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So I'm using Windows 7 Professional (the 64-bit version) and have a generally relatively new computer (custom built last summer, cost about $3,600 so it isn't direcly made up of "junk" components either).

Every now and then this computer freezes completely for about 1 - 2 minutes. This happens repeatedly about every 10 - 15 minutes for a duration of time (usually 1 - 2 hours) and then it goes away completely. I initially thought this had something to do with a bug in Skype since it always coincided with relatively large group calls on there before, however today it happened without Skype even running so that can't be it. Using Open Hardware Monitor it became evident that my CPU's power usage increases almost tenfold when this freeze happens and as such drains more power than my PSU can provide (it seems to peak at 865.9W, whereas my PSU is good for 850W). So that is obviously the cause of the freeze, but what can cause such outrageous and sudden power usage? My guess would be some kind of malware, but Norton doesn't discover squat (which I suppose is to be expected, it probably only discovers viruses made by Norton itself... ahem

).

Has this happened to anybody else or do someone perchance have any suggestions on what might be causing it?

"Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?"

Because Oct(31) = Dec(25)

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Seditious

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Posted: 5th Feb 2014 21:06

You should be able to change your power economy settings to set a maximum cpu usage, for a short term solution at least.

You should examine which process is using all that cpu time. That will help you determine the cause.

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Indicium

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Posted: 5th Feb 2014 21:48

Quote: "865.9W"

I don't have anything to add except holy crap what's in there?!

\r\nThey see me coding, they hating. http://indi-indicium.blogspot.co.uk/

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nonZero

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Posted: 5th Feb 2014 22:33 Edited at: 5th Feb 2014 22:35

Before I begin, my knowledge is a little dated.
I've never heard of a CPU on a personal computer using that much wattage. Something is wrong. I agree you should monitor your processes to see executable using your CPU time as I suspect that may solve the freeze. That said, freezing due to CPU load is unusual since the advent of multi-threading. Another module could be at fault too. I once had a freezing issue caused by my board, for example. One thing I will say is lose Norton and use either AVG or MalwareBytes (if you really have patience, do a fresh installation of you OS and disable Windows security in favour of COMODO Defense & Firewall). Anyway those readings are abnormal as usually the graphics card is the reason for choosing a high-wattage PSU. But, again, my knowledge is a little outdated so maybe things changed in a few years. Still, ~800 watts for a CPU when my i5 runs in a laptop ... Something wrong there, I'm sure.
Btw, check your CPU temp too. Some, esp Intel, processors freeze on overheat as seen in the ubiquitous Tom's Hardware test.

"have to write here. As, we may not throw the fan. He's sure to blow your way. You can say to another. do not spit into the well from which you drink. do not spit into the wind." ~ greenpavel

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Posted: 5th Feb 2014 22:41

Quote: "That said, freezing due to CPU load is unusual since the advent of multi-threading. "

True, but not if the CPU load is causing it to overheat (which I'd think is very likely the case if it takes 1-2 minutes to unfreeze).

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Van B

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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 08:52

Maybe Windows is running scheduled defrags or malware scans, and if your PSU is failing, it might spike when SATA is drawing more power than it usually is. Like, I'm guessing that your PSU is modular, and it's so neat and easy to just have a single line going to 4 SATA drives - but that might not be the best layout for the PSU. Perhaps if you have space on the PSU, try using a different SATA power source and see if you have the same problem.

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Phaelax

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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 11:26

You need to find out what process is taking up the cpu. And what exactly are you using to monitor your wattage use? Because 865w simply isn't possible unless every single component is being maxed out and you have a HUGE graphics card. I can overclock my i7 to nearly 5GHz and still not draw anywhere near that much power. (nor can I fathom what you could possibly put in a pc that costs $3600)

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Rudolpho

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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 12:23

Quote: "You should examine which process is using all that cpu time. That will help you determine the cause."

How would I do this; since it completely freezes up I don't think anything can be logged when this is happening. Perhaps there would be a discernable increase / decrease in some log for the particular process just before / after the peak though..?

