The story: I bought a PC off of my uncle. Not sure if he custom built it or bought it pre-made. I've been setting it up over the last few days when not otherwise busy, but have been encountering problems with it.

Problem: It'll freeze, somewhat randomly. I can sit and run tests and scans without problems for hours on end, but if I want to play a game or use firefox it'll freeze in less than 5 minutes. The freeze is pretty absolute: I can't move the cursor or the keyboard, so ctrl+alt+del is out.

Attempts to fix it:
- Undid the over-clocking, wasn't me that did it in the first place, by reseting the BIOS to default.
- Ran several virus and malware scans and come up clean. Did the same in safe mode.
- Updated the drivers for the motherboard, and everything else.
- Ran disk check
- Cleared registry using CCleaner.
- Did every available windows update.
- Since it freezes quickest while using firefox/Minecraft I updated things like java and adobe in a vein hope that it might help.

Nothing has made any sort of difference and a roll back is both impossible and pointless - it's been like this since I first installed windows.

Some specs:
OS - Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit SP1
Processor - 3ghz AMD Athlon II X2 250
Mobo - ASUSTeK M4A87TD/USB3
RAM - 8gb
HDD - Samsung HD103SJ 1TB
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS

Any and all help would be fucking awesome, as I'm stumped.

 

Had something similar with my PC. It would freeze after 5 minutes of using mozilla, especially sites with flash, and would unfreeze after 30 secs, 5 to 10 and 30 secs again. Hardware was fine, OS was freshly installed... software was at fault here.

Now, I'm not that tech savvy, but in my case I all I had to do was to install Intel Matrix Storage Manager and everything was fine. It seems that HDDs need some storage management soft or something...

 

That particular bit of software won't help - not compatible - and I'm not sure what would make an effective alternative.

That aside, it sounds like we've slightly different problems: mine doesn't ever unfreeze.

 

Does it freeze with other web browsers?

Do you have a graphics card? I have a friend that had almost the exact same problem, freezes while gaming and using firefox. He rolled back to an older driver for his graphics card and that seemed to fix the problem. Unfortunately, I don't remember what graphics card he had, but I could ask.

You should also test your RAM and hard drive for errors.

 

The fact that it only happens when you do Minecraft / Firefox definitely suggests a video card / video driver problem to me.

 

It freezes most often during use of firefox/Minecraft, but right as I was posting this thread it froze during an installation process without either of those being open.

Regardless, I'll get something to test the graphics/video card.

I'm testing the HDD at the moment, but so far it's alright. RAM is next.

The option for rolling back on the driver for the GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS) isn't available, same for updating the driver.

 

You mean in the Device Manager of Windows? You don't really use that for updates or roll backs. On this site you can find old driver versions.

 

I'm having a similar problem (with different hardware, of course) that I currently think is the result of a faulty Windows Update. Which one? Fuck if I know, there are so many of them.

I started out thinking it was a RAM problem, because I'd get random blue screens about memory. You getting any of those Dwitty?

Edit: God dammit. Locked up right as I hit post. Yay first double post.

 

Militis do you update your graphics card drivers every month, If you do, that's what is causing your problem. Because if your graphics drivers are set to auto update then the next windows update will break the previous graphics driver update. It used to happen to me all the time until I stopped updating my graphics card drivers and I have not had a freeze in a quite a wile.

 

Nay. I only update my graphics drivers when I experience some kind of graphics-related problem. This definitely isn't graphics-related.

Dwitty's doesn't sound graphics-related either. Maybe a hard drive going out?

 

Firefox and Minecraft have another device use in common- the network card. We are looking for a problem with something that had low-Interrupt access to the OS, enough to cause a freeze when it ends up in a high-priority process. Best candidates are the hardware or drivers for graphics, swap file access (therefore hard drive controllers), expansion buses- (USB, eSATA, FireWire) and the NICs. In particular in recent years, even the most humble of apps seems to expect an internet connection to be available for sneaky usage data and license validation purposes.

If you're using a motherboard NIC, consider adding a PCI NIC, disabling the motherboard one in BIOS. Updating drivers for the NIC, drive controller, video and audio cards isn't a bad use of time either, particularly if you can read up on why the updated drivers were written- someone else might have seen this.

 

Mmkay. The following devices needed driver updates:

Display adaptor: NVIDIA geforce 8400 gs
Network Adaptor: Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
System Devices: ATI/O Communications Processor SMBus Controller
Sound, Video *Game controllers: VIA High Definition Audio
Universal Serial Bus Controllers: Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller
"Unplugged" Devices: HID-Compliant Mouse

I've managed to update the following:

Display adaptor: NVIDIA geforce 8400 gs
Network Adaptor: Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
System Devices: ATI/O Communications Processor SMBus Controller

@Militis: No blue screens. It's always just been total lock-ups.

I'll edit and give a progress report when I know whether the updates have helped.

EDIT: Yeah, no help at all. Though, now it makes a whiny noise right as it's freezing.

Also updated the Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller. Still no difference. Except maybe that it freezes faster now.

 

Wouldn't the disk check have marked it then? I ran one as step number 3 or 4, iirc.

More generally, despite updating the Mobo chipset drivers a few times I can't get the ATI I/O Communications Processor SMBus Controller driver to show as having been updated.

I think, realistically, the next step is, all things considered, to set it on fire.

 

Fire is always a solution. If you don't care about the case it's in, remove the fans and heatsinks for the best possible result.

 

Have you considered punching your scumbag uncle in the face for selling you a faulty computer?