Rig Just Crashes Sometimes

ScottALot

ScottALot

Active Member
Hey Guys,

So I'm back home from active duty air force stuff and I haven't used the computer in a while, but my brother has been a little bit. It works near perfectly, but I'm getting crashes once in a while even when the system doesn't seem like it's having a hard time coping with resource usage. I'm not sure what's causing it, but it's not a regular crash like instant black screen or BSOD. Instead, whatever sound was playing freezes, video/game/application freezes, but the cursor is usually still usable... at least it is for the first few minutes before I reset the computer. I've also restored BIOS to default and fail safe settings.

I'll add details as requested.

Here are the specs

i7 930 (watercooled)
MSI Big Bang XPower X58
6GB Mushkin Redline 1600
GTX 460 Hawk
60GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
2x 500GB (RAID1)
1x 1TB
XFX 750W PSU
 
I had some weird crashes and crummy performance on my computer and it was resolved with an OS reinstall, but I wouldn't try that just yet.

Also make sure you're as clean as you can be of viruses. Use Malwarebytes. Your brother may have contracted a virus on the computer unknowingly.

Might be failing memory too. Try running memtest.
 
If windows is locking up and the mouse/cursor still works. My guess is you have a driver glitch somewhere. Try updating all your drivers.
 
Update drivers, remove any overclocks on CPU, RAM and/or GPU, check your temperatures, test your RAM and hard disk for errors. Also try updating your SSD firmware and reinstall Windows as a last resortr
 
Denther said:
I had some weird crashes and crummy performance on my computer and it was resolved with an OS reinstall, but I wouldn't try that just yet.

Also make sure you're as clean as you can be of viruses. Use Malwarebytes. Your brother may have contracted a virus on the computer unknowingly.

Might be failing memory too. Try running memtest.
Click to expand...

Running MalwareBytes, will update post here: _________
Will run Memtest this weekend, need to find a freaking flash drive
I DID do a scan earlier and it found shit that my brother installed... spyware toolbars and the like. I'd like to think it got rid of everything, but I have no way of making sure.

StrangleHold said:
If windows is locking up and the mouse/cursor still works. My guess is you have a driver glitch somewhere. Try updating all your drivers.
Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure how to check ALL drivers to make sure they're good. I've done Windows Update, checked my Device Manager for alerts, didn't see anything.

spirit said:
Update drivers, remove any overclocks on CPU, RAM and/or GPU, check your temperatures, test your RAM and hard disk for errors. Also try updating your SSD firmware and reinstall Windows as a last resortr
Click to expand...

Temp's fine, watercooled. SSD firmware does sound like it could be an issue. Will try that and update here.
Downloaded OCZ Toolbox and looked in SMART Data. WTF is this?

EDIT: Booted into OCZ Toolbox, updated software. Not sure which version it was and is now, but I performed the update. I also moved the SSD to a 6Gb/s Marvell instead of a JMicron like the rest of the HDDs.

Code: 
SMART Data

Model Number:	OCZ-VERTEX3                             
Serial Number:	OCZ-9P471MO0OC64O76N
WWN:		5e83a97e9ebc1d7e

 ID ATTRIBUTE                         	STATUS	VALUE	WORST	THRESHOLD	TYPE	UPDATED	RAW
  1 Raw Read Error Rate               	0x000f	089	089	050	Pre-fail 	Always  	0/11801284
  5 Retired Block Count               	0x0033	100	100	003	Pre-fail 	Always  	0
  9 Power-On Hours                    	0x0032	096	096	000	Old age  	Always  	4215h+00m+48.350s
 12 Device Power Cycle Count          	0x0032	100	100	000	Old age  	Always  	359
171 Program Fail Count                	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
172 Erase_Fail Count                  	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
174 Unexpected Power Loss             	0x0030	000	000	000	Old age  	Offline 	39
177 Wear Range Delta                  	0x0000	000	000	000	Old age  	Offline 	1
181 Program Fail Count                	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
182 Erase Fail Count                  	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	0
187 Reported Uncorrectable            	0x0032	100	100	000	Old age  	Always  	0
194 Temperature Celsius               	0x0022	030	030	000	Old age  	Always  	30 (Min/Max 30/30)
195 ECC On-the-Fly Error Count        	0x001c	120	120	000	Old age  	Offline 	0/11801284
196 Reallocation Event Count          	0x0033	100	100	003	Pre-fail 	Always  	0
201 Uncorrectable Soft Read Error Rate	0x001c	120	120	000	Old age  	Offline 	0/11801284
204 Soft ECC Correction Rate          	0x001c	120	120	000	Old age  	Offline 	0/11801284
230 Life Curve Status                 	0x0013	100	100	000	Pre-fail 	Always  	100
231 SSD Life Left                     	0x0013	100	100	010	Pre-fail 	Always  	0
241 Lifetime Writes from Host         	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	943
242 Lifetime Reads to Host            	0x0032	000	000	000	Old age  	Always  	1930
 
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Wouldn't worry about any of that. So long as it said the update was successful then it should be fine.

