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My family's computer is freezing every time it is used, ever since I changed the CMOS battery. I've tried many things in vain, and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm looking for theories and a fresh outsider view at the problem, since, at this point, I'm really curious about what the cause of this problem is.

Symptoms of the freeze:

  • Desktop or applications are still visible on-screen.
  • No visual artifact or pattern.
  • Stuttering/noisy sound coming from loudspeakers.
  • Not interactive: nothing responds until I hard reset the PC.
  • All devices lose power: mouse and keyboard cannot be used to interact with the computer. USB drives and other devices lose power too.
  • Internal hard drive seems to shut off: no more activity until reset.
  • Occurs within 5 minutes of playing a Youtube video.
  • Occurs within 30mn of idle browsing.
  • Occurs within 30mn-1h of desktop interaction (browsing and moving files, etc...)
  • Occurs systematically on Windows 7 (using "latest" Nvidia drivers).
  • Does not seem to occur in Windows Safe Mode!
  • Leaves no trace (info, warning or error) in Windows Event Watcher.
  • Occured at least once on Ubuntu 14.10 (using Nouveau drivers).

My investigation so far:

  • CMOS configuration: My main suspect. It's the only thing that changed: it was reset to defaults when I changed the battery, and I didn't write the older config down. The PC is 6 years old, so no warranty, and the company that assembled it went bankrupt years ago. So I don't know how to recover the old configuration...
  • Overclocking: I didn't overclock myself, but the GPU is known to be overclocking-friendly, and it is possible that the assembling company did overclock it, although MSI Afterburner said the clock frenquency was within the normal bounds.
  • Overheat: Checked with Open Hardware Monitor, MSI Afterburner and MSI Dual Core Center. All temperatures (CPUs, GPU, motherboard, casing) are never more than 40°C, even when stressed out.
  • Voltage: Checked with Open Hardware Monitor, MSI Afterburner and MSI Dual Core Center. Seems within the bounds defined by the CPU and GPU vendors. I didn't notice any drop before the freeze, but it could just mean that the drop was too quick to be measured.
  • Dust: While changing the CMOS battery, I realized there was a lot of dust in the casing. I removed all that using a compressed air can.
  • Drivers: Reinstalled different versions of NVidia drivers for my card (latest available and older ones). No effect. The freeze also occured on Ubuntu, using the latest Nouveau drivers. I'm thinking the problem is not driver-related.
  • Blown-up capacitors: I checked for dead capacitors using this answer. They all look clean, both on the Video card and on the motherboard.
  • ESD: I was aware of the risk, and despite not having an armband around, I did my best to prevent damaging anything (grounding myself, periodically discharging, not touching components, etc). If an ESD happened, I did not feel it.
  • RAM: I ran 3 passes in a row of Memtest86+ v5.01, all were successful (no errors). Moreover, the computer did not freeze during the 1 hour and 30 minutes it took to run the 3 passes. System specs:

  • Motherboard: Asus P5QL-E, Intel chipset P43 (running BIOS v602, not the latest version)

  • Graphics: MSI N9600GT-T2D512-OC (v127) (bundles Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT), it's the red one on this page.
  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz, 3Mb Cache, FSB 1066Mhz (currently running on "Auto" voltage)
  • RAM: 2x1Gb DDR2 Kingston PC6400 800MHz
  • Power: Gigabyte Superb 460 400W ATX2.2 PFC Active
  • Casing: Gigabyte GZ-X1

Any help or advice or theory or method to figure out the source of the problem would be helpful! I will also edit this post if more information is needed from me. Thanks!

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  • Use a memory-check tool to be sure that the problem is not RAM related.
    – jcbermu
    Feb 5, 2015 at 12:50
  • A ESD event isn't something you are going to feel when dealing with electronics in most cases. The reason you feel something when you touch your car for instance is because the amount of static charge is high enough in order to do so, the charge required to damage electronics, is much lower, and you wouldn't notice it.
    – Ramhound
    Feb 5, 2015 at 14:30
  • @jcbermu I ran 3 passes of memtest86+, no error. No freeze either, in 90 minutes. Could this indicate the problem is not RAM or CPU-related?
    – Mangatome
    Feb 5, 2015 at 17:51
  • @Ramhound You're right, I just meant that I did what I could to mitigate the risk.
    – Mangatome
    Feb 5, 2015 at 17:52

1 Answer 1

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Since CMOS configuration changed, that is more likely the cause, as you state, than ESD; ESD would probably be more of an "all or nothing" issue, destroying a component, rather than failing only after some time. This is possibly a timing issue, such as incorrect clock-skew.

See the following for BIOS setup information:

  1. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/asus-p5ql-e_4.html#sect0
  2. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/archive/index.php?t-200109-p-9.html
  3. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/archive/index.php?t-200109-p-10.html

Is there someone with a similar PC who could list their current BIOS state?

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  • Thanks for the answer and the links, I will look into that and report back.
    – Mangatome
    Feb 5, 2015 at 18:00
  • After weeks of investigating this issue, browsing forums and trying to understand the funky world of overclocking - even trying to reach the former owners of the bankrupt company, I am giving up on this issue. I'm marking this answer as the correct one because it's as close as I got to solving this. Unfortunately, I got close but no cigar, and will just give up on the computer.
    – Mangatome
    Feb 24, 2015 at 21:04

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