Computer Freezing

[azhdar]

Hey,
I have this problem for a little while now but it didn't happen enough for me to bother.
My computer freeze, nothing is responding no more, and I have to reboot it through the power button.

No error message whatsoever when it's rebooted.

Lately It's been happening a lot more because I'm torrenting stuff using my computer instead of my NAS.


It happens mainly when I'm browsing or downloading.

It never ever happens when gaming.

So I think it's either :
-RAM
- Disks
- Motherboard
- ??

What troubleshooting software would you recommand to identify the issue?

Can give you precise specs if that matters , Windows7.

[baldgye]

Idk if this trick works in Win7 but it's what I used to do in XP when trying to work out if I had a software or hardware problem quickly.

Open task manager and end process tree for explorer, then once it has gone and all your left with is your wallpaper, open the task manager again and go to file > run and type explorer.exe

That should relaunch windows explorer with only the very basics, then in that environment run games and see if the problem persists

[azhdar]

No the computer is totally froze when it happens, not responding at all.

[baldgye]

I mean do that before it happens and then try and make it happen to see if it's some program or a hardware failure.

In my experience RAM failures result in BSOD's in win7, gfx problems in the PC rebooting automatically and hard drive issues cause your PC to be slow and or not boot properly. But I'm not an expert

[rowdy]

Totally frozen (in contradistinction to a blue screen) is usually hardware.

Maybe RAM - can you try removing a couple of sticks (assuming you have 4 sticks, try removing 2, depending on your motherboard's support for RAM configurations) and see if it works for a long time.  If it does, swap RAM so the two good sticks come out and the other two sticks go in.

HDD will usually give lots of OS error messages before it dies.

CPU or mobo failing - difficult to diagnose, but if you eliminate everything else then this is probably the cause.

[osi]

If you have an old spindle hard drive, you could be saturating the write I/O depending on how much you have coming in from your download stream. This will cause oddities as the system is forcing information to be queued and then written to the hard drive creating slowness and unresponsive behavior.

[demik]

Buy it a computer blanket

[azhdar]

Totally frozen (in contradistinction to a blue screen) is usually hardware.

Maybe RAM - can you try removing a couple of sticks (assuming you have 4 sticks, try removing 2, depending on your motherboard's support for RAM configurations) and see if it works for a long time.  If it does, swap RAM so the two good sticks come out and the other two sticks go in.

HDD will usually give lots of OS error messages before it dies.

CPU or mobo failing - difficult to diagnose, but if you eliminate everything else then this is probably the cause.

I'll try RAM again , but I had the problem with old RAM and still has it with new.

I was thinking mobo too but no clue how to test it.

If you have an old spindle hard drive, you could be saturating the write I/O depending on how much you have coming in from your download stream. This will cause oddities as the system is forcing information to be queued and then written to the hard drive creating slowness and unresponsive behavior.

I download at 500kbs top so I don't think that's an issue

[osi]

Your anti-virus could be causing your some trouble. Try disabling it and see if the same behavior occurs

[baldgye]

Your anti-virus could be causing your some trouble. Try disabling it and see if the same behavior occurs

Which would happen if he closed explorer ^^ (in most cases anyway)

[tp4tissue]

If torrent is causing computer to freeze..  It might be the HDD being overloaded..

Check if your harddrive has NCQ,  usually torrents will lock up harddrives without NCQ.


Is your OS on an SSD or on the Same HDD that you're torrenting to.

[animal]

If you are using a recent version of utorrent, use another client. Uninstall everything useless. I doubt the problem is hardware. You would have gotten a BSOD. It wouldn't hurt though to go through the logs and check there that everything is ok.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

use usenet instead of torrents

[azhdar]

Yeah I'm using on of the latest version of utorrent because it was supposed to be only few files.

It's writing on a storage disk which is quite old now, might not have NCQ will look it up.

[azhdar]

Computer just froze multiple times in a row during regular internet browsing.
I'd happily format butI'm almost 100% certain it's hardware not sure which one?


