Random PC Freezes

As "Johan" says above...

...make sure the rig is a least 2 hours P95 Blend Stable at the cpu speed you intend to run. It definitely helps to remove as many areas that might be causing an issue. I have a list of five things I am going to post below that relate to stuff I found searching for issues with dual monitors and Maya.

But I am going to list a couple of other items before posting the Maya researched stuff.

1. Over the last 15 years or so it came to some us to use Memtest 86+ in a different manner for hammering the ram when used in an AMD system. We would test at least 15 passes of Test #5 by itself and then at least 15 passes of Test #8 by itself. Hammering the ram with that number of loops of the 2 tests, usually quickly showed if there were really any issue with ram in AMD system. Memtest 86+ can be made to run individual tests and after the appropriate number of passes of one test you can move to the other.

2. I might even run the ram at its' next lower speed than it is rated for. Say DDR3-1600 instead of DDR3-1866 if that is the ram's official rating. it is a test since something needs to change the symptoms. If nothing does any good then someone is taking a screwing for sure.

3. I would add one slight bump up in Cpu Voltage as a hedge against some odd crap going on.

4. I might also test with only one of the 8 gig sticks in the computer is you have not tested so up until now.

5. I might also experiment with different Video card drivers. Earlier drivers for Video card might work better with earlier Maya.

6. Since you say you may have the crash when doing nothing, that is not even trying to watch videos while rendering, I would suppose swapping to a different video player might do no good but is a thought.

Now what I gathered from hours of Maya searching and dual monitors.
M$ and AMD made two patches available for Win 7 that had the cpu manipulated by the
O/S in a better manner. So when you test set CPU Affinity below...you will have an idea
of what you may see. LINK BELOW.

Windows 8.1 detects 4 cores & 8 threads - FX 8350

Somehow I did not know until USER made a signature that he said he was using Win 8,
which I expect is really Win 8.1 since M$ says they will no longer support Win 8 and the
upgrade to Wiin 8.1 is free. So after spending a couple of hours looking for Win 7 stuff, I
had to go and revamp what I would suggest but make it applicable to Win 8-8.1.

NOTE: It is always best to have an image of the operating system before making
changes that might end in results that are not good as hoped for. YMMV.

Easiest to Harder method to Fix Crash when rendering Maya on one monitor and other
monitor doing nothing or maybe watching a video. I did a good bit of looking at the
forums for Maya and from what I saw and also from other internet sites, I would say the
manner in which I would approach the computer crashing when rendering Maya with a
second monitor are as below and more or less in the order I would try them for fix.

1. Do not use second monitor when rendering with Maya as it seems many have or may
have some issue.

2. Turn off Windows AREO mode.

3. Set both monitors to the same 59Hz REFRESH rate. Not 60Hz but below that Refresh Rate.

4. Make a test setting of Processor Affinity on the Maya Rendering application. Set to
two or four cores. Test for results.

5. http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/40339-cpu-affinity-shortcut-program-create-windows.html
How to Create a Shortcut to Run an Application with a Set CPU Affinity in Windows

Of course at each step the work arounds get harder to implement and at every step, I
would be sure and test the results before making any other changes.
RGone...ster.

Thanks for taking a look into Maya for me, I really appreciate it. However when I get a crash whilst rendering, I am rendering within After Effects (it does crash whilst using other programs and certain games too) In fact After Effects crashes when I am using it on its own, without watching a video, which may indicate a graphics problem.

When using Maya and watching a video, It crashes when i'm not rendering. I can literally open Maya, not do anything, open a video and It'll crash. Now one thing that might be worth mentioning is that Maya uses gpu rendering for the viewport and the video I was watching was running on Flash. After Effects also uses GPU rendering. It has also crashed whilst listening to spotify whilst using Maya.

I am running Windows 8 because when I upgraded to windows 8.1, I would get the same crashing symptoms but it was constantly; when watching videos, playing games, music etc. I reinstalled Windows 8 because of this.

I have tried running the ram at 1600 but that doesn't seem to work. I'll try using one stick but IIRC I have tried this before. The GPU that I am using is pretty much brand new; I have also tried using an AMD GPU.

There is something serious going on with flash player. These are quotes from a CHV-z thread at OCN. It's not only there I have seen this all over. Not saying that this is your issue for sure but it seems a lot of your problems "could" revolve around Adobe flash.

I've seen sporadic issues of system freezes when playing Flash content, video and so on. Starting yesterday on one particular website of our local municipality, the system would crash every time. Freeze occurs with both IE11 and Firefox and Flash v15.

I first assumed AMD drivers issue so I did a clean install using DDU to help with resetting the system. With either 14.7 or 14.9, no love.

I'm so fed-up with this, I've stripped Flash off my machine completely.

Anyone in the know understand why this is happening?

Click to expand...

I searched all the internerd and found one recommendation:
Disable C states on BIOS,At least on my Gigabyte ud7 990FX there is a AMD C state and an APM C state. Disabled both an not another freeze while playing video. Im the most happy camper now. sometimes it frozed several times a day, sometimes once per day. The most repetitive reason was flash player. Changed to html5 player on youtube and the frequency of the freezes went down.

Click to expand...

Same thing is happening to me.

System lockup/freeze when watching twitch and the like.

Ill try and disable all power saving tonight since I think I still have apm set to auto and will report back smile.gif

Click to expand...

Johan45 said:

There is something serious going on with flash player. These are quotes from a CHV-z thread at OCN. It's not only there I have seen this all over. Not saying that this is your issue for sure but it seems a lot of your problems "could" revolve around Adobe flash.

Click to expand...

