Windows 7 Professional 64bit freezing/locking up randomly

[Bott99]

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give as much info as possible.

I recently built a new system and installed Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Ever since I built it the system has had a problem where it will freeze at random times. When it freezes the mouse simply stops moving and the computer is completely unresponsive, requiring a hard reboot. The time that the system takes to freeze varies greatly, sometimes only a few minutes, sometimes up to 36 hours. The freezes tend to occur mostly while the system is idle. It seems to be fine during gaming and i've had no freezes whilst playing games for hours at a time. The freezes do not occur when the system is in safe mode. Apart from the freezing the system runs fine.

System specs are as follows:
- Intel Core i7 2600K
- Asus P8P67 Deluxe (B3 Stepping)
- G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB kit (4GBx2) DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
- Asus 6950 2GB VGA card
- OCZ Vertex2-E 120GB SSD
- 2 x Western Digital 2TB SATA2 HDD (WD20EARS)
- Corsair HX-750 PSU
- Antec 900 case

So far I have tried everything I can think of. Here is a list of what I have tried already with no luck:

- Updated all drivers to latest versions
- Checked Event Viewer for errors but could only find a Kernal ID-41 power error indicating that the system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first (I don't really know what to look for here so I may have missed something)
- Performed a clean boot with all non-Microsoft services disabled, still crashes
- Ran SFC/SCANNOW command, no errors detected
- Disabled all display and system sleep options
- Reinstalled fresh copies Windows 7 on the SSD (both 64 bit and 32 bit versions, both still froze)
- Replaced the motherboard (upgraded to B3 stepping after the Cougar Point recall for the board's SATA controller)
- Tested the RAM with Memtest for 10+ hours, no errors
- Swapped the video card with the card from from my other computer which is confirmed working, still froze
- Reinstalled Windows 7 x64 on a different HDD (and all other drives disconnected), still froze
- I also installed my old copy of Windows XP Pro 32 bit on the system and this actually did run without freezing

The fact that Windows XP and Windows 7 safe mode run successfully on the system without freezing prompts me to think it's not a hardware problem but I don't know what else to try in Windows 7 to get it run normally without freezing.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

Sounds like power supply to me. I have the same issue every now and again and determined it is my supply. I cannot afford to replace it right now (and it only happens once every couple weeks if that).

I forget why it was the power supply though, if someone else could fill in from here.

 

[narayanjr]

While I dont think you are having the same issues I was, I was having random restarts and freezes, but check your BIOS to see what voltage your RAM is running at. For some reason my P8P67 Pro board decided to run my 1.5V Ram at 1.65V, I dropped it back down to 1.5V and it has run fine ever since. But since you are able to run memtest for 10+ hours its probably not the issue, but cant hurt to check. If i was lucky mine would make it through 1 pass before it locked up or rebooted.

Assuming the deluxe is the same setup as the Pro it will be, Bios->Advanced mode-> AI Tweaks -> DRam Voltage

 

[preacheral]

I have been having this problem for a long time. The computer just freezes... but there are no resources being used. I discovered that my problem was windows Live. Any time I use windows live the problem presents itself after some time. I had been forced to a rude exit, reboot in safe mode and restart to get things working again. I haven't used live mail for the past two days and everything is working like a champ. Before I was rebooting 2 or 3 times a day.

 

[Bott99]

I considered the power supply as the problem but changed my mind when XP ran without issue. I have a working power supply in my old computer so I could swap them out and see if that helps.

I recently changed the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE and reinstalled Windows again. I also disabled Superfetch as I read that this improves stability with an SSD. With only Windows installed (i.e. no 3rd party drivers or software) the system ran for a record 2 days without freezing. I then assumed that this had fixed the problem and installed motherboard drivers, VGA driver and other software (e.g. Firefox, anti-virus etc) and left it running overnight. Unfortunately the computer froze that night. This leads me to suspect that the problem is being caused by a driver issue, as a clean boot (i.e. no 3rd party programs running at startup) still freezes.

At this point I plan to fresh install Windows again and leave it running for a longer time to confirm that it really does work properly in this state and that the 2 day uptime was not a fluke, then reintroduce drivers one at a time until it starts to freeze again.

Any views on this approach?