Quote: "I don't have anything to add except holy crap what's in there?!"

An i7-3930K (6 cores with hyperthreading => appears as 12 cores). I don't think I've ever had them all run at full capacity simultaneously but since it has a TDP of 130W I suppose it would lie around there if fully utilized.

Quote: "One thing I will say is lose Norton and use either AVG or MalwareBytes"

I would, but unfortunately Norton has the "feature" of being non-uninstallable... And running several AV programs at once tend to put up the invitation banner for conflicts.
It's pretty funny that the time when I got the least malware-related issues was when I simply didn't use any protection at all for a couple of years... Makes you think.

Quote: "Btw, check your CPU temp too."

Unfortunately I didn't save the log (and since this happens sporadically at anything from a week to ~2 months intervals it will be a while before I can check again), but I believe it was looking pretty normal at ~50°C maximum. Nothing that stood out while browsing through the values at least.
I do have this weird temperature reading of 123.5°C but it always says that and it is most likely the cause that there simply isn't any such sensor on my system. Also the fans do not seem to speed up during the freezes.

Quote: "Maybe Windows is running scheduled defrags"

I checked that too, but its scheduled time for doing that does not match the time when this happened.
I suppose I could take a look at how the PSU is connected to the other devices; if I recall correctly it has separate lines for my SSD, graphics card and dvd drive, however the two magnetic hard drives may be serially connected.

"Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?"

Because Oct(31) = Dec(25)

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Phaelax

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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 16:20

Quote: "How would I do this; since it completely freezes up"

Then how do you know it's the CPU that's spiking if you can't check task manager?

Quote: "I do have this weird temperature reading of 123.5°C but it always says that and it is most likely the cause that there simply isn't any such sensor on my system"

What are you using to monitor the temperature? Where does it say 123? If your cpu is indeed hitting that, then that's a problem. You can download CoreTemp and install the windows gadget to monitor your temps easily. When your pc freezes, you can look at the gadget/widget to see where the current temp was at. But I doubt a high cpu temp is the real issue, since any dangerous temperature would cause your system to shutdown automatically for safety.

Quote: "This happens repeatedly about every 10 - 15 minutes for a duration of time (usually 1 - 2 hours) and then it goes away completely"

When you say it goes away completely, for how long? A day? Something like this makes me think it's a software issue.

Have you looked in the event viewer? Maybe something will show up.

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Rudolpho

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Posted: 6th Feb 2014 22:57 Edited at: 6th Feb 2014 22:57

Quote: "And what exactly are you using to monitor your wattage use?"

Quote: "What are you using to monitor the temperature?"

As stated in the opening post I'm using Open Hardware Monitor.

Quote: "Then how do you know it's the CPU that's spiking if you can't check task manager?"

Open Hardware Monitor logs the current (updated once per second) and the maximum value of all monitored parameters. The maximum recorded CPU wattage after the freezing was 865.9 on the "Powers - CPU Cores" item. So I suppose the task manager could catch it too but your timing would have to be precise to spot it just as it happens.

Quote: "What are you using to monitor the temperature? Where does it say 123?"

Again Open Hardware Monitor. This isn't the problem as it always reports that for the same item ("Temperatures - Temperature #1"). With such a generic name the expected general purpose sensor most likely doesn't exist on my system. There are also Temperature #2 and #3 (which seems to have legit, changing values) and a "CPU Core" reading here (there are also individual temperature readings for all cores in another category).

Quote: "When you say it goes away completely, for how long? A day? Something like this makes me think it's a software issue."

About a week and up to 2 months+ (which I believe I wrote higher up as well...

)

Quote: "Have you looked in the event viewer? Maybe something will show up."

Good idea. Took a look and apparently I have lots of disk failures with an event id 11 on "\Device\Harddisk3\DR4". Not sure what this would mean especially but looking at the timestamps it seems to coincide with the unplugging of an USB stick. It has no obvious connection to the freezing problem, nor has any other logged events.

"Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?"

