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Seemingly random freezes win7 home premium 64 bit. Detailed account.
My machine ran like a peach for a year or so but in the past 2 months i have been dealing with an ordeal of near random lockups.
Now to help troubleshoot. The first thing i would say is as a general rule, this issue has not created crash dumps. I know the attached file has 2 , but at the very least the earlier one was a a direct result of me causing a crash to force a crash dump in a situation where i knew a crash dump would be created.
There have been literally dozens and dozens and dozens of crashes, or more accurately lockups. Screen goes black, machine remains on, requires forced reboot.
And now to the tale. These crashes started happening intermittently not long after i upgraded from adobe photoshop cs6 to cc. So at first i naturally blamed it on cc or driver issues with cc, which would grey screen lock up. Then i started getting blackscreen lockups doing random things like checking internet. From there i began troubleshooting.
Things that i have done to attempt to find the issue.
Disable gpu use in photoshop.
Complete cleanout of video drivers in safe mode and install of various different drivers. Lockups kept happening.
Running ati video driver without ccc. Lockups kept happening.
Change from chrome to ie to firefox. Lockups kept happening.
Change antivirus software from MSE to avast. Lockups kept happening.
I press the nuclear button.
Clean install of windows 7 , updated to current, then absolute bare minimum of programs required to work.
Photoshop cc, avast, adobe creative cloud. Chrome, nothing else. Fine for 2-3 days, then lockups return.
I remember that when i installed cc for the first time, i did a bunch of windows updates. I systematically roll back 6 months to a years worth of updates. Lockups keep happening.
Install every diagnostic and stress testing tool i can find.
Intel processor diagnostic tool. PASSED.
Run 3D mark 2011 pass three times, fail 4th the second the program starts(the mobile/iphone quality test) via blackscreen lockup.
Run video memory stress test 3 hours, no errors found.
Rum windows memory diagnostic for 2 regular passes, no errors found.
Run crystaldiskinfo, primary listed as good, secondary listed as caution over 99 reallocate sectors.
I read up on effect of aging on psu capacitors, how it can cause a slow creep of lockups/bsods.
Now comes the most interesting part.
I place the machine into essentially, low power mode.
I use ccc to underclock the gpu to the minimum speed to try to draw less power, i set win 7 from performance power plan into the power save power plan. I physically remove bluray drive. 4 days later and being able to use photoshop that whole time, with no lockups which used to come at least once a day, i put my bet down.
My best guess at this point from reading was that my psu was no longer able to provide sufficient power to my system. The psu was 5-6 years old, and during the wave of crashes at one point i noticed that every so often the fan would not spin up. The psu was high quality though or rather i paid a lot for it XD, a modular odin.
Now comes the most interesting part.
My brand new psu arrives. I install, i spool the gpu back up to default. I reinstall bluray drive (nothing is overclocked on my machine, ever.) I go just over a day before blackscreen lock up.
Imagine my proverbial feels.
Begin running driver verifier.
Begins monitoring everything temperature wise with speedfan. All temps normal.
Remove bluray drive. Still get lockups.
Run windows memory checker for 12 hours. No errors.
Run video memory stress test all evening/overnight. 6 extended Passes, 0 errors.
Run Furmark for 15 mins, no lock up during test.
Run Seatools for windows. Primary drive fails short drive stress test.
Run crystal disk, drive listed as good.
Run diskcheckup . primary drive fails short drive stress test.
Both failures mention a host hardware or software reset.
Stop running driver verifier.
Current situation.
The thing that interests me most about this, is the fact that the machine ran without a lockup for 4-5 days with the gpu underclocked and the power plan set to power save.
Swapped out hdmi to monitor cable incase some kind of wear to cable was causing some kind of crazy edid related crash.
Currently on day 1 of planned 3 running system with power save power plan, but with gpu at defaults. No crash yet.
Planned checks.
Run machine for 3 days with gpu underclocked but powerplan set to performance. Check for lockups.
Run machine with performance power plan and standard gpu and await predicted lock up.
Run machine with backup machine graphics card in performance power plan mode.
My questions/thinking based on all this.
1. What exactly is the effect, in physical stress terms, of the different power plans on both the hard drives and gpu. Is it possible that the performance powerplan, and the regular one, which also gave lockups btw put stress on my primary drive to the point it would cause a lock up, but that the power save one does not(at least currently). Is my hdd the cause of this? Is there anything in the attached files to suggest it? It never made noise before, but after the last few days of tests i have begun to notice little noises coming from it.
My videocard repeatedly passed 3d mark, and ran fur mark, which melts things, and repeatedly passed gpu memory tests. But there were no lockups when it was underclocked to min values. Is it possible the videocard is the problem, physically. Is there anything in the attached files to suggest this.
Or is this a driver or allocation conflict or any other crazy thing that could be seen across a reformatting and fresh install of windows. Or could it be the mobo or sata controller?
Any advice or info you could give me from all this would be appreciated. While an obvious solution would be to replace my primary drive, mobo, and graphics card i dont have to money to replace all three now and i realllly dont want to replace the gpu on a whim, or the mobo if i can avoid it.
Anywho, thanks for your experienced eyes on this.
edit
Something i would likr to add actually is that during this two month period i have occasionally in despair, turned to burning zombies in l4dead2 for a few hours 5-6 times. No lockups. However, my steam install is on my secondary drive, so if the problem is my primary hdd, it might explain why i can play games without a crash. At the same time, it may just be timing that the issue did not occur while i was playing.
Last edited by destraudo; 19 Aug 2013 at 17:25. Reason: add note
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