Applications locking up
 

Hey all,

I'm having some trouble on my fairly new build, and I'm wondering if you can perhaps shed some light on what to check. This has happened when doing a variety of things. Sometimes just reading reddit in chrome, others I'm watching a movie in VLC, or in some cases playing a game. Usually the application I'm using will lock up. While I try to kill the task in task manager, it usually ends up in me restarting the computer. I'm wondering if it's potentially the SSD i have, or perhaps the ram?

Any suggestions on testing this out? I have a few 1gb sticks of ddr2 in my old computer i can swap out, but that's about it in terms of spare parts.

Thanks.

Specs:

MSI z77a-gs65 motherboard
Intel ivybridge i7 3770k unlocked, running at stock currently
Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240GB 2.5IN SATA3 SandForce SF-2281 SSD Solid State Disk Flash Drive
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB 4X4GB DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750M 750W ATX Modular Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan 5 Year Warranty
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Internal Hard Drive
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H100 Extreme Performance CPU Cooler System LGA1366 2011 1156 AM2 AM3
MSI Radeon HD 7970 925MHZ 3GB 5.5GHZ GDDR5 DVI HDMI 2XMINIDP PCI-E Video Card

Run a test on your RAM first sounds like your RAM maybe faulty.

Could you fill in your system specs so we know what you're working with. Also stating any overclocks and voltages could help. I'm assuming you tested everything at stock speeds.

Put specs in OP.

I ran memtest on each individual stick and then all of them together. All passes, no errors.

Does it do this if you just run with the Hard drives? If not then the SSD maybe bad.

Do you mean to run the computer or the test without RAM? I wasn't aware one could even do that really ;).

Run a test with out you SSD hooked up. If it still happens let us know.

If it boots off of the SSD and actually comes into Windows its highly unlikely that that the SSD is to blame. Check SMART to be on the safe side though. You're running the SSD and HDD in AHCI mode, right?

Unless it's setup by default, I definitely am not running AHCI mode. I know MSI's website has drivers for it. Should i set it up in the registry as such here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=313676, and get the drivers, or just let w7 handle it? Thanks, sorry for newbness in this area.

Make sure to install your chipset drivers before doing those instructions. Worse comes to worse if it doesn't work right you should be able to set the BIOS back to IDE without an issue. I always install Windows with AHCI or RAID enabled to begin with to be on the safe side so I can't speak from experience.

To give an update, this is still occuring. It stopped for like a week or two after i finished memtest. However in the last couple days it's been happening a lot. Last night after I cold booted, i started up HD Tune, letting it sit in the background. After a few minutes of using chrome a tab locked up on loading a page. Then i checked HD Tune and it did as well. Tried launching the task manager, but as usual I see the icon appear in the bottom right but not on the task bar. Before HD Tune locked up, it didn't seem to report any health issues. Is there a better tool I should use for testing an SSD?

After doing a reboot, I managed to install a CPU diagnostic tool from Intel's website. It reports no errors. I also dug through event viewer. The critical events and error events all seem to a result of me holding the power button and forcing a restart. Any ideas?