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Description:

I have a desktop that I assembled myself about 1.5 years ago. Recently it has started to freeze occasionally. I haven't noticed a particular application that triggers this to happen. I've had it freeze while just running Chrome and also when I'm multitasking and running Starcraft 2.

Symptoms:

System is completely unresponsive. Mouse won't move and Ctrl+alt+del doesn't do anything. After around 3 minutes, system unfreezes. Audio that was playing at the point when my computer froze is now played back. Eg. I was on a Skype call and the computer froze suddenly, cutting off the audio. When it unfroze a couple minutes later, I heard another 5 seconds of audio from the call that was cut off when the computer froze.

The computer seems to work fine after it unfreezes. No error messages and no critical events in the event log.

Computer components:

  • Gigabit Z77 motherboard
  • Intel I5-2500K CPU
  • Crucial M4 SSD
  • Sapphire HD6770 video card

Running Windows 7 Pro

Kevin
  • 11

1 Answers1

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Follow the steps here from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

press the CAPS LOCK key on the keyboard. If the CAPS LOCK light on the keyboard does not change when you press the CAPS LOCK key, the cause is a hardware issue. If the CAPS LOCK light on the keyboard does change when you press the CAPS LOCK key, you have a software issue.

If you have a hardware issue try the 5 steps:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504#method3

To help isolate the problem, check the following items:

Overclocking: Disable overclocking to see whether the issue occurs when the system is run at the correct speed.

Check the memory: Verify the memory by using a memory checker. Verify that each memory chip is the same speed and that it is configured correctly in the system.

Power supply: Make sure that the power supply has enough wattage to appropriately handle the installed devices. If you added memory, installed a newer processor, installed additional drives, or added external devices, such devices can require more energy than the current power supply can provide consistently.

Overheating: Check whether the system is overheating by examining the internal temperature of the hardware.

Defaults: Reset the system back to the system defaults to see whether the issues occur when the system is running in its default configuration.

If the freeze is software based, you can use the clean boot approach to find out which software causes it.

magicandre1981
  • 99,606