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So this has been happening for a while now, but recently it has been more frequent, not sure why.

Sometimes when I am playing games (Guild Wars 2 is the most recent example I've got) or watching videos (MKV 720p x264 on VLC Player) the computer sometimes freezes for a few seconds and makes this angry buzzing noise from the speakers, I suspect the noise is just a side effect of the freezing though..

The hardware:

  • Asus P7Z77-M
  • Intel Core i5-2500
  • 650W PSU
  • 8GB RAM
  • NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
  • 2TB HDD - Operating System (Win7 Pro)
  • 1TB HDD - Data
  • 500GB HDD - Data

I haven't been able to narrow down what is causing this problem. I currently have the bios setup to this "smart overclocking" which basically bumps it up on demand, I think.. I have a temperature monitor always running so I know it's not overheating..

I can't recall correctly, but I think that when the lock up occurs, there is a spike on the CPU usage, which might be caused by the system (I found this using Process Explorer).

All drivers are up to date.

EDIT

I Forgot to mention that I'm also using a 64GB SSD in a RAID 0, to work as a cache drive for the 2TB drive (Intel Rapid Storage Technology)

EDIT 2 Also, another problem that I have encountered is that the computer completely freezes, at any given time, seemingly randomly. I have my computer on basically 24/7, and I've seen it freeze a few times completely without return, where the only solution is to reset. When this happens, if there is sound playing, it simply stops. I've noted that it has frozen even when no one is using. I don't think it's sleep-related problem because this has happened even when I am actively using the computer.

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2 Answers 2

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Possibilities:

Video card overheating CPU overheating bad sectors on hard drive (chkdsk /r c: )(do all your hdd one at a time) bad memory or memory overheat

In terms of memory if you had bad memory at 3gb you almost never use that address so your system would normally be fine. Games use a lot of memory and would use a bad address that far out.

memtestx86 to test your memory. If the test run for more than 10 minutes without error your memory is probably fine.

Do you have a system monitor that graphs? Go to ASUS and see if you can find a PROBE or AI Suite for your mobo.

First graph the temperature. Then graph the voltages. No matter what the load is the voltages should never drop below 5% of the expected voltage.

Depending on how much overclocking is going on you may have to increase the voltage to your memory, by .1 volts.

How long does the spike in CPU usage last approx (in seconds)?

Try to provoke the problem. Try Super PI or Hyper PI for awhile. This software will only stress your CPU to see if the problem is your CPU.

FurMark will stress your video card.

Report your test results.

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  • I ran Hyper Pi on 32M for 10 minutes, I had my music playing during it as well to check if it'd interfere with the audio like I previously described, but nothing interesting happened besides some lag.
    – darkpallys
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 4:40
  • I am using Process Explorer to graph the system information.. CPU, Memory, I/O, GPU, Disk, Network
    – darkpallys
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 4:44
  • A freeze just happened, it was very brief, but it did interfere with the audio (in fact, another one just happened as I typed this). I am currently listening to music (another freeze), installing the Asus AI Suite II (another freeze). And running chkdsk on my 1TB drive.
    – darkpallys
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 4:53
  • The installation has finished, and I've had no more freezes.. could this be HDD related?
    – darkpallys
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 5:02
  • The length of the spikes vary quite a bit, anywhere between a split of a second to about 3 seconds or so.. I've had the longer ones when gaming
    – darkpallys
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 5:06
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I was experiencing audio playback freeze with buzzing. After a brief internet search I tried the workaround given below. This seems to have fixed the problem, or at least removed the symptom.

  1. Run msconfig.

  2. Click the Services tab and then click the Service column heading to sort by service name.

  3. In the Services list, find Intel Matrix Storage Event Monitor, and then clear the check box so that this service doesn't start at startup.

  4. Restart and test your playback.

I don't know what the root issue is, but at least I can listen to my music while I research further.

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  • This is really a comment and not an answer to the original question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 15:48

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