Periodic freezes in my system

[cesm23]

This is something real strange. I used windows xp for several months, and never had these periodic freezes, like from every hour on from the last time i last restarted windows the system does a small freeze. I noticed this because everytime this happens and i am capturing tv, there is always 1-2 dropped frames, and also when i am hearing music i notice a small freeze also. For example if i restart the computer at 8:30am, then it's garanteed that at 9:30am, 10:30am, 11:30 am and so on, always have this freeze. But that's not all, everyday when the clock goes to midnight exactly, there is a bit longer freeze of exactly one second, everything freezes, it's the audio, mouse cursor, and of course, tv capture, in which i get about 10-20 dropped frames.

I already tried EVERYTHING i could think about to fix this and absolutly NOTHING fixes this! This happens since i used windows vista, and now windows 7. In windows xp i didn't had the one hour freezes, but i start to have the midnight freezes a few days after windows xp is installed.

Now i absolutly need to fix this, because this is getting my tv captures de-sincronized, and i don't want to go back to windows xp just because of something so stupid as this...

I have tried so many things already to fix this, that i prefer that you guys do suggestions and then i say if i already tried that or not.

 

[Tews]

Welcome to the forums, sorry you are having problems... a couple of things come to mine... Are all your drivers up to date? Check the device driver section of your computer properties page and make sure ! The fact that you were using it for XP means that its been around the block a few times, and the fact that its happened with several different OS's suggests a hardware problem..

Next.. enter event viewer into your search box and navigate to the application tab and see if there are any critical errors or warnings.. take a screenshot and upload it if there are... we will go from there...

 

[torrentg]

It's something that's starting and running with your PC. Start menu search box, type msconfig.exe, hit enter. Go to startup tab and post a screenshot.

 

[cesm23]

well... this happens as well even when i do a clean install of windows 7 ! I mean, i tried to just install windows 7. I haven't even connected to the internet yet, to see if this was the problem. And EVEN like this, it still does the freezes...

So you see, i have tried this a few days ago and i already installed all the programs i use, you still think it's necessary to post the msconfig list of stuff that's running even tough when i did a clean install it already had the problem ?

About the drivers, well, even after all the driver updates i installed, the latest ones from everything i had, it hasn't done a single effect in the problem. ( i mean i did this now, not at the time i tested the freezes in the clean install)

About the event viewer, believe me, i have searched it many times and haven't found anything special happening at each hour the freeze happens, i even use a Process monitor and i did a very extensive analysis in ALL running processes even when i did the clean install, and still at the time of the freezes i find absolutly nothing unusual, no hard drive activity peak, no cpu usage peak...

I also had tried to deactivate ALL the system tasks in the task scheduler and still nothing changed!

Sorry if my english isn't perfect, but my native language isn't english, i am from portugal

note : the 1 hour freezes NEVER happened in windows xp, only the midnight freezes happened in windows xp, but it's only after a few days of use, strangely.

 

[torrentg]

What could be helpful in your situation is to run the capture software on high priority. Like this, it should record continuously without dropping frames because it will basically own the CPU and I/O. If your HDD is not the greatest, consider using the lossless Huffy video codec to capture to. That will cause less demand on the HDD than uncompressed.
In any case, keep the HDD defragmented as much as possible, especially before going to capture.

 

[cesm23]

The software program itself already sets it's priority to HIGH when capturing. Indeed this was enought in windows xp but in windows vista and windows 7 i noticed a lot more dropped frames when using the pc, so lately i always set it's priority to REALTIME and it worked quite well the problem it's still not enought for those periodic freezes, since i still lose 1-2 frames each hour, i noticed that this is EXACTLY when the "system uptime" in the task manager reaches 01:00:00, then 02:00:00, then 03:00:00, etc.

Also it's not a problem of the HDD, i tried making a RAMDRIVE and i did a tv capture in there and it captures very well without dropped frames most of the time, but it STILL drops those frames when the freezes happen, so this is clearly not a HDD issue, and it's also not a issue of programs i have currently installed since in a clean install this always happens too.

Now for the system specs you see in my profile, it's absolutly not normal to have such freezes, specially when in windows xp i never had them, expect the one at midnight which is a bit stronger than the 1 hour periodic ones.

 

[Tews]

Couldnt be the tv card I dont suppose... barring any other possibilities, it sounds like a classic case of gremlins....

 

[cesm23]

Hum... i tought of that, of being a problem of the tvcard... unfortunately i don't have any other to test this, but that's strange because besides that it captures perfectly well all the time... Oh by the way i almost forgot to say, sometimes, rarely and seemingly at random, in some of those 1 hour freezes, it does NOT drop any frames at all. I suppose that the freezes sometimes are stronger than in others. But it's not normal that in windows xp i never had these problems at all.