Because Oct(31) = Dec(25)

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Phaelax

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Posted: 7th Feb 2014 06:06

Quote: "As stated in the opening post I'm using Open Hardware Monitor"

Sorry, missed that part I guess.

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Posted: 7th Feb 2014 07:01

Have you tried my suggestion of limiting the maximum CPU usage? It's not a long-term solution but if the freezing stops happening the cause could be overheating.

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Rudolpho

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Posted: 7th Feb 2014 12:35

Quote: "Have you tried my suggestion of limiting the maximum CPU usage? It's not a long-term solution but if the freezing stops happening the cause could be overheating."

As said it doesn't happen very often but I'll try that next time it occurs.
If the reported power usage is correct I believe you can be pretty sure that overheating is the problem, the question is what causes it. Wouldn't for example a power virus be most likely to keep on running once it gets control of the CPU? Or if the process is terminated one would think it should have another monitor process restarting it in order to be very efficient. I suppose it can be a bug where some driver gets stuck in a bad loop or something, but it never ends with a "... has stopped responding" error either.

"Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?"

Because Oct(31) = Dec(25)

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Phaelax

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Posted: 7th Feb 2014 18:17

I've been running openhardwaremonitor for about a day now and I have to say I don't trust the numbers it's giving me. It's reporting numbers way outside optimal ranges. I got temps on the motherboard ranging from -8 degrees C to 125, and I highly doubt my cpu's vcore voltage went over 2v, it would've fried! It also says my fans are all running at 100%, which they're clearly not. Also, I don't see an setting anywhere that reports the power draw on my psu.

I normally run coreTemp, and it's values seem a lot more reasonable.

Quote: "(it seems to peak at 865.9W, whereas my PSU is good for 850W"

I found a reasonable answer for this. From another website: "A 70% efficient power supply in a computer that needs 100 watts of power to operate will actually draw 130 watts ". So 850w isn't what it's capable of drawing from the wall, but what it can deliver to your system, therefore it can draw more than 850w. Makes sense.

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Rudolpho

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Posted: 8th Feb 2014 00:53 Edited at: 8th Feb 2014 00:54

Perhaps you're right. Your motherboard temperature sure sounds just wrong, for me it seems to be giving generally reasonable readings though.

Quote: "It also says my fans are all running at 100%, which they're clearly not"

It seems it just expects a whole range of sensors to be present and if they're not you may get either weird (like random memory reads) values or default ones. Perhaps that is what's happening with your fans?

Quote: "Also, I don't see an setting anywhere that reports the power draw on my psu."

Computer -> Motherboard -> CPU -> Powers. It was the "CPU Cores" that spiked for me, I don't recall entirely but I do believe the "CPU Package" entry did oddly not.

Quote: "So 850w isn't what it's capable of drawing from the wall, but what it can deliver to your system, therefore it can draw more than 850w. Makes sense."

But that wasn't reported as what the PSU actually drained, but rather the consumption by my "CPU Cores" (which today reports 56.4W at maximum, during "relatively" heavy load).

You may very well be right in that the monitoring software is inaccurate (it may also be that the wattage sensor only yields correct readings in, say the interval 0 .. 150, and if you go beyond that you can get seriously exaggerated values, that would also make sense when I think about it), but it still seems likely that this is involved in whatever the cause for my issue is as it coincides in time.

"Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?"

Because Oct(31) = Dec(25)

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Indicium

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Posted: 8th Feb 2014 04:28

CPU cannot draw more than it's TDP, right?

They see me coding, they hating. http://indi-indicium.blogspot.co.uk/

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Rudolpho

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Posted: 8th Feb 2014 12:09

It basically means the cooling system can't handle it anymore.
But no, it isn't supposed to do that under "normal" (basically any) usage as I understand it.

"Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?"

Because Oct(31) = Dec(25)

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Phaelax

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Posted: 9th Feb 2014 22:49

Quote: "CPU cannot draw more than it's TDP, right?"

It can, but it'll probably kill it. But TDP doesn't actually mean power consumption.