Random Freezing - Suspecting Hardware

[shane2943]

Hi everyone.

Got a peculiar problem here and I'm hoping the experts can help me out!

Here are the specs of the PC in question:

-Motherboard: Asus P7P55D (http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=RBA8CzWoopUlYRFZ)
-Processor: Intel Core i7 2.8GHz (not overclocked)
-Ram: 8GB DDR3 1333MHz (Kingston)
-PSU: 800W
-Primary Graphics Card: NVidia 9600GT 1GB DDR3 (desktop monitor)
-Secondary Graphics Card: NVidia GT240 1GB DDR3 (Monitor 2 and 3 - Easyworship primary video out and foldback)
-OS HDD: 160GB Seagate SATA 7200RPM
-Storage HDD: 1TB Seagate SATA 7200 RPM

Ok, so here's the run down. The PC was originally loaded with Windows Vista 32bit (yeah, I know). The PC would "hang" for random periods of time and for random amounts of time. During this time, the mouse still works, but clicking on anything is futile. Sometimes the HDD light would be on solid, sometimes it would barely blink.

Since then, the PC has been reloaded with Windows 7 64bit (better). The freezing never stopped. The PC will sometimes take (honest to goodness) 20+ minutes to boot up to the login screen! Sometimes it'll boot right up in 30 seconds. Sometimes, after booting up fine, the PC will hang when trying to start Easyworship and sit for 10+ minutes.

Oddly enough, once the initial "hanging" is "out of it's system," it'll start working fine and stay working until the following Sunday when the process starts all over again. We've gotten into the habit of turning on the PC reeeeally early in the morning on Sundays. Also sometimes when the PC first tries to boot, it'll stop with an error "Disk Read Error - Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to Restart." When I do it'll then find the OS and start up fine...until it hangs at some point.

Here's what I've done to troubleshoot:
-Tested the memory with the UBCD memtest x86 - Passed
-Tested the HDD with the Seagate test on the UBCD - Passed
-Reloaded the OS (couple times)
-Replaced the OS HDD with a new one
-Replaced the SATA cable to the OS HDD
-Moved the OS HDD to a different SATA port
-Reseated the RAM

I'm an electronics tech by trade and dabble in computers but this one's got me stumped!

Any idears?

Thanks in advance! Hope someone can help!

[petereit]

Yep, when your problem follows you across two different operating systems, you've pretty much narrowed it down to hardware. And since you've tried different hard drives, it seems to indicate that it's the motherboard's SATA controller.

If possible, test with a PCI SATA controller card. If not, I'd be talking to ASUS tech support.

[shane2943]

Don't have a PCI-SATA controller unfortunately. Will probably have to give Asus a ring-a-ding-ding.

Thanks!

[streamkoinonia]

So you're using IDE drives or Sata? It may be bad sata cables or connection to the drive. Also, if you built this pc or moved componets to a new case, your wiring to the power button and lights could be switched or in the wrong configuration. You may want to also update the bios. Verify the mobo will take the i7. Asus should have something to check and update bios like the "live update" on MSI boards. Using 2 cards may require more power. 800w is good, but maybe not enough. Also check the power source itself. Is there too much plugged into that series of outlets or maybe the cable being used for the pc isn't the cord for that psu. I had a power supply cable once that was simply defective.

Shawn
ministryfx.net

[shane2943]

Originally Posted by streamkoinonia

So you're using IDE drives or Sata? It may be bad sata cables or connection to the drive. Also, if you built this pc or moved componets to a new case, your wiring to the power button and lights could be switched or in the wrong configuration. You may want to also update the bios. Verify the mobo will take the i7. Asus should have something to check and update bios like the "live update" on MSI boards. Using 2 cards may require more power. 800w is good, but maybe not enough. Also check the power source itself. Is there too much plugged into that series of outlets or maybe the cable being used for the pc isn't the cord for that psu. I had a power supply cable once that was simply defective.

Shawn
ministryfx.net

Hi, Shawn.

The Drives are SATA and I've replace the SATA cable. I updated the BIOS last night to the current version. I have checked to make sure the i7 and the make/model/speed/type of RAM I'm using is supported as well. The power cord has been changed out and I've used a PSU calculator to determin whether or not 800W is enough. The calculator said 700W min for my configuration.

I'm 99.9% sure this is a SATA controller issue on the board itself. I ordered a new motherboard last night. When I arrives and I install it, I'll update y'all if that took care of it.