I've been told having a SSD too full is bad, is it ?

[trizkut]

Any relevant errors in control panel>administrative tools>event viewer>custom views>administrative events?

[tp4tissue]

Computer just froze multiple times in a row during regular internet browsing.
I'd happily format butI'm almost 100% certain it's hardware not sure which one?


I've been told having a SSD too full is bad, is it ?

Show Image

SSD full is bad for the SSD,  but it shouldn't crash the system.

You should keep the SSD at least 15% free for "performance"

but for DURABILITY, you should keep it 25% free..


ALTHOUGH,  you will never be able to wear out your SSD before it's obsolete,  so You don't really have to worry about the durability part of this.

[azhdar]

Any relevant errors in control panel>administrative tools>event viewer>custom views>administrative events?

**** tons. I'll look at it. Thanks

[azhdar]

had this problem and did the fix below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=445&v=TjEQmZrRmtE

I'll see if it fixes problem.

[godly_music]

Total computer lock-ups with screen freeze usually hints at harddrive issues. Could be a dying HDD or a bad SSD controller.

SMART tests aren't always conclusive. The drive could appear fine and still be dying. My advice is to make backups and watch the BIOS POST next time it happens. If after a crash, you see one of your drives take an unusually long time to be detected, there could be your culprit. But basically it's guesswork unless / until it fails completely.

[Oobly]

If you still experience problems, try running MemTest86+: http://www.memtest.org/

It requires a boot disk, so you may have to make a bootable USB drive if you don't have a floppy drive. Very thorough memory testing app that works at low level without other parts of the PC getting involved.

I'm not sure the culprit is the graphics driver since you mentioned it never happens while gaming, but who knows.

If neither of those finds / solves the problem, then it could well be a hard drive issue.

[azhdar]

Total computer lock-ups with screen freeze usually hints at harddrive issues. Could be a dying HDD or a bad SSD controller.

SMART tests aren't always conclusive. The drive could appear fine and still be dying. My advice is to make backups and watch the BIOS POST next time it happens. If after a crash, you see one of your drives take an unusually long time to be detected, there could be your culprit. But basically it's guesswork unless / until it fails completely.

If you still experience problems, try running MemTest86+: http://www.memtest.org/

It requires a boot disk, so you may have to make a bootable USB drive if you don't have a floppy drive. Very thorough memory testing app that works at low level without other parts of the PC getting involved.

I'm not sure the culprit is the graphics driver since you mentioned it never happens while gaming, but who knows.

If neither of those finds / solves the problem, then it could well be a hard drive issue.

I'll try both because It was critically crashing last night.

[tp4tissue]

on your utorrent

does it say disk overload

on the bottom..

[azhdar]

utorrent isn't used no more
still crashing.

[azhdar]

looks like it's not a ram issue.

what do you suggest to try hdd and ssd?

[godly_music]

You can run a HDTune benchmark on all your drives, or you can try to figure it out by conjecture. When the freezes happen, which harddrive is currently in use?

If, assuming:

It doesn't happen when playing games.
Your games are on a seprate drive?
It still happens intermittently doing various things.
-> It's probably the system drive.

[azhdar]

You can run a HDTune benchmark on all your drives, or you can try to figure it out by conjecture. When the freezes happen, which harddrive is currently in use?

If, assuming:

It doesn't happen when playing games.
Your games are on a seprate drive?
It still happens intermittently doing various things.
-> It's probably the system drive.

I have 3 drives,
SSD for system and few software
HDD1 for software
HDD2 for pure storage.

Hard to tell which on causing problems when I crash since at least 2 are always running.

I'll try HDTune benchmark.

Someone knows a similar tool but on boot disk?

[godly_music]

I think FalconFour's boot disk includes HDTune and a lot of other stuff for hardware diagnosis.

[tp4tissue]

First reformat

Then start pulling things out, and testing stuff individually
.

