Windows 8

[usp8riot]

I have occasional freezing on Windows 8. The whole system freezes for a few seconds and an icon just appears quickly in my taskbar and vanishes after the freezing stops.

Things tried:

• Reinstalled the OS several times
• Switched between Windows 8 and 7
• Ran Memtest just fine
• Ran OCCT and Prime95 for a few hours each
• Ran GPU benchmark
• Different drivers for GPU
• Checked if cables were secure on all components
• Checked SMART status and ran chkdisk initially
• Disabled a few misc. services
• Tried various CMOS settings and upped voltages even though I'm not oc'd
• Haven't tried a virus scan but I'm pretty picky about what I install

Things not tried but intending:

• Trying onboard video for any decent testing length of time. That's first priority.
• Switching to my backup 480watt Antec PSU.

I can move my mouse when it freezes, then after it unfreezes a few seconds later, the mouse cursor will catch up so clearly there's some processor queuing going on and not just a total freeze. Also to mention, the cursor sometimes changes to a text cursor or hand cursor, either way it's typically not the cursor Windows intended for the needed tasks.

 

[awktane]

The windows 8 task manager may shed some light as well. Go into the task manager, choose more details if it's in the mini mode, then go to the performance tab. Check to see if as an example under disk you see an unusually large response time or extreme spikes in CPU. From there if you click the button at the bottom for the resource monitor you can look at exactly which task is doing what.

Now if that doesn't show anything then it gets interesting.

 

[usp8riot]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Since then, I tore down PC, did some cable management and checked each and every pin on my PSU and all were well within tolerance. I don't know if it matters being under load or not but unloaded, it was fine.

I'll keep an eye out. Unlikely but maybe it was a cable issue and that fixed it. It doesn't usually start until being booted a few hours. Never noticed it gaming the few times I do though on Win7 it did used to reboot randomly even at default clocks so I suspected the PSU initially. I never had any stability issues with any PC's I've built other than this one which I bought the parts second hand. Never will I do that again for any mission critical PC.

 

[usp8riot]

Just an update if anyone has any related issues. I noticed I had a few gfx related settings that I'd personally changed before in Firefox. I disabled all of those and set them to default and so far, after a day, no locking up. I recall having a related issue before where I'd have graphic anomalies on my screen and my PC would freeze up when using Firefox. I thought for sure it was my GPU but nope, it was Firefox. That said, I've used Firefox almost exclusively for ten years and except for not playing nice with this GPU, it was the only near deal-breaking issues I've had with it. I almost went to Chrome.

Just in case you guys don't know, a browser can play hell with a system and it seems something we don't typically suspect.

 

[||Console||]

A friend of mine was having problems after updating his nvidia drivers on his 460 . He found that FF was crashing his system as well .