win 7 pro 64 bit hanging

So i decided i needed a better computer for gaming, and now the thing hangs up randomly.
Ive run the built in ram test and would happily run other hardware tests, but wouldnt know what to run.

It hangs most often in-game, but will also do it on just the desktop. Things just freeze until a hard reset. Im thinking software or driver issue.

can anyone help?

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor (6 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
AMD Radeon HD 6870 X2
4096MB RAM
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Driver Version: 6.10.0000.0209 (English)
G19 Gaming Keyboard

 

Hi and welcome to MG's,

Please take a look at this thread... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=242015 ... and run through what I instructed in post #2,it may be software or a driver that is causing the hang, I would suspect a driver myself, have you installed any new software/ drivers/ updates lately that may be causing this?? how old is the drive (hdd) in your machine??

iain.t :major

 

its not old. everything was new in April. as for updates, windows and steam update themselves. i recently installed the latest ati drivers, and the sound drivers havent been changed since i did the first install. however the freezing issue has been a problem since my first gaming session.

I have a couple questions about your idea of disabling startup programs.
how will i know if this helps? the freezes are random and unfortunately i cant trigger them. Sometimes itll go for a week or two without a problem. Is there a more reliable way to see if one of them is causing an issue?

Ill try anything, and will go about the disabling thing, but it could be months before it shows any results.

AND btw, thank you for helping.

 

Have you noticed if your machine is running hot when these freezes occur, try running core temp for a few weeks and see what the temp's are when the freeze up happens.It is a free utility that will give accurate readings....

http://majorgeeks.com/Core_Temp_d5665.html

Take a look here also as there is a run through of how to find the cause of the freeze ups ....
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/TroubleshootingGameIssues.aspx

also if you run this tool ....

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/auto_detect.aspx

this will detect and install the most upto date correct driver for your card.

Leave the disabling of the start up programs untill we have a good idea on how the temp's are running at, You could run a diagnostics test on your HDD just to make sure!! I would advice it to be the drives manufacturers own diagnostic tool that you should use to run the tests.

iain.t :major

 

i hadnt noticed if its running hot or not. although i probably should know since i have a readout built in lol.
im running core temp. gonna try that for a while like you suggested. nice program. im still learning how to read it. it shows the load on each core, but i havent found where it actually tell the temps im betting its there and obvious and im just missing it. der.

also ran the gpu utility. and yeppers, it updated. that kind of thing makes me wonder since i just manually looked for the latest drivers and updated them a few days ago.

ive only had a chance to glance at the other link. some of the suggestions ive tried. others ill get to as soon as i can.

I ran cod:black ops for a little while today, and it worked fine. ill try a few other games today/ tomorrow and see if anything happens. well, honestly, im a gamer so ill run em as often as i can

until i can do the other things in that list, ill only post replies. once i get that list complete, ill post and tell how things are going.

Thank you again for your help.

 

Hi here are screen shots of the core temp showing readings....

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/5145/coretempi.jpg

hope these help you find the readings, post back any issues. I personally think that it may have been a driver issue though, especially with it being a reletively new machine, I could see you are a regular gamer from the spec's that you gave, I am unfortunately not a gamer, I cannot even play easy games on an xbox :-o :-D too much amusement of my kids, I prefer the older consoles like the snes etc... much easier to play on .
Any way good luck with those temp's and I hope everything stays stable for you .

iain.t :major

 

ugh. glad you posted the screenies. now i kow why i cant find the temps. it doesnt show them for me. i can get it to show the load on each core ( never checked to see if it was correct) but the temp shows as 0c and 32f. and doesnt change. And it doesnt show up in the sidebar gadget thing either. i messed with the setting trying to get it to work but it just doesnt.

grrr, nothing is ever easy is it? lol

 

It is not something I have personally had to use so couldn't really tell you how to get the temps showing, here is a link to their support forum...

http://www.alcpu.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=55

you could also make a thread in the gamers section here...

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

someone could also help you here....

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=30

or you could try a different temp monitoring utility like speedfan ...

http://majorgeeks.com/SpeedFan_d337.html

sorry.

iain.t :major

 

so after all your help i wanted to let you know how things stand. i barely glanced at speedfan once i installed it. but it may have been working. core temp had some info in the faq stating that some features like the asus core unlocker can cause core temp to not display accurate temps. While im not sure if it does anything, i assume the core unlocker changes the performance of the cpu in some way, and this would change my results with temperature readings. HOWEVER,a friend at work laughed when i told him about this. It seems that ASUS, in their infinite wisdom, package utility programs with their mobo disk. including, you guessed it, a temperature monitoring program. This is now installed and working wonderfully.

I have been doing some thinking about the freezing issue. it never occured to me because its through Steam, but when some games are installed that way, it automatically installs whatever version of Directx that comes with the game. I believe this may be the cause of my freezing when its happening often. It takes a bit for windows to recognize, and then download the updated versions of directx. And it can take me a while to restart and allow it to install. :-D

This doesnt explain ALL of the freezing, and ill continue monitoring the temps, but for now, i think the only thing i can do is wait and see what happens. Ill either ressurect this thread or begin a new one if i have any further issues (depending on forum rules). Im sure itll be a couple weeks at least though.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help. Very much appreciated. :wave

 

No problem , you can just resurrect this thread to continue with this issue, i hope all is ok though .

iain.t :major