[azhdar]

Nothing look wrong to me, besides the 49°C

[godly_music]

Like I said. You could've found a clue here, but there are harddrive issues that don't show up at all. A faulty SSD controller or a dying HDD motor can both pass SMART inspection. I still maintain that the kind of freeze you're getting points at one of the harddrives or the SSD.

There is also a chance that a SATA controller driver is responsible. Recently changed OSes or drivers in that area?

[azhdar]

Like I said. You could've found a clue here, but there are harddrive issues that don't show up at all. A faulty SSD controller or a dying HDD motor can both pass SMART inspection. I still maintain that the kind of freeze you're getting points at one of the harddrives or the SSD.

There is also a chance that a SATA controller driver is responsible. Recently changed OSes or drivers in that area?

nope I'll just format my system when I got some time.

[Oobly]

Yup, your RAM looks good. Usually also means your memory controller (on the CPU nowadays) is good.

I'd try running just the SSD to test. Then add the Samsung drive and test. Then the Western Digital. I have a bit of a prejudice against Western Digital, though. Used to run a PC dealership and we stopped selling WD drives due to the very high failure rate. Was a long time back, though.

If it fails irrespective of what drive is installed it could be the drive controller.

[azhdar]

Haven't crashed in a full day, only thing I did is :
- Nvidia fix linked above,
- Uninstalled Microsoft Security Essentiel for the time being (lots of error logs in the administrative events)
- ran Memtest (pictures above),
- rand HDDtune pictures above.

@Oobly: there's 2 differents WD disks, I myself forgot there was 2 before running HDDtune.

[Leslieann]

A completely full drive will cause a computer to lock up completely as it has nowhere to cache data.  Usually in such a situation, on restart it dumps some temp files and works again until it gets full then crashes again. Also, this is VERY bad for an SSD. Early drives recommended no more than 50% full, newer ones are closer to 80%.

Another possibility is overheating the processor.
Too many torrents is not an issue, it's how many connections and peers are what matters. That can suck down resources like no tomorrow.

Odds are what you have done did not fix the problem, it only reduced it enough to not be a common thing, and will likely return soon enough.

[Lastpilot]

I had this problem on my machine once. I was running my OS from an SSD. Freezes would happen at least once a day.

I switched my drive mode from IDE to AHCI. Never happened again.

[tp4tissue]

I had this problem on my machine once. I was running my OS from an SSD. Freezes would happen at least once a day.

I switched my drive mode from IDE to AHCI. Never happened again.

why was it in ide in the first place..

newwwb...

[Oobly]

Glad to hear you've got it working!

@Leslieann: It's not likely to be CPU since it doesn't happen when gaming (which should stress the CPU more than browsing). Most likely has to do with swapping / caching as that happens a fair amount when browsing, especially when you have a lot of tabs open with Flash elements and such in them.

Could be worth checking controller mode settings for all drives and clearing out enough space on the SSD and whatever drives Windows is using for swap files.

Unfortunately, since Seagate acquired Maxtor (and now also Samsung), their quality has dropped, so now the only manufacturer that really makes reliable drives is Toshiba (although they also have one or two dodgy models, but a much better average than the other manufacturers). The early Samsung drives were very good, as were the Seagate ones before the Maxtor merge, but now it's all a crapshoot.

There are only three current manufacturers, Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba. All other brands have been bought, shut down or otherwise absorbed by these three.

Quantum, Maxtor and Samsung = Seagate
Hitachi / HGST, G-Technology = Western Digital
Fujitsu = Toshiba

I checked the model number and the "Samsung" drive you have is actually a Seagate "green" drive... it has a pretty high failure rate, as do the WD1002FAEX drives, so that confirms there's a high likelihood of one of your drives starting to fail, although it may be hard to pinpoint which one. The SSD drive seems to have better reliability, but there a few reports of those failing.

You could try the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics program and do an Extended Test. That may show up something that HDDTune can't test for.

[azhdar]

Could be worth checking controller mode settings for all drives

How should I go about this?
Because it's been 2days without freeze, but I'm still non confident.

ps: on the list of things I done, I unplug and replug my GTX 670 , maybe poorly plugged, but I don't believe so.

