Curse

RedDog91 · Jul 01, 2011, 04:06 PM // 16:06

For the past few months my computer freezing randomly for a secondd or two and then continues. Video pausing, audio stutters, and mouse jumps if I move it. And the clock on my desktop slowly becomes more and more behind schedule.

I've looked everywhere for advice and have done everything I can think of to fix it. 99% of places say that resetting the BIOS will fix it, but it didn't.

I've cleaned the registry, defragged, reset BIOS (in 3 different ways), updated every driver, error checked and recovered bad sectors, changed BIOS settings to run more tests and fix errors on start up (and reset BIOS settings when that didn't work), and I've even completely restored the Operating System. I honestly don't know of anything else I could possibly do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Quaker · Jul 01, 2011, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Did you clean the dust out of it?
It could be overheating. Also check that any and all fans are working.

RedDog91 · Jul 01, 2011, 06:55 PM // 18:55

I have indeed gotten all the dust out and have been keeping it clean since the problem arose. I checked to see if it was overheating and all temperatures are normal. Also yesterday I unplugged and replugged every wire one at a time to check if any of them were the cause.

I honestly don't know what could possibly be the issue, other than this problem the computer runs great, faster than any other computer in the house. But the random freezing has made it almost unusable.

Draca · Jul 01, 2011, 07:59 PM // 19:59

Check if there is a bios update for your motherboard. Resetting the CMOS might help too. It is possible there is a hardware failure on the motherboard. Can also see it being the power supply having strange surges.

Any more information where it happens? idle in windows, while surfing or in a game. Model and brand of the motherboard/computer will also help.

Tharg · Jul 01, 2011, 09:03 PM // 21:03

is it only in GW or also in other programs?

Do you have enough RAM? If you are using multiple programs with little RAM, the computer uses the hard disk to swap memory between RAM and hard disk.

RedDog91 · Jul 01, 2011, 11:05 PM // 23:05

I have updated the BIOS twice in the past few months since the issue arose. I have tried taking the CMOS battery out for an entire day to reset it and have even replaced the CMOS battery when that didn't work.

It happens at any given moment. And the longer the computer is on, the more often it happens, after an hour it won't go 3 seconds without freezing. It will happen sometimes before I even open a single program.

My computer model is Gateway GT5622. Motherboard is ECS, model 945GCT-NM.

Quaker · Jul 02, 2011, 01:20 PM // 13:20

My next guess would be an actual hardware fault - quite possibly a bad capacitor on the motherboard or in the power supply.
It sounds, in any case, as though it's going to take some work to find the problem. As with many such things, it's easiest to eliminate hardware problems by swapping parts, but that's hard to do if you don't have spare parts.

Btw - you don't have anything overclocked, do you?

If you have more than one RAM stick, you could try running it with only one at a time to eliminate RAM.

RedDog91 · Jul 04, 2011, 11:40 PM // 23:40

Though none of the suggestions fixed the issue, I would still like to thank those of you who offered advice.

For some reason after months of screwing up, it appears to have fixed itself today when I haven't even done anything to it in over 2 days. It glitched for an hour when I first turned it on, and now it's been working right for about 7 hours. I'm a bit hesitant to turn it off to see if it's still fixed upon reboot, as it may screw up again and might not fix itself next time.

Quaker · Jul 05, 2011, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Well, for example, a while back, when quad-core CPUs were relatively new, freezing of GW was relatively common. At the time, a work around was to force GW to only use 1 core. On my system, the problem eventually went away after some auto-updates to Windows, etc.
So it could very well be that some auto-update or auto-repair fixed it (until the next frig up.)

Ouwebak · Jul 05, 2011, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Try replacing the cable from hard-disk to main board.
(My other pc appeared to freeze for no apparant reason. When it happened during a Lan-Party, someone suggested to replace the cable, which fixed the freezing problem)

RedDog91 · Jul 06, 2011, 04:07 AM // 04:07

@Quaker
It's not just GW, it's the entire machine. It happens even when nothing is open.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ouwebak

Try replacing the cable from hard-disk to main board.
(My other pc appeared to freeze for no apparant reason. When it happened during a Lan-Party, someone suggested to replace the cable, which fixed the freezing problem)

Since restarting it, the problem has returned. I'll try this tomorrow if I can find a place that has the cable (BestBuy?)

Quaker · Jul 06, 2011, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Actually, before replacing any cables, open the machine up and make sure all the cables are properly connected. Unplugging and re-plugging can help to fix any loose or dirty connections.

Draca · Jul 06, 2011, 02:19 PM // 14:19

Hmm Ouwebak just gave me an idea. It might be that your main drive is taking to long to respond to windows. Which in turn would make the entire system hang for a second or more. If you have a other drive try installing windows on it and run that as a main drive and see if the problem is still here.

More expensive is to try and run spinrite on the drive from grc.com.