System Freezes - requires reset or power off

I have been having problems with my system freezing - some programs may still run (the system clock will freeze but a sidebar gadget showing the time in scotland will show the correct time, my downloads may also continue and when i have to do a hard reset? the raid may have to be rebuilt).

It seemed to be random but i noticed that most of the freezes were occurring when i was installing programs and to a lesser extent when i was trying to control the computer with realvnc.

at first i thought it was a hard drive problem (i had a stripe raid as the system drive) or the cables connecting them. (i swapped cables).

i thought maybe i had faulty cables and a crash had broken system files as my raid was a stripe.

i reformatted everything and configured the raid stripe to a raid mirror and reinstalled everything - still crashing.

i removed drive 0 - drive 1 would crash. removed drive 1 and drive 0 would crash.

so i don't believe my problem is hardware

I have found a program that almost crashes my system - videoinspector223.exe

when i try to install it the first window is okay (select language), i choose english and click next then then my system crashes (explorer?). i can write this in firefox but i can't click on the start button or the taskbar. if i cancel the installation i can then use the taskbar. (this may just be a rogue program but it is a problem that i can reproduce and i have have full freezes installing programs - last night a j river media player install froze completely.

occasionally realvnc crashes to both screens are completely black and i have to power down - these may be related.

let me know if i have provided too much information or not enough

i hope you can help - i like the system but i crave reliability - i have 3 raids in my system - two raid 5 and 1 mirror - i also have a drive for backups (a total of 9 drives) - i don't like the system freezing and having to rebuild my raids all the time (obviously it is time consuming but more importantly my data is at risk)

thank you for reading this and i hope you can help

ethereal9 said:

I have been having problems with my system freezing - some programs may still run (the system clock will freeze but a sidebar gadget showing the time in scotland will show the correct time, my downloads may also continue and when i have to do a hard reset? the raid may have to be rebuilt).

It seemed to be random but i noticed that most of the freezes were occurring when i was installing programs and to a lesser extent when i was trying to control the computer with realvnc.

at first i thought it was a hard drive problem (i had a stripe raid as the system drive) or the cables connecting them. (i swapped cables).

i thought maybe i had faulty cables and a crash had broken system files as my raid was a stripe.

i reformatted everything and configured the raid stripe to a raid mirror and reinstalled everything - still crashing.

i removed drive 0 - drive 1 would crash. removed drive 1 and drive 0 would crash.

so i don't believe my problem is hardware

I have found a program that almost crashes my system - videoinspector223.exe

when i try to install it the first window is okay (select language), i choose english and click next then then my system crashes (explorer?). i can write this in firefox but i can't click on the start button or the taskbar. if i cancel the installation i can then use the taskbar. (this may just be a rogue program but it is a problem that i can reproduce and i have have full freezes installing programs - last night a j river media player install froze completely.

occasionally realvnc crashes to both screens are completely black and i have to power down - these may be related.

let me know if i have provided too much information or not enough

i hope you can help - i like the system but i crave reliability - i have 3 raids in my system - two raid 5 and 1 mirror - i also have a drive for backups (a total of 9 drives) - i don't like the system freezing and having to rebuild my raids all the time (obviously it is time consuming but more importantly my data is at risk)

thank you for reading this and i hope you can help

Hi and welcome

can you type event viewer in search. go to the windows logs>application tab. Look for errors (red in left column) that relate to app hang, app crash, or anything that relates to the problem. when you find them note the Event ID and course codes. relay them to use

Thanks

Kenn J++

I had a look in the event viewer - windows logs - application. there wasn't anything relevant - i was able to install j river media center, but when i tried to install family tree maker 2009 the system froze. it also froze when I tried to install the debugging tools - i think you can see the theme - the installer is freezing my system somehow - it is not just certain programs that are the problem - it is a range a different types of programs from different companies (microsoft include).

i have run sfc /scannow and there are no problems.

i tried to install my programs in safe mode but it said that there was a problem with the installer - is this normal?

i'd appreciate some help - i am rebuilding 2 raids