[Oobly]

Could be worth checking controller mode settings for all drives

How should I go about this?
Because it's been 2days without freeze, but I'm still non confident.

ps: on the list of things I done, I unplug and replug my GTX 670 , maybe poorly plugged, but I don't believe so.

Check in your BIOS that all drives are running in AHCI mode. If any are running in IDE mode, don't just change the mode, as it could cause the system to be unable to read the drive correctly. Best to back them up before changing modes. Then reformatting in the new mode before use.

[Leslieann]

@Leslieann: It's not likely to be CPU since it doesn't happen when gaming (which should stress the CPU more than browsing). Most likely has to do with swapping / caching as that happens a fair amount when browsing, especially when you have a lot of tabs open with Flash elements and such in them.

Not entirely true.
10 years ago or more, I would agree with you, these days  games focus much more on the video card than the CPU.  Have a few browser windows open with crappy ads, a few Youtube videos, and you can put some heat on a processor pretty fast. I can idle with a browser open at 1-3% cpu, open a few windows and I can quite quickly pull 25%, keep in mind, this is on an I7. Flash uses a LOT of cpu power.

Has the op check to see just how full the hard drive is?



I think the whole bios thing you guys are zoning in on is off base.
Typically, if a system is installed in IDE mode, it will run stable that way. If it was installed in AHCI, it will remain stable as well. It's usually only when you switch on an installed system that something has a problem. Win7, can flat out refuse to boot if you switch from IDE to AHCI mode without first installing the AHCI driver (switching back to IDE mode allows it to start). The only other reason this should be an issue, without a hardware change, is if you recently updated the Bios or a driver was updated with a bad driver. Otherwise, there is no reason for a stable system to suddenly require AHCI.

Not to mention, "Backup and reformatting", that's taking the nuclear option, and may not even fix the problem.
You could go through all of that, and find the CPU fan was failing.

You could just be creating more work, risk and problems. It's fine if you know how to do it, and can accomplish it easily, but most people can't do that (especially without losing some data, some also lack an install disk), and what if the OP gets stuck and now has no computer to even look up advice on what's wrong.

[tp4tissue]

@Leslieann: It's not likely to be CPU since it doesn't happen when gaming (which should stress the CPU more than browsing). Most likely has to do with swapping / caching as that happens a fair amount when browsing, especially when you have a lot of tabs open with Flash elements and such in them.

Not entirely true.
10 years ago or more, I would agree with you, these days  games focus much more on the video card than the CPU.  Have a few browser windows open with crappy ads, a few Youtube videos, and you can put some heat on a processor pretty fast. I can idle with a browser open at 1-3% cpu, open a few windows and I can quite quickly pull 25%, keep in mind, this is on an I7. Flash uses a LOT of cpu power.

Has the op check to see just how full the hard drive is?



I think the whole bios thing you guys are zoning in on is off base.
Typically, if a system is installed in IDE mode, it will run stable that way. If it was installed in AHCI, it will remain stable as well. It's usually only when you switch on an installed system that something has a problem. Win7, can flat out refuse to boot if you switch from IDE to AHCI mode without first installing the AHCI driver (switching back to IDE mode allows it to start). The only other reason this should be an issue, without a hardware change, is if you recently updated the Bios or a driver was updated with a bad driver. Otherwise, there is no reason for a stable system to suddenly require AHCI.

Not to mention, "Backup and reformatting", that's taking the nuclear option, and may not even fix the problem.
You could go through all of that, and find the CPU fan was failing.

You could just be creating more work, risk and problems. It's fine if you know how to do it, and can accomplish it easily, but most people can't do that (especially without losing some data, some also lack an install disk), and what if the OP gets stuck and now has no computer to even look up advice on what's wrong.

Well, normally,  you'd back up Right away after completing the build..  so you have a clean setup to go back to..


But in this case,  I'd still reformat first, just to get software out of the way.  But ofcourse I'd make a backup THIS time right away as well.