It could well be that. Although I was getting a crash with VLC and quicktime. I'll look into it. I think it is video related. I get a crash when changing the settings of heavy video effects in After Effects. For example if I ramp up/down the lens blur in effect quickly I'll sometimes get a crash. Also certain games (Watchdogs, Assassin's Creed IV) give me lots of crashes. However I have tried 3 different GPUs and tried display driver uninstaller to get a fresh install of the Nvidia drivers.

It also might be worth mentioning that I am using HDMI and audio over HDMI, but I have tried using the built in audio whilst disabling the Nvidia audio drivers. I have also tried using just the Azalia front panel audio instead.

Correct me if I'm wrong but all those use adobe don't they? Just not sure about quicktime but After effects is from Adobe and I know VLC uses it for some of it's playback.

Johan45 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but all those use adobe don't they? Just not sure about quicktime but After effects is from Adobe and I know VLC uses it for some of it's playback.

Click to expand...

Hmm yeah maybe. I think the Ubisoft games also use Flash menus created with Scaleform but I might be wrong.

Maybe try running heaven benchmark just to rule out the gpu or drivers?

And a good p95 run that'll help rule out any hardware issues.

Mandrake4565 said:

Maybe try running heaven benchmark just to rule out the gpu or drivers?

Click to expand...

Just tried that. It ran through fine.

That's a good sign.

Johan45 said:

That's a good sign.

Click to expand...

Just running the p95 now. I'll check back in a couple of hours and see how its going.

Do you have C6 disabled in your bios? After some more reading it seems some have been having a bit of success with Flash after doing so.

Johan45 said:

Do you have C6 disabled in your bios? After some more reading it seems some have been having a bit of success with Flash after doing so.

Click to expand...

I am pretty sure it is disabled. I'll have a look.

Anyway just finished about 2 hours of P95 and the PC is fine, I did notice it wasn't using much RAM though, only about 4gb when I came back to the PC.

EDIT: C6 was enabled, just disabled it now.

EDIT 2: Still get crashing

SO far I have not heard you say...

...heard you say that anything you try makes any difference at all. Nothing except you said upgrading to Win 8.1 seemed worse overall.

Post #62 >> http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...m-PC-Freezes?p=7750704&viewfull=1#post7750704

Post #64 >> http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...m-PC-Freezes?p=7750722&viewfull=1#post7750722

Sorry to say this but your situation sounds like a real POS. Correct me if I am in error here. This general configuration has had this problem even with a 6 core Thuban in the processor socket??? Yes/No???

1. You have changed the power supply.

2. You have changed to SSD.

3. You have used at least 3 Video Cards.

4. Ram has not been changed.

5. Motherboard has not been changed.

If this a hardware problem, it should be something you have not swapped out up until now. Or it would seem to be such.

You are really going to have to go thru the list of things you might try and adjust to have better results and done one at a time until something changes or you get a cure.

I mean you are at a place where something major needs to happen. Like get a completely different platform. Like maybe an Intel setup since that would bring a new cpu and THE motherboard to the table. It does not help much to jump around and not keep to some testing that we hope is logical. Hope is the key.

If I had to guess the fix maybe better found by making a major swap of parts like the mobo. I cannot see how the motherboard could have issue but nearly every thing else has been change EXCEPT for it. Maybe the ram needs some more CPU_NB speed to allow the cpu and video textures to keep up.

There I go throwing out another 'setting' to change when the rest have not been gone done thru one by one.

One thing is for sure if this has all been a continuation from the time that the Thuban was in the processor slot and that is...collectively there is a major problem. When I get trapped like this, I throw the whole thing out or nearly so and begin again if 'nothing' makes the symptoms change. And your symptoms sadly are that anything you do games, apps, video rendering, video watching...all can crash your rig. That sucketh large. You have got to make a change that ALSO changes the symptoms. Maybe not fix the issue but at least show a different symptom. If that cannot be done, then it is time for a complete overhaul.
RGone...ster.

Yeah it was also crashing with the Phenom II x6 processor that I had in there before. You are correct, the only thing I havnt changed is the mobo and the RAM. I suppose I could try changing the ram and seeing what happened. After some looking about I found that this person sounds like they had the same problem but didn't find a solution either http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/338646-pc-locks-upfreezes-during-gaming/page-3

Have you tried memtest 86+ as RGone suggested earlier. That's the next step IMO.

Not sure I would say his issues the same...

...not the same except for his issues were driving him nuts also.

He had problems with Phenom 2 as have you. He RMA'd a mobo (M5A99 Pro) that should have run his FX-8350 well enough at stock speeds. He was coming down to changing the power supply which you have already done though. I would have to look back to see what P/S you moved to but it should have been enough if my remembering is still good.

But you have outlined a lot of possible steps for testing to "try" and point to an offender in this situation. Stuff like trying a single stick of ram at DDR3-1600 might show a different symptom. Trying to set a specific cpu affinity might change the symptom.

If you are too tired and do not want to troubleshoot anymore, then you might as well buy nearly a complete new platform, like move to Intel to try and get some relief.
RGone...

Yeah I have tried Memtest. I'll try playing with my RAM configs. I can't afford to start a new system at the moment, plus the system is useable for the most part, it's just frustrating; So for now I'll have to live with it I guess.

If all else fails Ollie you can try a different BIOS version on the Motherboard. Have you ever updated it in the time you have used it? Just curious. If you update chip drivers and not bios to keep in line it can cause some odd issues at times. And I assume you're using the current chipset drivers to support W8 or are you on win7 again?

Johan45 said:

If all else fails Ollie you can try a different BIOS version on the Motherboard. Have you ever updated it in the time you have used it? Just curious. If you update chip drivers and not bios to keep in line it can cause some odd issues at times. And I assume you're using the current chipset drivers to support W8 or are you on win7 again?

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I am on the latest BIOS, which is from 2012. I am not too sure what chipset drivers I am on. I may be on the ones that came with the board, I am not sure.