Oh by the way there's something very very weird about the midnight freeze (which is always stronger since i get about 15-20 dropped frames and the freeze lasts one second) : it does NOT happen if i change the clock manually, even if i change it in the bios before starting windows ! This is amazing, i don't know how is this possible but during the day i tried to change the clock to 11:55pm and then i waiting for the midnight... and NOTHING happened! Then i did the same again, but this time i changed the clock in the bios itself, and still couldn't reproduce the freeze. Then i just quit this, and later when the clock naturally reached 00:00 there is was the freeze! This is amazing... it's a curse i say lool

And yet another very strange thing : it also drops 20-23 frames EXACTLY when the captured video time reaches 01:23:33, always ! This also never happened in windows xp.

 

[Tews]

This is amazing... it's a curse i say lool

Its a gremlin I say...

 

[cesm23]

Yeah either that indeed

No but wait... it's not a tv capture card issue because this happens even when not capturing, as i said the midnight freeze is very noticiable, even the mouse cursor freezes and if there is any sound playing, it will freeze too for one second at 00:00. Not too sure about the one hour freezes tough since it's most noticeable in the tv captures because of the dropped frames indicator but i think i also noticed a very small freeze in any audio that is playing at the time that small freeze happens.

I guess no one has idea to what the heck is this, right ? I almost knew this would happen, because i really tried everything it was possible to diagnose this (including extensive process monitor activity) and absolutly nothing worked. I even tried without the sound card enabled in the bios (which is a onboard one) and this still happens.

 

[Tews]

Have you tried removing the TV card all together for a few days and see if the problem persists?? That is the only other thing I can think of...

 

[cesm23]

Hum... yeah i will try removing it right now, to see if at midnight there is still the freeze, because it's 10:42pm here so the midnight freeze will happen here soon again. Unfortunately i can't remove it for such long time (Several days) since i still need to do almost daily captures.

update : done, now i removed ALL pci cards i was using, i also disconnected two of the hard drives i have and the dvd recorder drive. I can't remove the graphics card for obvious reasons (even tough that's not the problem, since i had another graphics card before this one and the problem remains so it's not a problem of the graphics card) so the only thing remaning for now is remove all the memory modules and use only one, even tough i don't like much doing this since i use four 512mb modules and running windows 7 with only 512mb isn't such a good idea i think. Now it's 11:57pm in one hour i will give more feedback.

 

[Tews]

Good luck... we'll be back in 59 minutes for the results...

 

[cesm23]

loool let's see what happens then. By the way the system uptime reaches 1 hour about 10 minutes before midnight, let's see if i can also notice the 1 hour freeze, but probably not because that one is a lot weaker and i only know it happens when i see the tv capture, but i will try to move the mouse and hear a music to see if i notice any freeze on them.

 

[cesm23]

Jeez! At midnight NOTHING changed at all, still the same problem, this time i noticed well, indeed even the mouse cursor freezes as well, i mean, EVERYTHING freezes, and then unfreezes one second after. I was even hearing a music in winamp, there was a freeze in the sound, in the image at the screen and specially the mouse cursor, and this is the ONLY time of the day it happens, usually the 1 hour freezes are a lot weaker and only noticeable in the tv captures.

Well maybe it's a problem of the motherboard needing new drivers for this windows...

Anyway the only way i see now is trying to change all hardware i have and use it on other motherboard, and vice versa, it's the only way i see. At some point i have to pinpoint the cause of this, i suspect it's the motherboard itself or something on the bios. Altough of course it will still take a while to do this, i can't do it right away.

 

[H2SO4]

Anyway the only way i see now is trying to change all hardware i have and use it on other motherboard, and vice versa, it's the only way i see. At some point i have to pinpoint the cause of this, i suspect it's the motherboard itself or something on the bios. Altough of course it will still take a while to do this, i can't do it right away.

Intriguing

Here's one way to potentially get more info:

- Install the "Windows Performance Toolkit" --> Windows Performance Analysis Developer Center
- [Optional] set the clock to a few minutes before midnight, so you don't have to wait long for the "pause" to occur.
- Open an elevated (run as admin) command prompt.
- Around 20sec before midnight, run this: xperf -on PROC_THREAD+LOADER+INTERRUPT+DPC+PROFILE
- Wait unti 10sec or so after midnight, then run: xperf -d midnight.etl

What that does is to produce a very low-level log of what your machine was doing in between the two issued commands. If you zip up and upload "midnight.etl", I or somebody else might be able to tell you more.

The fact that it happens on a bare install (if I understand correctly) is strange enough. The fact that it always happens at midnight suggests some correlation to a scheduled task, or another activity which is timer-based.

 

[cesm23]

Oh yes thanks a lot, you see this is exactly what i need, in fact i was hoping for something advanced like this that i haven't tried yet, because i mean, i really tried just about EVERYTHING i could think of to trace this down and i was unable, i even went as far as disabling all system tasks in windows scheduler and still didn't work.