Give it a try with the new firmware and on the Marvell controller. If you find it's fine, maybe consider moving your other hard drives to the same controller (if you can) and then disable the controller which you're not using in the BIOS.

Have you tried looking for any updates for your SATA controllers in Device Manager? Have you also tried updating graphics, network, audio and chipset drivers too? Those drivers particularly can cause problems.

I know you've got an X58 board so you probably don't have any, but from my experience with SATA 6GB/s on various boards, the Intel controllers are faster than the Marvell and JMicron ones. However you may not have an Intel 6GB/s controller on your X58 board (my old P55 board only had Marvell and JMicron).
 
spirit said:
Give it a try with the new firmware and on the Marvell controller. If you find it's fine, maybe consider moving your other hard drives to the same controller (if you can) and then disable the controller which you're not using in the BIOS.
Click to expand...
Marvell controller only has two ports, the JMicron has the other 6.
spirit said:
Have you tried looking for any updates for your SATA controllers in Device Manager? Have you also tried updating graphics, network, audio and chipset drivers too? Those drivers particularly can cause problems.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I did the auto-search for updates. I updated graphics, but nothing on the mobo yet... installed network/chipset/audio drivers, now doing BIOS.

EDIT: Man MSI BIOS flashing is scary... but I'm at 1.7 now :-)
 
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Still haven't run MemTest. Will be doing that in a few minutes. In other news, BF3 is acting way the f*** up. It does the whole Loading Map on the browser, then auto-opens the playing window, then black screens. Sometimes it'll go between black and white screen over and over and over. If I can get the system to respond at all (like pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc) the system just gets hella hella slow like I'm running Vista on an Atari.
 
What happens when you remove a stick and run Memtest? Sometimes it will pass even if one stick is faulty, but when you run that one stick on its own it will fail.
 
spirit said:
What happens when you remove a stick and run Memtest? Sometimes it will pass even if one stick is faulty, but when you run that one stick on its own it will fail.
Click to expand...

X58 will run on one stick? BIOS settings need to be altered or will it just default to a setting allowing for one stick?

Yeah it ran like 14 times and no errors came up with the 3 sticks.
 
ScottALot said:
X58 will run on one stick? BIOS settings need to be altered or will it just default to a setting allowing for one stick?

Yeah it ran like 14 times and no errors came up with the 3 sticks.
Click to expand...

I don't know for sure but if you can it's worth trying.

So if you're getting no errors I think we'll conclude that your RAM is probably OK.

Are you still getting problems with your rig crashing?
 
Well I tried to separate my RAID 1 and turn it into a RAID 0 w/o losing data, but it ended up wiping everything on there... but now it's more stable... I think something was wrong with my RAID config. Will post if I have any more problems.
 
Still can't load BF3. Here's the step-by-step of how it "crashes"

1. Join server
2. After maps loaded, game automatically maximizes
3. Hear that quiet, low music, black screen
4. Origin's 'press Shift+F1 to open Origin interface' thing in the bottom right pops up
5. Music stops
6. My alternate monitor shows my desktop instead of black
7. My main monitor shows BF3 in a Windowed mode
8. Switches back and forth from Windowed mode black screen to full screen black screen
 
Some problems still popping up. BF3 is hit or miss. Random crashes are happening still, but almost never when I'm actually on the rig. The only time it has crashed while I'm at the rig it gave me a BSOD.
Something new I've noticed... when it crashes when I'm away and the monitors are timed out (asleep), moving the mouse/Ctrl+Alt+Del/Ctrl+Shift+Esc/Power button causes the CPU load lights on my mobo to bounce up and down.

So I've done Memtest to test for bad memory... are there tests for other components? I could always GPU/CPU load it, but I don't think it would isolate a certain component.
 
Curious, have you tried running OCCT on the machine and verified that there are no errors anywhere? http://www.ocbase.com/ highly recommend, helped me find when gpu overclocks were unstable memory wise, and even when my memory controller went tits up on me. and seeing the read errors from the drive you posted kinda troubles me.
 
Do you remember when the crashing started ?

You could do a System Restore beyond that point and see if you still experience crashes.
 
FuryRosewood said:
Curious, have you tried running OCCT on the machine and verified that there are no errors anywhere? http://www.ocbase.com/ highly recommend, helped me find when gpu overclocks were unstable memory wise, and even when my memory controller went tits up on me. and seeing the read errors from the drive you posted kinda troubles me.
Click to expand...

Not completely sure how to use it yet, but I'm giving this a shot, it looks promising.

wbt50 said:
Do you remember when the crashing started ?

You could do a System Restore beyond that point and see if you still experience crashes.
Click to expand...

Problem is my brother's been using it, I'm fairly sure he did something that might have caused the problem. I mean he just broke the mower today. I've been gone 8 months so I don't know when the stuff started and I'm 99% sure there aren't restores anywhere.
 
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