Random Un-provoked Freezing?

Operating Systems & Open Source Windows
1

A couple weeks ago or so, I had been screen recording and the subseqeunt files just about maxed out one of my ssd's. I thought this could have caused the random freezing that I was getting. The freezing seemed to be very similar to how it is currently freezing.

After I deleted the massive file, it froze one more time and then stopped for ever since until the other day.

It seems to be completely unprovoked. I've manually shut it down and re-started it about 7 times in the last 36 hours trying to figure out what could be causing it. One of the time's, I wasn't doing anything on it, I left for a couple hours and it still froze by the time I came back.

When it freeze's, I only remember one time when the clock froze with it. The other times, the clock seems to still be working fine. Also, the internet cache seems to work fine as well, but anything new or on windows, just wont respond.

I know how to get to the event viewer, I just don't know what I should be looking for?

Any help is much appreciated! Thanks

Build:
ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 7 x SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

APEVIA ATX-AQ700W-BK 700W ATX12V / EPS12V

GIGABYTE GV-N660OC-2GD G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16

AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W

2X Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SV300S37A/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III

2X Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"

ASUS DVD-Writer

Thermaltake Water Cooler

Windows 8

2
  • if anything is oc'd revert to stockl
  • that psu isnt suited to your build at all - highly recommend getting a decent one.
  • those ssdnow ssds's are renown for being dodgy.
  • Makes sure everything is up to date and your os is nice and clean.
  • Run memtest just to be sure.
  • Run seatools on your hdd.
  • Barebone test your rig - cpu/mb + 1 stick ram, gpu, kb, mouse, monitor + usb drive with a linux distro. Run basic stability tests, if no errors then chances are its one of those kingston ssds.
3

Nothing is oc'd.
Thanks for the suggestion... I'll start looking for a nicer PSU.
I'll look into memtest and seatools.
If I had to go to the point of barebone testing (never done it before), would it be an option to clone the SSD's onto the Seagate 1TB and then un-install the SSD's?

Thank you for your help!

4

BTW, I don't know if this makes any difference but I have been running this PC for about a year and a half.

5

He's wendell's recent video on how to read the event viewer.

1 Like
6

I have the same motherboard/CPU combo as you. I know from experience that its very sensitive to static electricity. (Esp around the USB ports) The smallest shock would cause the system to freeze. I went through 2 boards thinking it was defective.

During the Winter I had to get the tower up off the carpet and ground my self before using it. Now that its more humid out I haven't had any issues.

7

Hey, thanks, NJM. That's really helpful!

8

Sounds like it may be a corrupted operating system or file system. I would suggest backing up your data, formatting the drives, and then run a hardware diagnostic utility before reinstalling your OS.

9

Thanks, SSL! I really appreciate the heads up!

I don't think that is the issue though, I've pretty much always had the desktop sitting on a granite counter. And although, I normally work in a sleeping bag, these issues of freezing haven't happened for the life of the computer (year and a half) until I just about maxed out my SSD with that file a couple weeks ago.

It was a screen capture through OBS that I had forgot about. The PC froze quite a few times until I thought there could be a connection and I deleted the file and then, I believe it only froze one more time. Fast forward to a few day's ago, something I forgot to mention; I was cleaning my desk and I did move my PC around... Maybe I disrupted something in the SSD?

I did manage to back it up with Acronis last night without it freezing, (on the second try). During the back up process it said that HD 1 was missing something, (I'm afraid I don't remember what exactly it was besides a string of numbers). There few different instances where Acronis said the hard drive was missing things and I just had to "Ignore All". It did suggest that I run some kind of Disk Utility but I don't remember exactly what it was. I can find out when I turn the PC back on... If I can get it too.

After the backup, I left it running and went to sleep. When I came back to it, It looked like it had attempted to reboot and there was a black screen that said the OS was missing from the HD and to press ctrl-alt-delete to continue. After I hit ctrl-alt-delete, the same message popped up and I shut it down and re-started it manually. It has since froze, and I've shut it off and left it.

Now I'm not real sure what I should do.

10

Coming from your other post as this is more the TS one.

In all honestly it sounds like the drive was filled writing GB's of data to all sectors and then deleting it. It might be dead.

Moving an ssd doesn't do anything they don't have moving parts like a hard drive does.

Do you know to which hard drive the OBS was writing too? Hopefully not the C drive.

The only thing I can think of is to try using a live linux cd to see if you can read the drive, and just copy paste the data onto another networked pc.

if this is not possible then use a windows disk and try to run a repair and check disk. it won't matter if it makes it worse at this point as i don't think the data is recoverable if you cant read the data from the linux live cd.

Note: I am just providing hints/general suggestions, please wait to see if someone else says something similar to me before just doing the windows cd part. The linux live cd shouldn't make it worse since it would just be reading the SSD and not writing anything to it.

11

I believe OBS was writing to the D drive.

I will probably just try writing over it with a windows disk. I've never used a live linux cd and I'm afraid I'm just not smart enough to make it worth my time. If I decide to contact a friend to help me, I'll ask them to do it though.

I really appreciate your help!

BTW, often times, I'd put this PC to sleep and it would boot back up within a couple minutes or so. Could that have anything to do with the hard drive?

Thanks!

12

Restarting after sleep is probably some service running you'll need to check the event viewer to see what is waking it from sleep.