Thanks!

[shane2943]

UPDATE:

I installed the new motherboard and...





It did not fix it. I think I found the problem though. I think the OS drive (160GB Seagate) has a loose SATA connection or connector on the drive itself. While I was messing around in there, the PC would boot fine and run great. Then if I touched it's SATA cable near it's connector, it would start freezing and the BIOS wouldn't even detect it on the next boot. If I fiddled with it a bit, then the BIOS would see it again and it would boot.

I decided to clone that drive over to another 1TB drive (Western Digital) that I had laying around and run the PC on that. So far it's running fine.

I think it's odd that 2 Seagate drives would have the same issue.

[petereit]

Originally Posted by shane2943

I think it's odd that 2 Seagate drives would have the same issue.

I have a friend who works as a PC hardware tech for a large company. He laughed when I showed him this statement. He said, "We keep a large supply of Hitachi drives on hand. Any time we work on someone's system that has a Seagate drive, the first thing we do is clone it and replace it with a new Hitachi drive. Then we take their Seagate drive out back and smash it with a large sledge hammer. Favorite part of my job!"

[shane2943]

The reason I think it's odd, is because I deal with a large number of PCs every day at work (IT support for a large phamaceutical company) and by far the most problem-free HDDs are the Seagates! We don't have any Hitachi's but we do have Toshibas and Western Digitals and the Seagates are far better than each of those.

Looks like I'll be looking into Hitachi's for next time!

[shane2943]

AAAAAAARRGH!!!!! This PC is going to be the bane of my existence!!!!

Came in this morning and after several minutes waiting for it to boot onto the Western Digital drive, I was presented with a friendly message: "Windows was unable to start. Click next to begin diagnostic" Or something like that.

I started the diagnostics but it just seemed to sit there. I killed it (reset button) and yanked 3 of the 4 DIMM sticks and left one in the primary slot. I attempted to boot in Safe Mode after that and it took literally 20 seconds to load each file down the list.

I left the RAM out and switched back over to the 160GB Seagate and 1TB Seagate combo (good thing I left them in there). Upon restart, the PC booted fine!!! It's up now and I'm typing this on it.

I haven't a clue now what's wrong. I even got a report from my other sound tech that the PC worked great on Friday (two days ago) for a concert! I know he shut it down properly. The only things that haven't been changed out are motherboard (for a different brand/model), the processor, and the power supply.

I want to cry.

[petereit]

Life's too short to be pulling your hair out chasing PC gremlins. Replace it with a Mac. I'm serious.

[shane2943]

I would, but I'm not in charge and EW is the software of choice for the church. If it were up to me, I'd actually just replace the OS with Linux, but alas, I cannot.

I feel like the guy in your avatar, petereit!

I just don't understand why. I built a Core i5 PC for a Media PC for my house and it works flawlessly. Why can't this one? Ugh.

I suppose the next step is to replace the motherboard (again) and processor. Any insight is more than welcome.

EDIT: for giggles, I turned off HT on the processor so it's only running one thread per core, making it a quad-core in Windows' eyes. We'll see if that makes a difference. It's up and working fine for now.

[petereit]

I feel ya! I really do. I had been using PC's since before they had hard drives, built my first PC back when the 486 was the screaming processor. I got really good at it. But then there came a day when I built 10 identical PCs and 5 of them came back with issues -- every one of them different. I was spending more time troubleshooting than I was building, and that killed my already-thin profit margins.

At the same time, we were experiencing exactly the same problems at church. My pastor and I came to the same conclusion: if we were going to be able to move forward with our systems, we had to make a change. I stopped building PCs and my church stopped buying them. We've eliminated almost every PC we had and replaced them all with Macs (some of our Macs are running Windows, and we're getting ready to replace a PC Server with a Mac mini running Windows 7 exclusively).

We spend ZERO time troubleshooting hardware issues now, and we have about 20 Macs now. I haven't opened a single one of our Macs in 5 years except to add memory or hard drives.

As I said before, we have too much to do and too little time to waste swapping mother boards, power supplies, hard drives, controllers, et cetera. We're just not playing that game any more.

Yes, Macs are more expensive, but are they really? What's your time worth? How much does frustration cost? How much does it cost your church when the congregation gets distracted from your message because a PC freezes in the middle of the service? For us, PCs became much, MUCH too "expensive".