Strange Freezing/Crashing

[Vook]

So I was playing TF2 tonight when my computer, all-of-a-sudden, froze for about 8 seconds then rebooted itself. Never done this ever before, and I don't think it was overheat because if it was overheat it would have shut off instantly and stayed off, not 8 sec freeze and reboot.

So during its reboot, while it was showing the "Windows is starting up" (windows 7) with the windows logo....it froze again. 4 seconds on the power button and I reboot it again....it freezes again after I log in. I finally manage to log in and run SpeedFan, and the temps look normal (all 4 cpu cores in the low 40s, gpu at about 55 which is normal), and as soon as I start up MSN, it freezes again. 3 failed reboot freezes later and I finally login and no freeze (so far). MSN started up fine as well.

I still have no idea what caused this, but my only guess is heat issues with cpu/gpu because it was REALLY hot in my room (at least 80 degrees) and I was playing L4D2 for a while as well before TF2. If anyone has any idea what might've caused this, I'd like to know so I can prevent it from happening again.

Happened again this morning, room was nice and cool and I was only questing by myself, so I doubt it was a heat issue. Took it apart and dusted out the CPU/GPU fans just to make sure, and a couple more freeze-bootups later I'm back on. Only this time, when it froze, I heard the sound stutter really quickly for a couple seconds. Both times though, the first time I started it back up, none of the lights on the tower came on and the monitor got no signal. Then the 2nd reboot, it froze at the "Press F10 for etc" screen, then the third bootup it finally got in.

By "Freezing" I mean...the entire system just stops. I can't even move the pointer. I can still hear the fans running, but nothing at all happens no matter what I do, so when it freezes, I have to force a shutdown with the power button.

Can someone please help me here? Gonna be kinda hard to raid when my computer is randomly freeze-rebooting and taking 10+ minutes to get back into Windows.

[Djinni]

That 80F or 80C?

[Vook]

That 80F or 80C?

80F of course, 80C and I'd be dead. But I think I ruled out heat problems, it was pretty cold in my room this morning and I was only questing in WoW alone when a freeze happened.

[Adappy]

Is the freezing during boot up happening before or after Windows starts to load?

[Djinni]

80F of course, 80C and I'd be dead. But I think I ruled out heat problems, it was pretty cold in my room this morning and I was only questing in WoW alone when a freeze happened.

Always some nut who uses a different measurement to the rest of the world. (And actually a human can quite easily live in an environment where the ambient temp is 80C provided they get enough fluids and the heat source isn't "aimed" directly at them.

Anyway 26/27C ambient isn't too bad, shouldn't have damaged anything. Unless you've overclocked your system and were already running it close to its thermal limit?

And if anything did get significantly overheated, the problem would persist regardless of later temperatures.

[Vook]

Is the freezing during boot up happening before or after Windows starts to load?

It happens at any time, seemingly. So far it has froze itself at every part of startup. Also while in Windows, sometimes it will reboot quickly after freezing, and other times it will just stay frozen until I force shutdown with the power button.

Anyway 26/27C ambient isn't too bad, shouldn't have damaged anything. Unless you've overclocked your system and were already running it close to its thermal limit?

And if anything did get significantly overheated, the problem would persist regardless of later temperatures.

Nope, not overclocked, my GPU is "overclocked from factory settings" according to the box, but I've had it for over 6 months and it's never done this.

EDIT: Just installed the latest graphics driver and downloaded all of the "Important Updates" in Windows Update...let's see if those help.

[Adappy]

It happens at any time, seemingly. So far it has froze itself at every part of startup. Also while in Windows, sometimes it will reboot quickly after freezing, and other times it will just stay frozen until I force shutdown with the power button.

This makes me think it could be your motherboard having issues.

[Vook]

This makes me think it could be your motherboard having issues.

Dunno what could have caused it, then. Never had any motherboard-related issues before, and like I said, it was working fine last night and then these problems just happened all of a sudden.

I think updating all the Important Updates in windows update plus updating my graphics driver fixed it...been running about 7 hours now without a freeze, WoW ran fine, TF2 ran fine, everything is running fine.

[Dedweight]

Doesn't sound like a heat issue to me, it could very well be hardware related but there is likely to be a BSOD going on and you're just not seeing, probably due to Windows being set to restart on system failure. Try going into your System Properties and disabling "Automatic Restart" which can be found under Control Panel>System>Advanced System Settings>Startup and Recovery, that will at least give you some place to start if a BSOD shows up.

