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I am having daily (or more frequent) freezes that require me to hard restart my PC each time. This is very annoying and I would love to receive some help or advice on finding and solving my issue.

PC specs:

  • Cpu: Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3470 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache
  • Motherboard: ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
  • Memory: 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
  • Graphics card 1: 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
  • Graphics card 2: 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
  • Graphics card config: crossfired using AMD catalyst software
  • Storage 1: 256 GB SSD crucial MX100
  • Storage 2: 3 TB Seagate external USB 3.0 HDD
  • Mouse: Razer Naga gaming mouse
  • Keyboard: Madcat v7 gaming keyboard
  • PSU : 550 or 650 watt (don't know details)
  • OS: Windows 7 Home premium

The OS is fresh installed yesterday, these crashes did occur before I reinstalled windows.

Please help

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7
  • Is this hardware new? Or how old Is it ?
    – xR34P3Rx
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 18:38
  • @xR34P3Rx Every thing is about 18 months old except the SSD which is brand new, the issues described as historic though. The SSD is not the original cause.
    – MAWood
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 18:59
  • One thing that may be a problem is a full hdd or to much stuff junked into one user account, also how many services do you have running? You may be running to many tasks at once
    – xR34P3Rx
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 19:04
  • Also, how often do you change or reinstall am os in your computer? You might be speeding up the process of "ware-and-tear".
    – xR34P3Rx
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 19:06
  • @xR34P3Rx I only have about 6 programs installed at the moment my storage is no where near max and the system runs very quickly, but randomly it will just freeze. Often when i'm playing a game
    – MAWood
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 19:29

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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One possibility is that Windows is running automatic maintenance (things like defragging or optimizing the hard disk).

I would suggest as a first step check the maintenance settings and set automatic maintenance to start at the same time every day or every week. In the meantime there may be a setting which tells it to run on the first available opportunity if it misses a scheduled run. In which case either change this setting if you can or just let it run for however many hours it takes.

FWIW I've had the same problem on Windows 8 but I think the steps are different on W7 and W8. I actually switched it off altogether and then I run defrag when I want.

Here is how to switch off automatic maintenance in Windows 8 -

1) Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Task Scheduler

2) In the pane on the left side sequentially expand these items - Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows

3) Then click on TaskScheduler

4) You will see a list of 4 tasks. You want to disable the first (Idle Maintenance) and the last (Regular Maintenance). For each one right click and select Properties

5) Click on the Triggers tab and then on the trigger itself

6) Click on edit and untick enable then OK and OK.

Note that your problem has nothing whatsoever do with having an SSD. However you should consider disabling defragging since it will shorten the SSD's life.

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  • The problem occurred before I installed the SSD, so this is unlikely to fix my problem.
    – MAWood
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 19:27
  • @Mattcow12 Note that your problem has nothing whatsoever do with having an SSD. I don't have an SSD and I had the problem and the solution I posted fixed it. However you should consider disabling defragging since it will shorten the SSD's life.
    – Brian Towers
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 19:52
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I had a similar problem on my computer, with a P8Z77 :

It freezed when I attempted a "big" data transfert (more than 1 GB) between disk.

The solution was to activate the hot-plug for all my sata port in the BIOS. Since then, no more freeze.

I hope it will help.

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  • I have made this change, and initial results are promising so thank you so much. This hopeful will solve my 18 month long issues. If my computer is still OK tomorrow I will tick your solution.
    – MAWood
    Commented Dec 28, 2014 at 22:31
  • Unfortunately the issue persists. :(
    – MAWood
    Commented Dec 30, 2014 at 21:21
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The problem sounds like 1 of 3 things -

  1. A hardware problem. This sounds to me to be more likely. If it were me I'd download a Linux bootable distro designed to check the components of the system (Like StressLinux) and individually test each subsystem, ie CPU, Memory, disk (probably not at issue here), network to see if they play OK together.

  2. I'd check to see if there is a BIOS upgrade for the motherboard and apply it in case there is a conflict related to IRQ's or similar which is fixed in a newer BIOS.

  3. I'd Look for new Windows drivers for each subsystem and apply them to see if it makes the system more stable.

I'd also keep an eye on the temperatures of the various parts of the system and see how high they are and how they corrollate to load. Also, if I had the resources (borrow ?) I'd see if a different PSU fixed the problem - a lot of problems can be attributed to a sub-standard power supply, and your description implies you may have overlooked its importance. Very often the output rating is not as relevant as how clean the output is - although the 2 can be loosely related)

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