John Photography wrote:
OMG reading Model Sarah's problem with her hard drive and others on here and out of the blue my lovely PS/2 mouse has started to play up.

The PC keeps freezing at random and I suspect that it is actually the mouse port as it's a USB mouse but uses the ps/2 port on the motherboard..... Also the keyboard which uses the other port also locks up while the computer continues to run normally.......

Can these ports go bad?

The only reason I went back to using these ports is that they are dedicated ports and not polled by the OS..... When you use the USB ports for mice and keyboard part of the CPU time is used to poll the ports for inputs taking away a fraction of the time for other tasks... Yes it is miniscule but that was the reason I did that.

So yeah can these ports go bad?

i don't know. poll them. just use usb. sheesh.

GK photo wrote:

i don't know. poll them. just use usb. sheesh.

I can't............

The USB ports also now freezing at random as the BIOS when I go into it.


Here's the deal though when it is frozen everything in the background is running normally and programs left running are doing what they are supposed to be doing..

So I'm at a loss..... I am stressed as I have shoots on the weekend and during the week.  No computer to edit on and the laptop I am using is way slow 1.8ghz Celeron........

Maybe it's the whole motherboard gone bye bye

BlueMoonPics wrote:
Dumb question but did you reboot it from a complete shut down?

No such thing as a dumb question.

Yes I always shut down in the normal fashion. I have my power button set up as the shutdown button....... so that aspect of things was working. It shut down in the normal fashion for how I had set things up...

John Photography wrote:
Maybe it's the whole motherboard gone bye bye

Check your RAM ?
Much more likely than total MB failure

Brooklyn Bridge Images wrote:

Check your RAM ?
Much more likely than total MB failure

Yeah this is going to be costly isn't it?

I was thinking PSU since that's about 3 to 4 years old and has had heavy use.

John Photography wrote:
OMG reading Model Sarah's problem with her hard drive and others on here and out of the blue my lovely PS/2 mouse has started to play up.

The PC keeps freezing at random and I suspect that it is actually the mouse port as it's a USB mouse but uses the ps/2 port on the motherboard..... Also the keyboard which uses the other port also locks up while the computer continues to run normally.......

Can these ports go bad?

The only reason I went back to using these ports is that they are dedicated ports and not polled by the OS..... When you use the USB ports for mice and keyboard part of the CPU time is used to poll the ports for inputs taking away a fraction of the time for other tasks... Yes it is miniscule but that was the reason I did that.

So yeah can these ports go bad?

Yes, those ports can go bad like anything else but when they do they simply stop working, they do not freeze the whole system.

What you describe suggests either a driver or hardware malfunction. I would boot in safe mode and check the event viewer. If it is a driver issue it will be reported there. If it is a hardware malfunction you will not see any events reporting it. Memory errors usually result in the system crashing and rebooting, not freezing. Motherboard errors tend to be the cause of random freeze events like the one you describe. If you are not comfortable with troubleshooting these things I would recommend taking your system to a geek squad service.

John Photography wrote:

I can't............

The USB ports also now freezing at random as the BIOS when I go into it.


Here's the deal though when it is frozen everything in the background is running normally and programs left running are doing what they are supposed to be doing..

So I'm at a loss..... I am stressed as I have shoots on the weekend and during the week.  No computer to edit on and the laptop I am using is way slow 1.8ghz Celeron........

Maybe it's the whole motherboard gone bye bye

What do you mean with "when it's frozen"? mouse and keyboard stop working? If that is the case then you might indeed have faulty PS/2 ports. Try working with USB mouse and keyboard.

Also, what do you mean when you say the USB ports freeze at random when you get into the BIOS? How do you know? How do you test that?

4 R D wrote:

What do you mean with "when it's frozen"? mouse and keyboard stop working? If that is the case then you might indeed have faulty PS/2 ports. Try working with USB mouse and keyboard.

