Solved System Freezing...

[HowardWoodard]

I have a system running W7 Ultimate on an ASUS P5Q Pro with a quad processor. It has been completely reliable for about 3 years.

I went on vacation about a month ago, leaving the PC on and running the software that controls my lights and appliances on. I've done this several times before and never had an issue.

This time when I returned neither the keyboard or mouse would turn my monitors back on. The PC was running and the background program controlling the lights was running and I had a few email messages over the weeks of successful completions of other programs that run automatically. The activity light was showing on steady but there was no sound of any kind of activity.

The only way I could get it to respond/shut down was to hold the power button. It booted back up without error or warning and appeared to be working properly. In fact, it downloaded and installed a couple of updates. However, after about an hour when I tried to use it the monitors would not come on again. Same drill for shutting down and rebooting. This time I kept doing things over the next 45-60 minutes to keep it busy and the monitors on. Then suddenly everything just froze. I waited a long time to see if it would free back up but the only thing that happened was that the monitors eventually turned off.

So, a perfectly working PC, left unattended for a month, now regularly freezes -- no, not at the exact same times, just regularly. I don't see anything in the event log other than the entries from rebooting each time.

Does anyone have any experience with anything like this? Any suggestions?

 

[Berton]

Some of the symptoms you describe are reminiscent of the problem of bulged and/or leaking capacitors on the motherboard or in the power supply a few years ago.
https://www.google.com/search?site=....0....0...1c.1.54.hp..2.15.1612.0.EYhqQFnokDE

 

[andrew129260]

Have you installed any new software or software updates to programs recently? I am not talking about windows updates, but any programs you use.

Anything else change in the system hardware wise or anything else?

 

[HowardWoodard]

Perhaps something cooked on its own but as I said, it was working perfectly when I left back on September 10th and was freezing when I returned yesterday, October 4th. No one was home during that time. The only change that could have occurred would have been the automatic updates to Windows and Norton.

I only see two updates that occurred while I was gone -- "Adobe Flash Player 15 Active X" on 9/24 and "Microsoft OneDrive" on 9/25.

 

[gregrocker]

How did Flash update on its own? It has an installer than must be downloaded and run.

Norton is always a suspect in cases like this.

Work through the steps for http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html until it is stable enough to boot and run then continue with http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html

Most important as always is to perfect install on adequate hardware.

 

[bigmck]

I sounds like an overheating problem to me. Download free Speccy https://www.piriform.com/speccy/download/standard and since it seems to last about an hour before it shuts down you could monitor the temps and when the PC shuts down notice if any temps are high.

 

[andrew129260]

How did Flash update on its own? It has an installer than must be downloaded and run.

Flash has an auto update service greg to help with the security issues it faces since version 10. It auto updates about a week after an update is pushed out.

 

[HowardWoodard]

Thanks all. This morning when I restarted it, it would no longer boot. It would get into BIOS and then quit with...

New CPU installed!
Chassis intruded!
Fatal error!
System halted

I'm gonna pull everything apart, clean it, put new paste on the CPU, and then put just the minimum configuration together and see what I have.

I'll update my results here.

 

[Berton]

Chassis intruded!

That should be a setting in the BIOS to Disable or Enable. Some cases have a switch that activates the message when a panel is removed to gain access to the motherboard and other parts inside.

 

[andrew129260]

interesting that is says chassis intruded, if it never said that before, while you were away did someone break into it? its unlikely but still.

 

[HowardWoodard]

I have no idea why it said Chassis intruded since it was not enabled in BIOS. This who thing is a mystery to me.

I took everything apart and cleaned it and then reassembled the system, adding one component at a time. Knock on wood but it hasn't failed again -- yet...

I didn't repair or replace anything and I'm back to the full configuration again. The only thing I did that comes close to a change was to clean and re-paste the CPU and cooler. If it was a heat problem then it just started happening while I was gone. Go figure.

Anyway, I'll call this solved and let you guys move on to more important things. I appreciate all of your input and suggestions.

Howard