New build, freezing randomly

[Sessie]

Hi everyone...I am SO glad I found this site! I'm about ready to throw this thing off my balcony. And though I'm sure it would look really pretty flying through the air, I'm pretty sure I'd regret it afterwards.

Anyway...first the specs, then the issue(s):

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 - Retail

BIOSTAR V7602GS51 GeForce 7600GS 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

NZXT LEXA-NP Black/ Silver Aluminum Construction Plastic Front Panel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

HIPER HPU-4B580-MS ATX12V v2.2 580W Power Supply - Retail

A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model ADQVE1A16K - Retail

Windows XP Professional SP2, all updates

DVDRW: Plextor PX-708A

Generic Dell floppy drive

Linksys WUSB54G wireless adapter

No overclocking, stock cooling.

All righty then...this machine is randomly freezing, and by freezing I mean locking up completely, to the point where the mouse and keyboard are unresponsive, and any sounds that were playing at the time are now looping whatever millisecond they were on. It does not happen during any one particular activity. It has happened during gameplay, online browsing, and even idleness. memtest comes back fine after 3+ passes, and DFT does not detect any errors on the hard drive. My temperature monitors say that everything is running under 40C.

The hard drive has been through several format/reinstalls with two different Windows XP discs (I had a REALLY old retail copy that I had completely forgotten about until recently; when it started having these problems I wondered if maybe the OS was just too old, so I purchased a new copy yesterday). Here's the kicker: I've never seen it freeze in Safe Mode.

That being said, it seems like it would be a software issue, but it started freezing right after installing Windows--before any updates or any other software had been installed.

THANKS and THANKS AGAIN for any and all help offered...many apologies if I have missed a thread that already answers this question, or if somehow I've posted in the wrong place.

[minsonngo]

Try updating all of the drivers to the newest ones available.

[Sessie]

Working on that now...so far have updated the nForce chipset drivers and the video drivers, still having freezing issues. I'm gonna keep going and post an update later on. Thanks for the suggestion, and I'd love to hear any others that anyone else may have.

[Sessie]

All drivers have been updated, and I have also tried replacing the video card with another PCI-E. Still freezing every time I try to use it. Any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

[minsonngo]

Based on what I read in your original post it sounds like a hardware issue.

Try running the computer with only the essentials first... such as the motherboard, processor, video card, one stick of memory, processor, power supply, and the HDD... and see if the freezing still occurs... if it does... then one or more of those parts are faulty and you basically have to start swapping out parts one at a time to find out which one is faulty. I would suspect the power supply first... then the memory (but you said memtest already said it was fine)... then the HDD (which you can run a diagnostic on it by downloading the utility from the manufacturer's website).

Also try swapping out the IDE or SATA cables for some others just in case one of the cables happens to be faulty.

If it does not freeze with only the essential parts... you can start adding all of the other parts in one at a time and see if the freezing comes back... if it does... then the last part you added could be faulty or conflicting with something else in the machine.

[Sessie]

I tried the essentials as you said, and it actually ran great. It even let me play Black & White 2 for a while (before, that game was guaranteed to freeze it up). So I shut it down and put the other stick of RAM in, in a dual-channel configuration, and fired it up to play some more, and it froze after about 5 minutes. I then tried with the second stick only; no freezing.

It's now running back in the case with everything installed except only 1 stick of RAM, and all is good so far. I'm assuming it's something to do with the dual-channel, as it appears to be happening when both stick are installed at once. How can I verify this, if at all possible, and what can I do about it? Thanks so much for the help.

[minsonngo]

When you had both sticks installed... what slots where they in?

Try different slot combinations and see if it still freezes. I read your motherboard manual and for dual channel configuration you have to occupy... either the yellow slots or the black slots or all four.

[Sessie]

I had one in A1 and one in B1, which are the two yellow slots.

I'll swap them around a bit and let you know how it goes.

[yoloksky]

hello,

try this one, change your mouse and also your keyboard w/ something that works fine. Im surprised at this one advice but for me it works.

br,

[Sessie]

Thanks for the suggestion yoloksky, but I think I've got it narrowed down to the dual-channel configuration. I have both sticks in channel A now, and everything is working as it should. Is there a setting or something that I need to change to get dual channel working properly?

[minsonngo]

Nope no settings really. Do you have the memory running at stock speeds?

[Sessie]

Yeah, I've left all the BIOS settings at default except the boot order.

[minsonngo]

Did you try the two sticks in the black slots instead also? Does it still freeze on you then?