[Vook]

Doesn't sound like a heat issue to me, it could very well be hardware related but there is likely to be a BSOD going on and you're just not seeing, probably due to Windows being set to restart on system failure. Try going into your System Properties and disabling "Automatic Restart" which can be found under Control Panel>System>Advanced System Settings>Startup and Recovery, that will at least give you some place to start if a BSOD shows up.

Well sometimes it restarts, but most of the time it doesn't, and just sits there frozen until I force a shutdown with the power button. Also like I said, it froze at many times: During the "Press F10 for bios" screen, during the "Starting Windows" screen, right after entering my password at the login screen, etc. etc.

The settings there mentioned a "system log", would this "system log" give me any clues as to what is causing these freezes?

EDIT: Nope, still freezing. I installed a program then restarted, and now I can't even log in, it keeps freezing over and over again either:

1. At the "Press F10 for Boot settings" screen
2. At the "Starting Windows" screen with the windows logo
3. Right after I enter my password; it shows "Welcome" and the little circle spins a few times then it just freezes, doesn't restart.

I tried booting into Safe Mode though, and that worked fine, no freezing at all...so it's a problem with Windows 7?

[Deleted]

Try checking your RAM for errors, sounds like it's going faulty.

[Vook]

Checked RAM with Memtest, it couldn't find any errors, so...faulty/dying motherboard?

After a whole shitload of freeze boots, I finally managed to log in and now it's running fine again. Perhaps it's an issue with rebooting / shutting down?

EDIT: Asked my software-engineer father, and he said that it could be the graphics card failing, the "freeze" just being a failure in sending/receiving signal.

[Deleted]

Try hooking up your monitor to the onboard graphics port and see if the errors persist.

[Yohassakura]

The no signal input makes it seem like the graphics card, though the stuttering sound makes it sound like the hard drive's at fault... Or it could be the motherboard, which could cause both of these things to happen.

The best thing to do would be to try to get a GPU from another computer if you have one, to test that out first, and then a hard drive, and obviously if it still isn't fixed it really points at the motherboard.

[Djinni]

The no signal input makes it seem like the graphics card, though the stuttering sound makes it sound like the hard drive's at fault... Or it could be the motherboard, which could cause both of these things to happen.

The best thing to do would be to try to get a GPU from another computer if you have one, to test that out first, and then a hard drive, and obviously if it still isn't fixed it really points at the motherboard.

I'd probably be tempted to do this the other way round....

Test your GPU and HDD in a different machine, because if it is a fault with the motherboard, it's much more likely to translate to any additional hardware you connect to it rather than the other way round.

[Vook]

Try hooking up your monitor to the onboard graphics port and see if the errors persist.

Er...my motherboard doesn't have an onboard graphics port afaik.

The no signal input makes it seem like the graphics card, though the stuttering sound makes it sound like the hard drive's at fault... Or it could be the motherboard, which could cause both of these things to happen.

The best thing to do would be to try to get a GPU from another computer if you have one, to test that out first, and then a hard drive, and obviously if it still isn't fixed it really points at the motherboard.

I've got an old GPU to try out, but I'm unsure if it's really the GPU crashing. SOMETIMES it will reboot the computer when it freezes, other times it does not. Unless it reboots the computer on any hardware failure?

---------- Post added 2011-07-08 at 04:48 PM ----------

Brought it up to my dad's to let him take a look at it, but before he did I tried rebooting a couple times, and it wanted to run the ChkDsk, froze twice at the countdown timer (press any key to cancel, even though pressing any key did nothing) and on the third time it finally ran, let it do its thing and it rebooted and logged in fine.

After that, I took it apart and dusted out the GPU (was pretty dusty), dusted the CPU as well (no dust) and also noticed that my DVD drive was disconnected from the power...no wonder it wouldn't open. Plugged it back in and put everything together, ran PC and it BSOD'd after the "Starting Windows" screen. Uh oh. Turned it off and started it again, and Windows prompted me to either start up normally or run a "startup fix" thing (forgot what it was called), I let it run the fixer thingy and it rebooted, booted up fine from there and now my DVD drive works, yaaaayyy.

Rebooted four times so far, letting it run for at least 30 minutes each time, and no freezes at all. So I guess ChkDsk fixed it? Yeesh, and I thought ChkDsk was useless. It did bring up the ChkDsk a few times before while it was still freezing, but it would automatically skip over it and go to the login screen, even though I didn't press any keys.