Total System Freeze (No BSoD)

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ralish

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Hello,

I'm trying to track down a problem with this Win XP x64 machine, namely,
after a few days of constant uptime the system completely freezes. This is
NOT a BSoD (I wish it was), rather, the system just entirely freezes up. The
display becomes static (showing exactly what was on the screen at the time
of the freeze), the mouse cursor is frozen, no amount of key pressing
(Ctrl+Alt+Del and others) gets any response. A hard reset is the only
solution. I'm trying to track down what is going on here.

I do not believe it is a hardware problem, as I've extensively stress-tested
the hardware while trying to troubleshoot this problem, and have not had a
single fault during testing. I've stressed the CPU for a 24hr burn with
StressPrime (completely maxes CPU Usage with number crunching), and
memtest86+ and Windows Memory Diagnostics, both each for 24hr periods, no
faults detected.

I've turned on Driver Verifier to try and yield some more useful
information, maybe even a BSoD instead of a freeze. I've turned all
verification options on for all non-MS drivers on the system. As such, the
following options are enabled:
***Special pool
***Pool tracking
***Force IRQL checking
***I/O verification
***Enhanced I/O verification
***Deadlock detection
***DMA checking

However, this hasn't appeared to fix anything, the system still freezes as
before, after being up for a number of days. I do have a question about
Driver Verifier though; when viewing statistics on currently enabled
options, I get a message: "The coverage for pool allocation verification is
only 52%. Adding more physical memory to this computer could improve your
coverage." Yet Task Manager lists about 900MB of phsyical memory free.
What's going on here? Is some memory reserved? Can I remove this
reservation? The system has 2GB of physical memory.

I'm fast running out of ideas here, any suggestions?

Finally, the system is running all the latest drivers for every component,
as per available from each OEM.

Thanks in advance.
 
Re: Total System Freeze (No BSoD)

This almost sounds like it 'could' be hardware related. If it isn't,
something must be keeping the system busy - network(?); unresponsive devices
(did you remove anything from the system prior to this happening?) - if
'Event Viewer' isn't reporting anything, I guess you'll have to set up some
kind of 'logging' that you can access after re-booting.

Also, you might tell us what kinds of software you are running and the type
of jobs the system is doing when this happens.


Tony. . .
 
Re: Total System Freeze (No BSoD)

Good ideas, but I think I've covered them in my troubleshooting to date.

On my last troubleshooting trial, I left the system running with just Winamp
constantly playing in the background, as well as mIRC running connected to
various chat servers; I almost always have these programs running in the
background. However, I also left the Task Manager running on the Performance
tab on top of these applications, and the Windows Date and Time Properties
applet, then waited for the system to eventually freeze. It did after
roughly 4days of uptime, and I got the exact time the system froze (from the
Date/Time Applet), and the CPU graphing history at the time of the crash
(all at normal idle levels, no sudden spike in usage), as well as plenty of
physical memory free (baffled!!!). Further, I examined the system event logs
for events at or near this time, and found absolutely nothing. There weren't
any events at all generated roughly around the time of the crash, the
closest events of any source were hours in the past.

I'm up to desparate measures now:

I've plugged in a PS/2 keyboard (alongside my USB keyboard) and enabled
manual triggering of BSoD's by user keystroke, as per documented here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q244139. I'm using a PS/2 keyboard as the
associated driver runs at a higher IRQL than the associated USB driver.
Thus, when it crashes again, I can try and trigger a bugcheck, and get a
full memory dump (extremely unlikely, but I'm running out of options).

Finally, I have a command prompt session running, polling the system uptime
every 10 seconds, so I know exactly how long the system has been up (within
+-10secs) at time of the freeze. I can always then compare this to future
freeze uptimes for any interesting hints.

If these troubleshooting steps I'm doing now fail, I don't know what else I
can try!!

(excluding ripping hair out of my scalp)

Thanks in advance!


"Tony Sperling" <tony.sperling@dbREMOVEmail.dk> wrote in message
news:%23aIJChubIHA.5164@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> This almost sounds like it 'could' be hardware related. If it isn't,
> something must be keeping the system busy - network(?); unresponsive
> devices (did you remove anything from the system prior to this
> happening?) - if 'Event Viewer' isn't reporting anything, I guess you'll
> have to set up some kind of 'logging' that you can access after
> re-booting.
>
> Also, you might tell us what kinds of software you are running and the
> type of jobs the system is doing when this happens.
>
>
> Tony. . .
>
 
Re: Total System Freeze (No BSoD)

Clean your system thoroughly and reseat your memory and external devices.
Heat build-up is the most likely cause.

"ralish" <ralish@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:elyfC3ubIHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Good ideas, but I think I've covered them in my troubleshooting to date.
>
> On my last troubleshooting trial, I left the system running with just
> Winamp constantly playing in the background, as well as mIRC running
> connected to various chat servers; I almost always have these programs
> running in the background. However, I also left the Task Manager running
> on the Performance tab on top of these applications, and the Windows Date
> and Time Properties applet, then waited for the system to eventually
> freeze. It did after roughly 4days of uptime, and I got the exact time the
> system froze (from the Date/Time Applet), and the CPU graphing history at
> the time of the crash (all at normal idle levels, no sudden spike in
> usage), as well as plenty of physical memory free (baffled!!!). Further, I
> examined the system event logs for events at or near this time, and found
> absolutely nothing. There weren't any events at all generated roughly
> around the time of the crash, the closest events of any source were hours
> in the past.
>
> I'm up to desparate measures now:
>
> I've plugged in a PS/2 keyboard (alongside my USB keyboard) and enabled
> manual triggering of BSoD's by user keystroke, as per documented here:
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q244139. I'm using a PS/2 keyboard as the
> associated driver runs at a higher IRQL than the associated USB driver.
> Thus, when it crashes again, I can try and trigger a bugcheck, and get a
> full memory dump (extremely unlikely, but I'm running out of options).
>
> Finally, I have a command prompt session running, polling the system
> uptime every 10 seconds, so I know exactly how long the system has been up
> (within +-10secs) at time of the freeze. I can always then compare this to
> future freeze uptimes for any interesting hints.
>
> If these troubleshooting steps I'm doing now fail, I don't know what else
> I can try!!
>
> (excluding ripping hair out of my scalp)
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
>
> "Tony Sperling" <tony.sperling@dbREMOVEmail.dk> wrote in message
> news:%23aIJChubIHA.5164@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> This almost sounds like it 'could' be hardware related. If it isn't,
>> something must be keeping the system busy - network(?); unresponsive
>> devices (did you remove anything from the system prior to this
>> happening?) - if 'Event Viewer' isn't reporting anything, I guess you'll
>> have to set up some kind of 'logging' that you can access after
>> re-booting.
>>
>> Also, you might tell us what kinds of software you are running and the
>> type of jobs the system is doing when this happens.
>>
>>
>> Tony. . .
>>
>
>
 
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