About 4-5 months ago I started building a new PC (see below for specs) and it has continuously been freezing on me - so that I can do nothing besides hit the reset button on the case. I have swapped each main part one at a time wasting these past months and most of them have been replaced with new ones. I obviously have another faulty part in my system (or bad drivers, although I don't have much choice due to the hardware being fairly new. This is a follow-on question to the previous one, so feel free to read through it for any extra bits of info. I'll go through everything I have now and why I think it may/may not be a problem.
MAINBOARD: XFX nVidia nForce n790i Ultra
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This has the latest P06 BIOS on it, and the latest system drivers installed in both OS's (dual boot XP & Vista x64). It was the first part that I took back for replacement. Faulty hardware or bad chipset drivers could cause these problems, but I'd rather be certain before going through taking everything apart again and sending it back.
CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9550 - 2.83GHz
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This was the most recent part that I replaced. Previously, with the old Q9550, I found that if I disabled 3 of the 4 cores in the BIOS, the freezes would occur significantly less often. Since the swap, and a complete reinstallation of Windows, this trick has made no impact. This type of freeze with no other symptoms could quite possibly mean a bad CPU, and when I got the new one back - I did notice something on it, but I decided not to try to hard to get it off due to the excessive contact I'd be making with the pins.
RAM: 4GB DDR3 Corsair 1333MHz
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This was the second part I replaced, but due to it coming from another store than all the other parts it took 3 times as long to be replaced (6 weeks is just completely rubbish). I demanded that if it was going to take that long to replace, that they should loan me some other RAM during that time - and got 1GB. Since Vista doesn't really like 1GB I used XP a lot during that time. It was even worse since on they same day that I put the 1GB of ram in, there was no difference and the PC kept freezing. With the 4GB back there's still no change - only that I had to remove 2GB of it when installing Vista x64 and again when installing SP1. The ram is in a 2x 2GB configuration - and has been used in various slots on the motherboard that make no difference. Have also tried using only 2GB for a length of time with no difference. Running memtest is also a waste of time - since it freezes after a few minutes on test #4 (not always on that test - that was just one time when I was paying attention).
GFX CARD: XFX nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2
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The old card occasionally heated up to 110 degrees celcius for no apparent reason - just when using office apps. I can't confirm, but I'm pretty sure this only happened if I resumed from hibernation in XP. Every other time I just boot normally since this is a fast PC. I pretty much always hibernated with older P4's and did a fresh boot every few days. I have tried different driver versions with no success. Freezes do commonly occur when playing new games, video editing, using Windows Dreamscene, etc - but at the same time they can occur when I'm doing next to nothing, just reading email and stuff. Since Vista uses Aero and Vista freezes much more often than XP - I tried disabling Aero - but it made no difference when using the Vista basic theme. Problems are just as bad whether or not I use SP1. Video RAM could be an issue, but I don't really know of a way to test that specifically. I've never really gotten any garbled stuff on the screen which would indicate a bad GFX card more strongly. I also know that it's not just the video freezing, as any sound playing at the time stutters/stops/repeats the last microsecond of whatever was playing. No changes with the new GFX card, no overheating (although I haven't been hibernating either).
HDD's: SEAGATE IDE 250GB, SATA-II 320GB, SATA-II 1TB
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I have had the first two HDDs in my previous computer with no glitches at all. I've had old bad HDDs before and know that they would make weird loud noises and Windows will display a baloon saying Delayed Write Fail. The 1 TB HDD is new, but I've used it extensively without fault. I've also ran Seagate's SeaTools Diagnostics on them all with everything passing successfully.
PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower 1200w
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This is the only part (besides the HDDs and the case) not to be replaced. I sent it back to warranty but no faults were found. I've used different points on it (since it's modular) and have had no success in stopping the PC from freezing.
Case: Antec 900
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The two intake fans are set to medium, the two exhaust fans are set to high. I also have a side fan forcing cool air into the video card. There's no overheating going on in there, that's for sure. There's plenty of room under the motherboard so nothing is short-circuiting.
OS's: XP Pro SP2 x86 & Vista Ultimate SP1 x64
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I have reinstalled both OS's quite a few times with no success. Freezes occur more often in Vista noticeably, although I'm not sure why. When the PC is running - it runs extremely fast and is great - it being shortlived is the main problem. Software worked fine on my old computer with the same OS's on them. The Memtest software (which is it's own bootable CD - completely separate from Windows) also freezing - removing software as a cause.
Other hardware
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All of these hardware items were used fine on my older PC.
Standard USB Keyboard and Intellimouse connected into PS2 slots via adapter (emergency use only)
MS Wireless Desktop KB & Mouse 8000.
Logitech G25 steering wheel
Logitech 3D Extreme joystick (rarely used)
NaturalPoint TrackIR*
Canon MP180 printer
Compro T750 PCI TV-Tuner card (have ran system without it - no dif)
XBOX 360 wired gamepad for Windows (rarely connected)
I think that's it.
*The TrackIR was purchased after this PC was built - but the PC was already freezing before I got it.
I have tried running the PC with as little as possible plugged in before - made no difference.
I'm really looking forward to fixing this ASAP for obvious reasons - I've built PCs before w/o problems and built this one for so I could make full use of it's performance, but I've left burnt for the last few months - using my work laptop as my primary PC during the time. I have a 32Gb USB drive with all my docs, music, software archive, portable apps/game, other stuff, and still 8GB free which has been keeping me going for a bit - but I have a number of projects that I've had to put on hold and I really want to resume them soon since I'm limited to what I can install on the work laptop (I'm an IT admin so those limits are a bit higher than nomal) :)
Thanks in advance.