Also, what do you mean when you say the USB ports freeze at random when you get into the BIOS? How do you know? How do you test that?

Because I pulled the drives and plugged in the keyboard and mouse to the usb ports and booted into bios just to make sure it wasn't the hard drives. The bios even froze up... My drives are on removable racks..

Still haven't solved the issue.

Michael Bots wrote:
Boot from a Linux disk (or USB stick) and go online -- see how it behaves without the Windows install running.

Why would a different OS matter?

Michael Bots wrote:
Different chip -->

The audio controller (ALC892) specs make no mention of USB ports being included.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/prod … ProdID=284

AMD 970 has the USB ports (up to 14)
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/chipsets/9-series


Is the BIOS flashed to the latest version?

Yes the BIOS has been flashed to the latest version and verified I did that 3 months ago.

I'm still waiting for the replacement board.

I was playing a game last night and the audio cut out and then the mouse started freezing...  Strange

Al Lock Photography wrote:
Freeze in the bios pretty much guarantees it is a hardware issue. If memory is good, all that is left is motherboard or the CPU.

Yay more $$$$ down the toilet

New motherboard has been ordered but if it's the CPU I shall cry...... Is there a way to test that?

John Photography wrote:

Yay more $$$$ down the toilet

New motherboard has been ordered but if it's the CPU I shall cry...... Is there a way to test that?

Only if you have a spare to swap out ...

Al Lock Photography wrote:

Only if you have a spare to swap out ...

No I mean is there a utility to test a CPU?

Locutus wrote:
disconnect your hard drives and cd/dvd/blueray drives.
go into bios and do some things spend some time in there.
does it still freeze?

It did once ....... Tried to duplicate it and then it behaved....

Memtest was run for 4 hours and nothing happened, everything passed that.

However I did do what you suggested and it did freeze up once.... But I wasn't able to duplicate it..

I am hoping if it is hardware this doesn't turn into something expensive.

John Photography wrote:
It did once ....... Tried to duplicate it and then it behaved....

Memtest was run for 4 hours and nothing happened, everything passed that.

However I did do what you suggested and it did freeze up once.... But I wasn't able to duplicate it..

I am hoping if it is hardware this doesn't turn into something expensive.

I read one of your replies said yur sound repeats when it locks up in windows?
THIS may be a sign of a power supply problem or a driver error for your sound card....
BUT the locking up while in bios, ... cannot be a driver error so,
IF your comp doesn't freeze up with all drives UNplugged, one of the drives may be the cause of the problem.
Try plugging in ONE drive only, go into bios, see if it freezes,
Do this for every drive, ONE at a time, ONLY one plugged in while going into the bios.
See if you can find one drive, that causes it to lock up while in bios.
IF you do, unplug that drive, plug in all other drives, and boot into windows, do some gaming. see if problem remains or is gone?

BUT if it doesn't lock up, after trying all drives individually, you may have a bad power supply.

Locutus wrote:

ok if it doesn't freeze up with the drives plugged in, one of the crives may be the problem.
Try plugging in ONE drive only, go into bios, see if it freezes,
Do this for every drive, ONE at a time, ONLY one plugged in while going into the bios.
See if you can find one drive, that causes it to lock up while in bios.
IF you do, unplug that drive, plug in all other drives, and boot into windows, do some gaming. see if problem remains or is gone?

But they're optical drives they do nothing but lie dormant when I am gaming.. Why would their presence be an issue?

Locutus wrote:
the drives are accessed every so often to refresh a cache your operating system sets.(possibly, i am guessing, as, i am not there to try this all, myself for ya.)
Also gaming is done in your operating system. not in the bios, right?
When you say in bios it locks up, were you in the mainboard's bios?

Yes the one time it did happen was inside the mainboard BIOS ... It froze up while moving around all the different menus in the mainboard BIOS however it did it once. I wasn't able to duplicate it.

New power supply has been ordered, also a new mainboard just to be safe.