[Leslieann]

Well, normally,  you'd back up Right away after completing the build..  so you have a clean setup to go back to..


But in this case,  I'd still reformat first, just to get software out of the way.  But ofcourse I'd make a backup THIS time right away as well.

I pretty much never do this.
The reason being, while it may be a good working install, all your drivers and such will then be out of date.  As soon as you put it back, you end up updating a ton of things, which can not only leave junk on your drive, but also cause problems. However, you do have a working, known system. Depends on your priorities, for me, I would rather not keep a 20gig image I will likely never use hanging around.

Again though,
You're talking the nuclear option to solve a problem that it may not fix. If you KNOW it's a bad virus, great, nuke it. What if it's hardware? You now have a system that may not even be able to handle the stress of a re-install, leaving you dead in the water. More than once, while simply cleaning a system, the stress of doing so actually destroyed what was left.

You should never use the nuke option until you know where the problem lies.
Find the problem, then decide on the best course of action.

[Oobly]

Well, there is still a chance it could cause the issue.

More likely that they're set correctly and one of them just has a few dodgy sectors. Best to do an Extended Test on both the WD drives (with Data Lifeguard Diagnostic) and perhaps try HUTIL for the SSD and  1TB or SeaTools Long Generic test for the "Samsung" 1TB if it's not supported by HUTIL. That should show up any failing sectors and you can then get the tool to mark them so they're not used any more. A few bad sectors is okay, but if you see a bunch, the drive is most likely heading for death and it's best to get what data you can off it and replace it.

I used to love Norton Disk Doctor back in the days of DOS. Was a great diagnostic tool and could "resurrect" drives that were unusable without it.

BTW, it's horrific how poor some of the Seagate failure rates are according to Backblaze.. The 3TB ST3000DM001 in particular, with a 26.65% annual failure rate... yikes.

[Leslieann]

BTW, it's horrific how poor some of the Seagate failure rates are according to Backblaze.. The 3TB ST3000DM001 in particular, with a 26.65% annual failure rate... yikes.

It's been a while, but if I remember right, even they explained it was a statistical thing, not really an indication of bad drives.

If I recall, the WD's either failed right away, or lasted several years before drastic drops in reliability.
Seagates could fail at any time, but rarely failed at first.  Over the course of 4-5 years it balanced out. If the rates really had been that low, they would have ditched them, and they haven't. Also, many of those drives were made during or right after the Thai floods. Which was a bad time for hard drives.

Personally, me and my customers have not had good luck with normal WD drives, I replace them a lot, and rarely see old ones working that don't whine/howl or have errors.. Raptors and Blacks on the other hand, are fantastic drives that I will take over any other spinners. However, I would much rather have a nice SSD.


Also, any drive health indicator that actually scans the drive, is a bad idea. If the drive is failing, that will make it worse. Best way I have found, and is based on what Backblaze found. look at the SMART info, look for corrected blocks and uncorrected blocks. The best tool I have found for this has actually been Defraggler. The problem is, as Backblaze found, each manufacturer uses a different way of writing error codes (which is BS! as you will see). Defraggler will not only show you what the drive is saying, but also show you the raw data. Several times I have a SMART drive program read the data and say everything was fine, then go look at the raw data and see that something has clearly been written there, just that the program couldn't read it because the manufacturer used a proprietary system to indicate it, this makes the whole SMART system pointless if the motherboard can't tell when there really is a problem starting. Basically, either read the raw data, or you will need the manufacturers program to get a good reading.

Since I have been doing it this way, I've had a much easier time diagnosing troubled systems and managed to catch quite a few that were getting ready to fail.

[Oobly]

IIRC, Defraggler is simply using CHKDSK to check for errors. How do you get it to display the raw data? I'd find this very useful.

The extended tests are not "fixes", just sequential reads checking for errors. I guess you could also just try using CHKDSK, but I fear it is a little more brute force than the specific manufacturer's checking tools. The tools have options for fixing while checking, but this has a higher chance of causing problems. I'd use them primarily as a diagnostic, to find which, if any, of the drives is acting up. If you find a drive has errors, you can back it up before doing the full "fix errors" scan.

