Bad crash during sleep, high pitched squeal

Mongrel · 24 Oct 2009

My system components were perfectly stable under Vista, without a reset for days or weeks at a time. DxDiag.txt attached for components.

But with Seven, I'll leave my system on (sometimes downloading) and in the middle of the night we'll be woken up by what sounds like a smoke detector. The PC has gone black (no BSoD) and something inside (a Dell XPS 410) is emitting a deafening high-pitched squeal. I think it's on-board audio like a system beep gone mad, not a hardware component.

Anyway I have to force-power down, then upon starting, it doesn't. Just a black screen, no BIOS. What usually fixes it is unplugging for a minute, plugging back in, starting then waiting for a LONG time until it sorts itself out & comes back on.

What in the hell could be happening with this?? Thanks in advance.

Other facts:

This was a custom (clean) install
Same thing happened with the betas on a different partition, both 32 and 64-bit
Latest BIOS, no custom settings
... nothing else unordinary

Tews · 24 Oct 2009

check for overheating ... asap...

Mongrel · 24 Oct 2009

What's the best & fastest app to do that? I'll post results.

I installed a Core 2 Quad processor not long ago, BUT I checked all the temps at that time and they were in spec. Plus, these issues were there with the beta, weeks before upgrading the CPU. The card is a pretty toasty 8800GTX, but it's been in there for nearly 3 years now...

Plus what's odd is that if it were heat, wouldn't be more likely to crash when I'm playing Crysis or something, when I'm really burnin' up the system? As opposed to when it's on standby?

usasma · 24 Oct 2009

Open the side of the case and point a house fan into it. Leave it on all night and see if that stops the squealing. While the case is open, check to see that all the fans inside the case are working (to include the fan on the video card).

An infrared thermometer will also help, but you can use your fingers instead (they're cheaper!).

Just unplug the system from the wall when the squealing starts.
Grab hold of the metal of the case with one hand.
Carefully, VERY CAREFULLY!!!, poke around inside the case looking for hotspots. In particular check the north and southbridges, the RAM, the CPU cooler, the cooler on the video card, the hard drives, etc.

When you burn your finger (if you're not careful) you've found the overheating component.