Very odd freezing problem with friends computer

[Guy]

I just completed a new build for a friend today, specs:

 

Powercolor 5750 1GB

MSI 870-C45 motherboard

AMD Athlon II X3 450

Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB

Windows 7 home premium x64

500W Antec Basiq PSU

4GB RAM

 

What happend is that I turned it on, all fine, installed windows with a couple of hiccups, but it was fine in the end. Installed all of the drivers perfectly fine, did multiple restarts - all seemed to be going well.

I noticed the front panel audio output was not working, so I switched sound on the motherboard from the AC '97 to the HD audio plug. This is where the problems start.

The system started randomly freezing, not displaying any errors or anything - just freezing. I first thought this was a graphics error, so I deleted and reinstalled the graphics drivers. Still, the same problem. To troubleshoot, I played music while playing an animation - both stopped at the same time (so I guess not a graphics error).

 

Now I'm stuck. Is the motherboard faulty or something? It seems odd that the problem started when changing the audio for the front panel. Any help would be very greatly appreciated. Would it be worth reinstalling windows? I have the OEM disk which I ordered, but it only has one license and I've activated the currently installed copy online already. Will I be able to reinstall windows, if theres nothing else I can do?

 

Thanks so much.

 

edit: on the board, there are 4 LEDs. I think these are for error codes? During runtime, LED1 is on, and LED2,3,4 are either off. When it's frozen, all 4 LEDs are on. Unfortunately I can't remember how they were when it was running fine.

[Hegelstad]

Ditch the front panel plugs, you save so much more time by doing that, then you save by not having to reach your arm behind the computer occasionally, eventually get a cheap extender at dealextreme.

[Guy]

Ditch the front panel plugs, you save so much more time by doing that, then you save by not having to reach your arm behind the computer occasionally, eventually get a cheap extender at dealextreme.

Thats the thing - i changed the plugs to how they were before. Tomorrow ill try seeing what happens when front panel audio internal connections (im not sure if i made internal clear in my op) are unplugged.

[jasignhagj]

Do you by any chance have an old sound card you could pop in? There could be a problem with the motherboard's integrated sound.

[sheep455_is_the_best]

Check the motherboard manual for what the LEDs are for. I know MSI has used LEDs for showing active powerphases, so if it freezes with all of them on, it might be a power problem. The LEDs might be error messages, check in the manual.

 

You should also check the motherboard manual to figure out if the motherboard uses IntelHD audio or the AC'97. I would suppose it uses IntelHD, as it is a newer standards and most motherboads support it.

 

If none of these tips work, check the RAM-sticks one by one (assuming it is more than 1 stick), in the different slots. One or more might be dead. If you feel like it, you can download Prime95 to test the RAM (or the CPU, if you want). It is a program designed to stress the components and check for errors in calculation.

[uninorinfo]

hi,

you may try reinstalling the windows again and clean all the data in you HDD.

And donot copy that data for a while.

Check whether is it freezing again or not.

if yes, it means there is a major problem with your pc and if no then it means your data contains something harmful.

Happy to help

and sorry if this not works.

[D. V. Devnull]

Guydabest, I just noticed that the PSU is only 500W... There is a small chance that it is too small for the Graphics Card, combined with everything else in the system. You might wish to upgrade that to at least a 700W, if not bigger, which would get around any freezing caused by lack of power. :?

 

Which reminds me, is this computer you're trying to fix currently protected by a UPS? :huh:

 

~D. V. "That PSU looks too small to me..." Devnull

[OldJoe]

Guydabest, I just noticed that the PSU is only 500W... There is a small chance that it is too small for the Graphics Card, combined with everything else in the system. You might wish to upgrade that to at least a 700W, if not bigger, which would get around any freezing caused by lack of power. :?

 

Which reminds me, is this computer you're trying to fix currently protected by a UPS? :huh:

 

~D. V. "That PSU looks too small to me..." Devnull

No chance in hell that, that psu is too little for his build.

[Ember]

.

[Guy]

You're right - installing windows again did nothing. I thought it was a RAM problem, what with safe mode using less ram than normal windows 7, and linux using lots of ram (I did try a live CD). Did a memtest, one ran for an hour and a half, but after doing another one it ran for about 5 minutes before freezing (But the cursor was still blinking, like that one for text input). I RMA'd the ram and got some Kingston which was verified to be compatible with the motherboard. Infuriatingly, this didn't solve the issue and it's still freezing. I tried the individual RAM sticks one by one in each memory slot and still got the same problem, if that helps. Unfortunately I have no AM3 or DDR3 motherboard to troubleshoot with....

 

This leads me to think it is a problem with the memory bus on the motherboard. It's going to be a pain to explain to the client, especially seeing as he's my friend..... oh well, nothing I can do about it. Do people agree this might be the problem?

[Lord Diddy]

Try updating bios, it surprisingly did solve one of my problems for a client when we did a few hardware upgrades. I would probably guess that the new bios overwrote previous settings that over/underclocked the memory and caused instability. Hopefully you can RMA the board if nothing else.