Here's an interesting blog article about the 3TB drive failures: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/

In short, of the 4190 of these drives they purchased in 2012, 78.5% of them (3289) either failed in place (32%) or failed their testing when removed from the storage pods (46.5%). That's a 78.5% failure rate over 3 years...

I have quite a few diehard Seagate drives still going strong from throughout the 90's and early 2000's, but the more recent ones I've bought have not been so tough (IMHO, the trouble started with the acquisition of the Maxtor lines in 2006). Right now, you have to look at specific models to find a decent one, and then only once it's been out long enough to get an idea of how they're doing longer term.

The only manufacturer I would buy "blind" from right now is Toshiba.

Both WD and Seagate have some production lines that make bad drives. I have not got any WD drives that still function from all those I bought around the same time as the Seagates and we (partner and I had a PC sales business) had to replace so many of them that we decided to stop selling them, but that was before they even had the "black"  and "raptor" line of drives.

Up until Samsung's drive business was taken over by Seagate, they were also very good, IME. When I noticed the increase in Seagate failures I switched to Samsung. Still got a couple in one of my PC's.

[Leslieann]

I didn't have much luck with Samsung.
At least some Toshibas are now made by Seagate (I have one labeled Seagate that identifies as Toshiba). I had pretty good luck with Hitachi.
As far as I can tell, all spinners have become a bit less reliable long term, other than the Blacks and Raptors. I blame the technology, trying to cram more and more onto a platter. I think they may be pushing things a bit too hard to stay in front of SSD's.


As for Defraggler, don't use it to defrag as a check, go to the health tab, it will pull up a full SMART report.  Note, the drive needs to be connected with SATA, not USB for it to read, but I think this is for all SMART systems.

[Oobly]

I didn't have much luck with Samsung.
At least some Toshibas are now made by Seagate (I have one labeled Seagate that identifies as Toshiba). I had pretty good luck with Hitachi.
As far as I can tell, all spinners have become a bit less reliable long term, other than the Blacks and Raptors. I blame the technology, trying to cram more and more onto a platter. I think they may be pushing things a bit too hard to stay in front of SSD's.


As for Defraggler, don't use it to defrag as a check, go to the health tab, it will pull up a full SMART report.  Note, the drive needs to be connected with SATA, not USB for it to read, but I think this is for all SMART systems.

Nice! Thanks for the info.

Hitachi drives are now owned by WD, but it seems that at least for the moment, they're running the lines separately, so if you can find an HGST drive it'll be better in terms of reliability than most of the others out there.

There shouldn't be a link between Seagate and Toshiba hard drives (unless Seagate was behind in production and purchased the use of one of Toshiba's production lines temporarily or one or two batches of drives to make it up), so that's a very interesting drive you have.

The 1.5TB WD Black drives appear to have a pretty high failure rate as well, so you can't even just buy a particular line any more and expect it to be good. You have to look at specific models.

[Leslieann]

I knew about Hitachi, sad really, as was Maxtor's acquisition, though Maxtor deserved it after falling so far behind. IBM was just unfortunate.

On that Seagate/Toshiba, I must have had it confused with something else, I just looked again and it's a Toshiba. Who knows, I swap drives around quite a lot. The labeling is rather Seagate-ish. One thing that is very odd though, is how magnetic it is. I've never had a drive where you could feel it trying to pick up a drive it was stacked on.

As for failures, the problem is, you rarely know before you buy unless it's been out a while, and even then, it may be one small revision number or batch. So you may think you are buying a good one and getting a lemon. I'm not so worried about it, SSD's are taking over, and seem much more consistent, a bad line tends to stay a bad line, and it's often an overzealous manufacturer who causes it. The last one (OCZ) ruined themselves using performance settings they were told not to use in the first place by the memory manufacturer.

[azhdar]

Necro since I re-installed the computer and I'm still having issues, I'm now pretty certain it's the motherboard now.
How do I test it ?