[Optional] set the clock to a few minutes before midnight, so you don't have to wait long for the "pause" to occur.

Lol that "trick" does NOT work... it NEVER does any freeze at midnight if i do this trick at all (except, of course, in the next time it reaches midnight naturally...), EVEN if i change the time in the bios, and even if i do a image of the disk using true image and then restoring, even like this windows somehow knows i did this and the freeze doesn't happen anymore! Altough yesterday i could notice that even if i shutdown the computer before real midnight, and turning it on before that, the freeze still happens, but only if i haven't touched the clock!

Oh by the way can i do this also before and after one of those 1 hour freezes too while i wait for midnight ? Of course, i would only send this just in case the dropped frames did happened in this case.

Also note that by now i have all installed programs i use to use, unfortunately i am unable to have a clean windows 7 install now, unless i do another image of the partition using true image, but usually i prefer to avoid this since it takes about ONE hour to do the whole image.

 

[H2SO4]

Oh yes thanks a lot, you see this is exactly what i need, in fact i was hoping for something advanced like this that i haven't tried yet, because i mean, i really tried just about EVERYTHING i could think of to trace this down and i was unable, i even went as far as disabling all system tasks in windows scheduler and still didn't work.

[Optional] set the clock to a few minutes before midnight, so you don't have to wait long for the "pause" to occur.

Lol that "trick" does NOT work... it NEVER does any freeze at midnight if i do this trick at all (except, of course, in the next time it reaches midnight naturally...), EVEN if i change the time in the bios, and even if i do a image of the disk using true image and then restoring, even like this windows somehow knows i did this and the freeze doesn't happen anymore! Altough yesterday i could notice that even if i shutdown the computer before real midnight, and turning it on before that, the freeze still happens, but only if i haven't touched the clock!

Oh by the way can i do this also before and after one of those 1 hour freezes too while i wait for midnight ? Of course, i would only send this just in case the dropped frames did happened in this case.

Also note that by now i have all installed programs i use to use, unfortunately i am unable to have a clean windows 7 install now, unless i do another image of the partition using true image, but usually i prefer to avoid this since it takes about ONE hour to do the whole image.

Curiouser and curiouser

Sure, you can do the same thing to collect some logs during the "one hour" freezes, just try not to let it keep running too long either side of the event. About 20-30sec is perfect as it provides a chance to compare what the activity looks like just before and just after the event. Also, if it's not midnight, try to note down the time when "it" occurred according to your computer's clock (while the logging was enabled), as close as possible to the second.

Don't worry about blowing away the install and starting from scratch. I'm mostly interested to see whether I can see any abnormal OS activity at all, which provides hope that the issue can be diagnosed, or whether even the low-level kernel logging has a little rest during the "freeze" period, in which case it'll offer nothing at all and I'll be that little bit more confident in saying the thing is somehow hardware-related.

 

[cesm23]

hum ok thank you for this i am really looking forward to see if it's finally this time this big mistery will be solved or diagnosed once and for all, because this is so far the BIGGEST one i have had so far...

Oh by the way i forgot to say one thing about the 1 hour freezes : even when i didn't had the freeze at midnight in windows xp, i also had the 1 hour freezes but ONLY when capturing tv in SATA drives, but when i captured in IDE drives that problem didn't happened anymore! But in vista and windows 7 it's different, now it doesn't matter anymore if it's in a IDE or SATA drive, now even in a ramdrive it still loses that frame each hour.

Also, if it's not midnight, try to note down the time when "it" occurred according to your computer's clock (while the logging was enabled), as close as possible to the second.

I don't think i understand what you mean... this always happens when the computer clock changes from 23:59 to 00:00 exactly, always... i think the freeze happens exactly when the clock changes from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00, and it never changes. Altough i am not too sure if it's not when changing from 00:00:00 to 00:00:01 since this isn't that easy to check.

By the way do you have any idea how to heck is this possible that it's not possible the reproduce the freeze when changing the clock ?? This is really very very strange, i almost tought it could be a virus but no it's not possible i re-installed windows so many times already and i use genuine versions of windows, altough note that i used windows vista and now windows 7 as "trial" i mean, after 1 month i have to use rearm. Altough when i used windows 7 RC i used a official key from microsoft, so this wasn't the cause of the freezes either, for a moment i almost tought this could happen because of windows being in trial mode.

 

[Dave76]

Left field

This is from way out in left field, outside the box.

Just read through this thread, made me think it might be a non-computer issue.

The last post made me dis-regard this thought, event is on an exact time, but decided to post it anyway. Strange that it's not reproducible by changing the bios clock :huh:

Could it be a power fluctuation?

Do you use a UPS?

Internet source? Resetting their server? Or internet provider caused?