Win 7/64 random freeze; no BSOD

I'm beyond frustrated. My Dell XPS 730 (not the water-cooled 730 H2C, and not the 730X; just the plain air-cooled 730) freezes randomly under Windows 7 (Enterprise) SP1 x64. No BSOD; just stops responding to everything except holding the front panel switch until it dies.

Upon reboot, it may fail to boot (usually stopping on the "Starting Windows" screen), it may run 2 minutes, and it may run 2 days. Eventually, it will lock up.

It's not a thermal issue, according to CPUID Hardware Monitor, and this is a recent development.

I'm running stock everything (no overclock, etc.).

It started doing this about a month ago when it had 16 GB of RAM (4 x 4 GB, which had run fine for 10 months). I ran memtest86, and it said RAM was fine. Suspecting bad RAM anyway, I pulled the 16 and put in the original 4 x 1 GB. Same thing. It seemed a LITTLE better at first, but I've still had it lock up twice within 10 minutes on the 4 GB configuration.

Thinking my old Win 7 Ultimate install was somehow corrupted, I grabbed another drive, and did a fresh install of Win 7 Enterprise SP1 (which my school has via DreamSpark).

[Before someone looks up the specs on this one and (correctly) points out that this system maxes out at 8 GB (4 x 2GB), let me remind you that it ran fine with 16 GB for 10 months prior to this. I doubt that EVGA even HAD 4 GB sticks to test it with in late 2007 when it was being designed]

Dell's diagnostics (both booted from CD and the on-line PC-Doctor versions) say the system is fine, after LOTS of passes. I ran memtest86 for well over 24 hours, with no errors, on both the 16 GB and 4 GB configs.

I suspected the sound card (SB0770), so I pulled it, and ran with mobo audio. Same thing.

Configuration:
Core 2 Quad 2.66 GHz
4 GB RAM (presently)
ATI Radeon HD 3870 (original from Dell - 2008)
Hauppauge Win-TV TVR-2250 dual TV Tuner

This mobo was made by EVGA, and uses the nForce 790i Ultra chipset.

I have 2 optical drives, which are probably a non-issue, so I won't bother tracking down their make/model numbers.

I have a single boot hard drive, currently a 160 GB Caviar Green. When the dust settles, and the system is stable again, it will be a Samsung 840 Pro SSD, ideally mounted in an Apricorn Velocity X2 (a PCIe card that will let me bypass the SATA II on the mobo).

I also have three 2 TB drives in RAID 5 array, courtesy of the NVidia chipset and the BIOS (not a Windows software-based array). I've lost a couple of drives in the last few years, and I went with RAID 5 for fault tolerance. The array reports as healthy, and I've had no problems with it that I can tell. I installed the array a couple of weeks before it started locking up, but there was long enough in between that I don't think that setting up the RAID array is the source of the problem.

Windows Update says everything is up to date, and there are no issues showing up in Device Manager. I downloaded and ran SlimDrivers Free, and it identified 8 drivers for which newer versions were available. I checked each of the 8 against the existing driver, and the suggested drivers WERE all newer, and Windows still said that what was already installed was up-to-date. Go figure. I updated all 8, and no change -- it locked up on me twice in the first hour, but has now run a couple of hours.

Were it not for the productivity impact, I would boot to knoppix and see how it runs Linux for a couple of days. I've booted to the knoppix DVD a few times recently, and it's gone fine, but I haven't left the system up or done enough with it to say that it crashes under Windows, but runs fine under Linux.

I still suspect this is a software issue.

The only other piece of hardware I'm really dubious about is the video card. I do zero gaming, so I don't need a fast GPU; I only bought the 3870 with this machine because it was Dell's cheapest offering that supported my resolution (2560x1600 plus 1920x1200 on a second monitor). I've wondered about going to BestBuy and getting a $100 video card (they seen to have a couple of options in the $90-110 range), and simply trying it for a few days to see what happens. I hate to roll the dice on "maybe" to the tune of $100, and I hate to purchase something with a planned return in mind.

Can anyone help!?!?!

 

Have you completely tested every thing.This might sound like a power supply issue.

Do you know the watts on the whole package and do you know how big your power supply is.

How old is your computer.

 

Thanks for the reply, Goldenskull.

I'm not sure I have the facilities to test the power supply, but it's a 1000 watt supply, and it shouldn't be running anywhere near capacity (I don't have multiple honkin' GPUs). The was sold as a high-end gaming box, but I don't do gaming. I think the biggest power draw would be dual high-end GPUs, and I don't have them.

The box DOES have the full complement of four hard drives, but they're only 20 watts each, and that's at start-up.

The computer was brand-new in August 2008.

I'm trying to extend its life with more RAM, more disk space (via the RAID array), and an SSD (still to come).

When it freezes, it's often not doing anything (it locks up overnight); so far, there's no discernible pattern.

 

Have you ran any virus scan lately???

The power supply might be a cheap brand and might finally be going bad.Even the best power supply can die with out reason or just be built poorly.

I had a 550watt for 3 years and it finally died this year i bought the same one off of newegg and it looked like there was improvement to the newer one.Good thing mine was cheap.

I am not saying that it is the power supply but it might be a good idea to check it.

Have you tried to reset the Bios yet.

 

When I was running Win 7 Ultimate/64, I was running Microsoft Security Essentials.

When I re-installed Windows Enterprise SP1 a couple of weeks ago (in an attempt to fix this mess), I went with AVAST (Free), and it comes up clean, as does MalwareBytes' Antimalware.

I don't know who the OEM was on the PSU, but it's an oversized 1 KW supply.

I re-flashed the BIOS to Dell's latest (1.0.6, from April 2009)

I'm reluctant to try EVGA's last BIOS for this board (P10 from December 2009), although I HAVE heard that it will work.

 

Update - last night, I went to bed with 7 video encode jobs queued up, fully expecting that the system might lock up overnight.

This morning, I nudged the mouse to find the system still up and that the jobs had completed.

Ten minutes and a second later, as the screen saver was kicking in, it locked up.

I rebooted, and came here to post this update, and it locked up between my first and second paragraphs.

How could it have run a high-load job like several hours of video encoding, and then choked on the screen saver, or while typing a message? That doesn't sound like PSU to me (although at this point, I can't categorically rule out ANYTHING !).

I'm thinking video card more and more.

 

I feel for you. Had similar issue a few years back, in my situation, it was both the MB and the HDD that were misbehaving, even though all manufacture tools and scans reported the MOBO and HDD to be fine.

If I may suggest, maybe its worth while to try a linux live disk, ubuntu or puppy? And run it over night and see if the computer would freeze. That way you can isolate if its a hardware issue or software. Though with running memtest and appears to be fine, that itself is some what pointing to a software fault, but not conclusive enough.

Also maybe worth using another set of ram, even though you have tried two different sets already. I know some ram would be functional & usable in a system, but due to incompatible issues with the mobo, it can cause random freeze. So worth while to check if the ram you are using is supported, in regards to brand and chip.

All the best!

 

Thanks, bioleak32. I have Knoppix 7.2.0 (CD and DVD).

Maybe I'll copy a bunch of video off the RAID array to my (Windows) C: drive, and then book Knoppix and let it play hours and hours of video (overnight, and while I'm at work tomorrow).

Good idea. Thanks.