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Short description: I bought a new computer a couple months ago. My problem is that every now and then, my computer "freezes up". However, if doesn't freeze for good. After a couple of minutes it comes back to life, and everything's fine again. This tends to happen while on Skype calls (with and without video), and while viewing flash video.
Long Story: I basically bought all the parts for the computer, and assembled it myself (I have decent experience doing this, I don't do it for a living, but i'm not a total newbie at it).
This is the parts list:
- Intel Sandybridge i7-2600 Quad-Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache, Socket 1155)
- Motherboard: Intel DP67BG Extreme Series iP67 Socket 1155
- Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 DDR3 XMS3 8GB Desktop Memory (2 x 4GB)
- nVidia GTX550Ti 1GB - card by MSI - MSIN550GTX-1GCY
- OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SATA II 2.5-inch Internal Solid State Drive
- Coolermaster GX 650W PSU
- TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150Mbps Wireless PCI Express Adapter
- Using on-board audio card
That's the basics, I also have 2 "regular" HDD drives (1.5 Tb and 2Tb).
OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1, with pretty much every update it suggests installed. I also tried to update every single driver to the latest version, and also the motherboard BIOS is the latest. I couldn't find an updated BIOS for the video card, though. I also have the latest version of Flash.
The sympton that I get, precisely, is that sometimes the computer freezes completely (mouse doesn't move, "Num Lock" light doesn't turn on/off, it seems to be completely dead). If you leave it like that, however, after 2-5 minutes it comes back, and everything picks up where it left off. All disk operations that were in progress continue normally, all programs seems to not know anything happened. The only thing that fails is that network connections obviously get dropped, but that's it. After this happens, there are absolutely no related entries in the Event Log. Not sure if there's anywhere else I could be looking. I've never had a blue screen, or any other problem other than this freezing that always ends up coming back to life.
This only happens when I'm talking through Skype, both with video and without, and (less frequently) when I'm watching Flash video (youtube, vimeo, etc). It also doesn't happen every time, or even most of the time, I've watched long videos and had hour long conversations without problems, and sometimes the same call drops every 10 minutes. So this makes it kind of hard also to see if anything has "solved" the problem, sometimes it takes a couple of days to fail again.
Skype fails way more often than Flash video, though. Also, this never happens, at all, if I'm not calling through Skype or watching videos. It's gone for days without any freezing. Chatting through Skype is not a problem. Flash games are not a problem, "regular" games (Call of Duty, etc) never hang. Listening to music all day is not a problem.
I've tested the RAM with MemTest, which says it's fine, plus I've removed each of the two DIMMs individually, and with each of them I still get the freezing, so i'm pretty sure it's not RAM. I've also switched them from bank to bank, just in case it was the bank, but they all fail similarly. But that's about as much as I've been able to rule out from the hardware side.
I also don't think this is related to overheating. I haven't installed any "temperature measuring" software (if you can recommend one, I will), but all the CPU, GPU, and motherboard heatsinks are very cold to the touch, all the time, even while playing large videos or gaming at maximum graphical settings. I haven't really been able to strain this computer at all, CPU is never higher than 15%, for example. I was able to make the GPU get a bit warm (not particularly hot) by running FurMark, and that also didn't make it freeze.
At this point, I'm completely stuck. I don't know how to find whether the rest of the hardware is faulty, or to prove it's not, and the same goes for software/driver. I also don't have spare hardware to start swapping parts on/off.
I'd really appreciate any ideas on how to figure this out, because this is very annoying, particularly because I constantly drop calls with clients, but the rest is so close to perfect that it's hard to believe this happens. I'm getting quite desperate here to be honest...
Has any of you experienced something similar to this?
If I'm asking in the wrong place, please let me know where I should and i'll move the question there.
Thank you very much!
Daniel
1Oh, this is just SO awesome, thank you so much. I was just coming here to comment I'm out of things to try again. I'll work on this. Thank you!! – Daniel Magliola – 2011-05-23T18:34:54.440
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Ok, just got a trace for a hang. You can download it from here: http://lejanooriente.com/filexchange/mytrace.rar - Thank you SO much!
– Daniel Magliola – 2011-05-23T19:36:34.630@Daniel: Updated the answer. – Tamara Wijsman – 2011-05-23T21:12:56.727
1I replaced my TP-Link PCI wireless card with the built-in that comes with the mobo (which gets lower signal) and the problem is gone. Tom, I have no words to describe how much I appreciate what you did. You are absolutely awesome, thank you SO much for taking the time to diagnose this. I wish I could send you more karma (or money, or anything), you really got me out of a HUGE pain in the butt. THANK YOU!!! – Daniel Magliola – 2011-05-25T04:14:28.797