 32. you need to set this if your running vista,7 or 8.

not doing so will cause random lockups. chances are when you installed steam it tried to use high precision events and because its possibly set to 32(most motherboards either have hpet disabled or set to 32 by default) the system just crashed.

if you have eufi bios it should be in the settings of the ahci menu.

I don't have the PC and it costs 50 dollars to ship each way. That is not an option nor do I have access to the bios screen to walk him through it. He's running Windows 7 not vista. Again this is a setting that I've NEVER had to change in the 300+ units i've shipped so this is news to me.

[GTX590]

go into bios and set hpet to enabled and 64. if you have a 64bit o.s. if not then set it to 32. you need to set this if your running vista,7 or 8.

not doing so will cause random lockups. chances are when you installed steam it tried to use high precision events and because its possibly set to 32(most motherboards either have hpet disabled or set to 32 by default) the system just crashed.

if you have eufi bios it should be in the settings of the ahci menu.

Mine is set to 32 bit and changing it to 64 bit didn't change a thing. I've never had freezes or anything of the sort. From initial research of this, this option is pretty much useless.

Upon further research, disable vs 32 bit vs 64 bit has zero effect on performance and enabling it can actually slow down boot times which is about it. Thanks for the advice though, now I know what Hpet is and such! Any other advice anyone???

[Deviantsteam]

Does it show anything abnormal in the event viewer? I'm starting to think this may be related to a memory problem since everything seems to keep corrupting. Windows has a mem test utility that is also easy to walk through

[GTX590]

Does it show anything abnormal in the event viewer? I'm starting to think this may be related to a memory problem since everything seems to keep corrupting. Windows has a mem test utility that is also easy to walk through

I am skeptical because it ran for an entire day no issue, then all of a sudden it hangs up with chrome/IE is open.

[Deviantsteam]

Does it show anything abnormal in the event viewer? I'm starting to think this may be related to a memory problem since everything seems to keep corrupting. Windows has a mem test utility that is also easy to walk through

Yea but when Windows freezes has problems it normally will always blue screen and show an even happened in event viewer. If it is blue screening you should also be able to read the dumps from ERD commander or some kind of mem dump reader. Hardware problems can blue screen or just fall flat and give you no indication of what might be wrong. Whenever I've had to repair issues related to whats happening with this guys computer it's always been a hardware related.

[GTX590]

Does it show anything abnormal in the event viewer? I'm starting to think this may be related to a memory problem since everything seems to keep corrupting. Windows has a mem test utility that is also easy to walk through

It's not blue screening, it's just locking up.

[Deviantsteam]

Does it show anything abnormal in the event viewer? I'm starting to think this may be related to a memory problem since everything seems to keep corrupting. Windows has a mem test utility that is also easy to walk through

That's exactly my point. If it was a windows problem it would be blue screening. But because it's not I'm still leaning on a hardware issue or maybe just something in bios configured wrong. Who know maybe a reinstall will clear this whole thing up

[GTX590]

Does it show anything abnormal in the event viewer? I'm starting to think this may be related to a memory problem since everything seems to keep corrupting. Windows has a mem test utility that is also easy to walk through

God I hope so, we cannot keep shipping it back and forth. It's already been damaged in transit and it's past the return policy for parts.