Freezes and BSOD, error 0x00000124

I've got 4 GB. Last time I stopped during the 9th pass.

Yes, one error would be enough already to confirm that the memory is faulty. Only mimtest86+ didn't find one single error so far.

That's something I haven't done yet. I guess these tools log the temperature and once a crash occurs I take a look at the log. I would then rather focus on a correlation between temperature spikes and freezes, rather than bluescreens. Because the latter "only" happen about once a month, but freezes quite frequently.

One thing before I spend too much time with this: A few weeks ago I asked an HP engineer (was fixing something else) about a possible heat problem with my notebook. He showed me the cooling vents which were all clean and said he doesn't think that's the problem. Does it still make sense to log temperatures? Could there be another culprit than the actual cooling vents that still effects temperature? (Please excuse my asking to naively; I just don't know.)

Yes, there are other factors that can affect temperatures. Dust is the most common. If your system is free of dust, another common cause of overheating is a failing fan. The third most common cause would be improper spreading of the thermal compound between the CPU and the heat sink to allow heat to flow from the CPU to the heat sink so the fan on the heat sink can dissipate the heat into the air. I have seen cases with laptops in which the thermal compound was not spread properly on the CPU resulting in overheating.

I definitely would proceed with checking your temperatures. We can provide a few stress tests that are designed to increase temperatures to test cooling and see if everything is working as it should. My usual hardware temperature checks are:

• Monitor temperatures during the following tests.
  
  Use the following programs to monitor the temperatures.
  • Real Temp is a good CPU temperature monitor.
  • Speccy - System Information - Free Download will monitor all hardware temperatures.
  • HWiNFO, HWiNFO32 & HWiNFO64 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools can be inaccurate for CPU temperatures, but is a good program for GPU temperature monitoring.
  
  
  • Use FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net to test the graphics card GPU. Then use the |MG| Video Memory Stress Test 1.7.116 Download to test your graphics card memory. Let the memory test run for at least seven passes; the more the better.
    
    
  • Run Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95 to determine any hardware problems. Run all three tests for a few hours each. If you get errors, stop the test and post back here.

Wow, you amaze me over and over again with your experience. Thanks, writhziden. Will do that. Probably over the weekend or so.

You're welcome. Make sure to stop any tests if your CPU temperatures get too high. Your CPU is rated up to 105 C, so anything over 85-90 C should be considered critical for the CPU. I could not find temperature information for your GPU with a cursory search, but they are usually designed up to 100 C, so 80-85 C should be the critical temperature for it.

The temperatures I have given are a bit conservative, but with adequate cooling, the system really should not be getting close to those temperatures. The CPU should run 75-80 C at its hottest, and the GPU should be around 70-75 C nominally.

Oh, very helpful and critical information indeed! I had just guessed something - and probably the wrong - or would have had to ask again. Even if I repeat myself: Bid thanks!

Such a simple thing actually. But might be, indeed. I'll let you know what the temperature measurements show as soon as I find the time to run the tests.

Just came to my mind: On the other hand a failing fan would not explain - even contradict - the fact that the freezes do only occur if no video is playing or the other way round: Freezes never happen when a video is playing. And that would certainly be the time of highest expected/needed fan activity.