CPU/Mobo System hang problem !!! Help needed !!

Shakensoul

Shakensoul

Skilled
:sos: :help:

Everything was going on peacefully till a few days ago.

Haven't installed any new hardware, except RAM and a harddrive last month, after which system was running smoothly.

The system runs perfectly without any issues, like browsing the internet, opening applications, install/uninstall programs.

Problem starts when I open any movie, video file (DVD, avi, etc..) with any player, powerdvd, media player classic, vlc, etc.. The movie plays fine without any problem, I am able to play the complete movie, forward, rewind, open a different movie in the same window.

As soon as I close the window, after about 2-5 secs the complete PC hangs, freezes, the mouse pointer is stuck, numlock does not work. I have to do a cold reboot or a shutdown.

It does not seem to be a OS issue as the PC tottaly freezes. I have tried goddam all possible steps.

1. Restored Windows from a image.
2. Reseated/cleaned video card, ram, reset BIOS.
3. Ran 3DMark05 which passed.
4. Ran prime95 for about 15 mins without any issues.

Running out of ideas friends .............

:( :(
 
Couple of updates....

Firstly the hardware upgrade ran fine without any problem. I tried using only one stick in different slots, disconnected the second hard drive, still the same.

A couple of times, when there was no electricity and the PC was running on UPS, the monitor used to be turned off. When I turn on the monitor to shut down the PC, the UPS did not have enough backup so the complete PC would go off. When I restart the system, the display would go to the default 640*480 resolution, I check device manager, there would be a yellow bang besides the video card (6600GT) with error "the device cannot start (code10)". Sometimes restarting the PC would bring back the display, or sometimes I would have to uninstall/reinstall the driver.

Now I have just done a clean reinstall with no results, the system hangs immediately after closing powerdvd or media player classic. Interestingly, the system does not hang in the safe mode.

I have cleaned the video card heat sink, re-applied thermal paste, hmmmm

I was using drivers ver 93.71, reinstalled ver 81.98, did not help.

The video card/CPU/RAM is running at stock speeds.

I strongly believe its got something to do with the video card , how can i test the video card, any tools ? I have used the VideoCardStabilityTestSetup, results OK.
 
Memtest86 v1.65 passed.

The video card is a Gainward GS 128MB 6600GT PCI-Express, so no extra power connector required and motherboard has only one PCI-E slot.
:sos: :sos:
 
You say it hangs after playing video .... have you tried playing Mpeg 1 and Mpeg 2 , does it happen with the same.. try removing all codec packs and just installl ffdshow and try .
 
Well if you have tried different players than its definately not a software problem. If it works in safe mode but doesnt work in normal mode than maybe its a driver issue, but you have upgraded those as well..... most likely some hardware issue.
 
If you have an onbaord video display , try using that to check if the problem persists. If it doesnt , its your video card most prob
 
Tried with VLC player, still system freezes.

Something weird going on, randomly the monitor goes into kinda standby mode, the monitor light blinks on and off and after about 10 secs, comes back :huh:

I also strongly believe the GPU is the culprit, any software to stress test the card ?

BTW, the motherboard does not have onboard video.
 
why not install XP properly once - i mean NOT "Restore from image" but do a Fresh install with the new drivers. I guess its a much better option than crashing ur PC 20times a day. & in my view, installation of XP is itself a good testing for any hardware related issues.
 
Yeah try a fresh install of XP. If it hangs again, then try installing the video card in some other machine and test. I seriously think its cos of some crappy codec pack.
 
yup has to be a buggy codec pack....

i had a similar problem too but not with system hang... my explorer.exe used to crash when ever i played vids... so first thing i did was remove all codecs and put a new codec pack and evrythin was ok.
 
A clean reinstall is the first thing I tried before restoring.

Formatted the drive, installed Windows XP, installed drivers, nothing else installed, I tried playing a video with PowerDVD, system froze. Then I restored the drive again from an image, to save the time of installing all the applications again.
 
Ur not trying to help urself here brother.
do a clean system install again. install the Drivers & if till now there is no prob seen, just install VLC & see if it plays, or install the Xvid codec & try playing it in window media player. Pls do not install PowerDVD/winDVD as they install Proprietary MPEG2 codecs along with them.
Ur being a little restless here. Imaging is the worst install way IMHO so atleast for the experiment stick to a proper install procedure, WHQL drivers & do as said above.

One more thing - when all installed & still u see the prob, try with ur CD rom unplugged, both power & interface cable removed. Do it patiently
 
As I mentioned in my previous post, I did a complete format/reinstall windows, installed all the drivers, tried playing a movie with different players, NOT from the CDROM drive, but from the hard drive, system froze.
 
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