New Build - Vista Freezeing?

Robertr

Ok, so I just finished my new build. Everything went perfect. Booted up first time and Vista install went fine. Updated all latest vista drivers.

However, every so often everything freezes up for about 20-30 seconds. Then keeps on working as if nothing has happened. No pattern to it except usually occurs when performing a task or two. The mouse still moves but thats it. Its not the programs that have stalled or anything as I cannot even bring up the task manager until the freeze ends.

I did a bit of research online and this seems to be an ongoing problem with Dell computers regarding the SATA connections. They have reported a fix by moving these around. I've tried this but no luck.

Anyone else experiencing the same or know what could be causing this? Its really starting to drive me mad.


Here is the Spec:

Zalman FC-ZE1 Fatal1ty Champion Computer Enclosure
Seasonic M12 700W
EVGA nForce 680i SLi PCI-Express Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX6700 2.66GHz (@3.2)
Zalman CNPS9700-NT nVidia Tritium
2GB OCZ (2 x 1GB) PC2-8500 1066MHz SLI-Ready Edition
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB
Point of View GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
Nvidia reference GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW
Creative X-Fi Music Edition
13-1 Floppy
Microsoft Optical Desktop Keyboard Fingerprint
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
Dell Ultrasharp 30" Widescreen

Thanks!

Anti

Reinstall the drivers for the mobo, and the graphics,sound card.

Robertr

It was happening before and after I updated to all the latest drivers?

DirkVoodoo

You've only JUST finished your build? Were you not looking at upgrading the motherboard recently??

Anyway, on topic: what tasks are you running when the freezing happens? are they CPU/GFX intensive? Any odd noises from the HDD, etc.?

Robertr

I was, its was from a 650. I went for the one I have now.

Nothing really running. Could be playing some music or copying a file or surfing. Anything really. No noises at all during the freeze.

dazftw

Reinstall vista maybe?

fairly nice pc btw lol... well jealous of the 30" I want one now lately..

8T8

Try not overclocking the CPU and see if the system is stable with no freezes after that.

DirkVoodoo

Duh! I didn't see that he had bumped it up to 3.2GHz. Yeah, more than likely you have an unstable overclock. what procedure did you follow?

Robertr

Nah, was doing it before overclocking it.

DirkVoodoo

Weird. Do you have a spare copy of XP lying around that you could boot up, just to check if you are the victim of some nasty Vista buggery (as in computer bugs!)

Robertr

Yeah, I could but am trying to avoid as I had just had it all setup with everything ready to go and was looking forward to a bit of DX10 gaming.

I'll try and flash the Bios tonight and mess around the SATA cables a bit more and see if anything works.

DirkVoodoo

Ha! Don't worry, early DX10 games and patches are pointing to minor graphical tweaks at large performance costs (no worry for you then). Better to have a working system for when DX10 takes off.

TonyM.

You probably need to update the BIOS to no.28 the early versions were very buggy assuming you have a rev 1 board.

also un-link the memory and set it to 1000MHz

PS you must have broadband no room for a modem in there.

8T8

If the problem isnt resolved after the bios update if you can verify it does not happen when using XP (if you have a spare old HD put it on it and install the OS, unplug current HD's) that will let you know whether it is a hardware or software problem.

P.s. there is a patch for Vista you need to install if you have an NVIDIA motherboard & 2GB of RAM as otherwise USB devices go a little nuts.

Robertr

Well, BIOS update did no good and I finally gave up and went back to good old XP. Nice to have everything running smooth again and an extra 1000 3Dmarks!

8T8

Well if the problem never occurred in XP then it must have been a driver conflict of some sort, moving to Windows forum.

srdb20

Hey OP,

I have that motherboard also and the exact same issue, ive since swapped it out with my ASUS P5W Deluxe and re installed Vista, no issues what so ever with my old motherboard.

Alot of the EVGA 680 SLI motherboards have this issue, just check out the forums on the website.

The MB seems to work fine with XP though.

There was a newer revision of this board also with added higher FSB speeds for Quad cores, and for some reason seemed to fix the issue with MB for most of the users.

EVGA have a great returns policy were they will send you a new board and you send back your old one, so your never without your MB.

I would seriously reccomend checking out the EVGA website you may find the answer there

Robertr

Well, turns out that the issue was between Vista and raptor drives. Apparently they do not get along. The fix is to disable the command queueing and all is fine again.