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Computer randomly freezes. Even reset button doesn't work.

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bamaboy

Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
About a month ago, my computer started randomly freezing. It is weird to me because the reset button on the case also stops working, so I have to long hold down the power button for 5 seconds or so to have it turn off. It started off as a slight inconvenience every now and then but now it has gotten worse recently to where it will do it within a minute or two of turning on, or it may take an hour. It mainly does it while multitasking at the Desktop, but it will do it any time. It happened twice while in the BIOS, so no idea there. Temperatures are always lows for CPU(25-30C) when it freezes. Sometimes the sound playing will get stuck and loop until i turn it off.

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I have tried many things to find the problem, but no luck so far.

Clean install of Windows 8 - No luck

Check power connections and reseated GFX card, cleaned dust of of anything

Ran Memtest for 15 passes overnight - No errors

Took out GFX card and ran off of motherboard - had some weird issues with flashing colors on screen and locking up, but after getting to desktop it still froze pretty quickly.

Ran it with single stick of ram - Still freeze

?????

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I am out of ideas of what to do next. I am thinking the issue is either Motherboard related or CPU related, but no way to be sure. The issue with reset button not working has me confused the most. I did some research on here and with google, but some of the stuff I found was close, but didn't solve the issue.

So I am here now hoping someone has some knowledge on what it going on.

Thanks.


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Specs:

3570k @4GHZ

Coolermaster V6GT Heatsink

Asrock Z77 Extreme 4

8GB Patriot Ram

Corsair TX650

MSI GTX 660Ti

160GB Intel SSD / 80GB Intel SSD / 1TB Caviar Black

Bluray Drive

Windows 8

Wifi pci express card( I use direct ethernet now)
 
Most likely the PSU or motherboard. Also, a defective reset button can cause it to intermittently not work or make reset glitches.
 
Reset button works fine normally.

Both PSU and motherboard are less than a year old. Is there a way to narrow it down a little further to see what I may need to do? Would the PSU not allow the reset button to work?
 
Since you are having issues with the reset button, unhook it for now, just to rule it out.

Test your PSU with a multimeter, I'll have to find the guide.

Also, do you have another motherboard that supports your CPU? If so, swap it into your tower and test.
 
Thanks ATM. I do not have another board for the 3570k. My HTPC board is a 775 socket.

Can we rule out CPU since it is not a Heat issue? I have not had it freeze while encoding any videos, which is usually 99% @ 58-62C running 4-4.2GHZ. Almost every time it happens, I am just doing trivial things like browsing the web or file explorer.

I will try and get some PSU measurements tonight or tomorrow.
 
Try P95 on blend for 30 minutes then post a HWMonitor showing your temperatures, that could show an underlying issue.
 
So I tried to run Prime95 twice, and got about 3 minutes into each one before a crash. Here is the output from the second run, CPU temps were right around 50C on each run.

Sorry for sideways shot.
QtLhQkm.jpg

As I was taking another picture, the screen started doing its color flashing like I have been getting randomly since I switched over to iGPU.
lyctoKq.jpg

I am really at a loss here. At this point, I really just want to know which new piece I need to buy.


edit: Also, i received one BSOD with an WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR, which microsoft reports as a FATAL HARDWARE ERROR.
 
Last edited:
I looked like an idiot reading that haha.

Side note, put memtest on some bootable media, and check your RAM. Hopefully its going out and not your motherboard.
 
I looked like an idiot reading that haha.

Side note, put memtest on some bootable media, and check your RAM. Hopefully its going out and not your motherboard.
I ran it over night as one of the first things I tried, no errors after 15 passes.

I have not ran each one individually in memtest though. I may try that tonight.
 
If it passes as a set it should be fine.

Did you get the PSU testing done?
 
Measured voltages. All three were right on point even when the system froze: 12V, 5V, and 3.3V.
 
In my mind, it has to be either the motherboard or CPU. So I'm thinking of ordering a new Gigabyte ud3h or ud5h motherboard from amazon. If I get it and see that it's not the motherboard, would I run into any issues returning to amazon? I have prime and buy a pretty good bit of stuff, but have not purchased a motherboard from them.

If that happens and it turns out the processor is bad, I'll probably just go to haswell and get both new.

Thanks guys.
 
same problem

In my mind, it has to be either the motherboard or CPU. So I'm thinking of ordering a new Gigabyte ud3h or ud5h motherboard from amazon. If I get it and see that it's not the motherboard, would I run into any issues returning to amazon? I have prime and buy a pretty good bit of stuff, but have not purchased a motherboard from them.

If that happens and it turns out the processor is bad, I'll probably just go to haswell and get both new.

Thanks guys.

- - - Updated - - -

hey did you manage to solve the problem because im also facing the same problem and dont know what to do...
 
I have the same issue.
My PC:
i7 6700k
ASUS Z170 HERO
EVGA SuperNova G2 850W
Geforce 660 Ti.
Crucial Ballistix Elite 4x4 GB 2666 MHz

Windows 10 64bit

For almost year all works fine but suddenly month ago my PC start freezing and making extreme noise from headphones when ceash. Also reset button not work ;(
 
I have the same issue.
For almost year all works fine but suddenly month ago my PC start freezing and making extreme noise from headphones when ceash. Also reset button not work ;(

This is very similar to what happens to me. I bought a bunch of new parts as to upgrade my pc, and it's been freezing since then. And I've tried almost everything. Here are my specs:

i7 6700k
ASUS Maximus VIII Formula z170
Corsair RM1000x PSU
Asus GTX980ti STRIX
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR42666MHz C16 Memory Kit (CMK16GX4M2A2666C16R)

Windows 10 64 bit


Now, here are the things I've tried:

Change my motherboard (it was maximus VIII Gene, and I upgraded it to formula and nothing changed)
Change my Power supply (it was another corsair 850w, and nothing changed)
Change my OS (it was win7, upgraded it to win 10 just to see if it would change anything. It didn't)
Changed HDDs all around (no combination worked, I tried all, even bought a new ssd)
Took it out of the case and placed it on a cardboard box to check if the issue was the case components. It wasn't, nothing changed.
Put my old GPU back (gtx 680) and it STILL happens.

I've also installed various video card drivers, but pretty much nothing worked. Also, the GPU was bought before all the other parts so I played with this gtx980 for a week or so in my old setup, and there was no freeze.

So, right now, there are only two things I haven't changed/swapped. CPU and RAM. I, of course, ran memtest for 8 hours, no issues. Also prime95 for two hours, again no issues. The freezes are quite random, but it usually happens during games, and not idle times.

Also, no heat issues. Even at the moment of the freeze, there are no spikes or anything like that. I've checked multiple times.

I'm open to any suggestions, any advice, anything. It's been a month and I'm on the verge of a breakdown pretty much. I've never faced a persistent problem such as this one IN MY LIFE. And since it is a complete freeze (and yes, reset button doesn't work), I have no way to troubleshoot that I haven't tried yet, I think.

So really, if ANYONE out there can help me, I'm open to any ideas.


Sincerely, a heartbroken enthusiast
 
There is no solution at all... I looked at many topics with this problems and no one found solutions. I will try to replace PSU this week and maybe gpu. Maybe it will help.
 
have any of you tried a bios reflash?

the last picture in post #8 looks like mine does when I remove all the video drivers and try to boot with no video driver installed.
have you tried a freshly downloaded video driver?
 
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