Hi there everyone, I am new to these forums and I hope I can provide you with help whenever you may need it - today I am the one who needs help, though. Computer Configuration: ASUS Crosshair III Formula - latest BIOS. PhenomII X4 965 - 3.4GHz - NO OVERCLOCK 16GB RAM HyperX, 3HDDs(2xIDE, 1xSATA) 630W NOX SLI-Certified PSU, Radeon HD6950 2GB(Sapphire dual fan). Everything was working just fine until some week ago..when I started Pinnacle and my system froze(Windows 7 Ultimate X64). I thought it would be the software but I even formatted and it still doesn't work. I have both XP X64 and 7 X64 and both freeze randomly now. Sometimes, when I open files or documents and stuff...they don't open immediately and the HDDs sometimes make that "start-up sound - no strange sounds but the typical start-up sound of an HDD". RAM&GPU are new. I checked out every single connection and even replace the HDD cables(2 IDE drives and 1 SATA), but to no avail. I reset the BIOS settings - there was no OC applied on the system and everything worked fine until it started freezing up on me. I had the system overclocked for a while and it started giving BSODs so I just kept everything stock and it worked like a charm. I have a passively cooled 8600GT(does not require PCIEx cables) and used it to see if there was a problem with the video driver or the GPU - no luck. I disconnected most things and left only the basics connected - no luck either - the system still freezes. There are no overheating issues - I checked that. I ran memtest for various hours, HDD Regenerator on every single drive I have(took about 3,5 hours to complete but I did let it perform and finish to see if there's any problem with my HDDs), I ran processor stress tests for some hours - no error. Everything was done with a non-overclocked system. At first it was happening only when I fired up Pinnacle Studio 14/15...I formatted and installed the original driver the GPU came with - no success. I formatted again and installed the latest GPU driver downloaded from AMD & Sapphire(formatted before each driver installation)...the problem is still there. I've tried lowering my CPU clock from 3.4GHz(stock) to 3.0GHz - no luck. I have two computers (the second one is a PDual Core, 2GB DDR2,8600GT,1HDD...very basic) with two identical 630W NOX PSUs so I took the PSU from my Pentium PC and connected it to my AMD...the problem persists( I thought it could've been a PSU wear problem). Again, the temperatures are by no means high - I keep my PC case open(side panels removed), the fans are all clean, and heatsinks are all copper-based. I tried removing all but one DIMM(4GB DDR3 1600MHz / 1333MHz - tested with both freqs) - same problem. I disconnected some HDDs - that didn't solve the issue either. What is the next step that I can do to identify the component that isn't working in my PC? RAM & GPU are really new - a few months old and have never been overclocked. I disconnected USB devices from my PC. I received BSODs related to the following (I use BluescreenView) - although now I don't get BSODS - the computer just freezes. 22th of April: NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM 25th: SPECIAL_POOL_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION(C1) 26th: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION(3B) 27th: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL 30th: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP(7F) 3rd of May: APC_INDEX_MISMATCH 4th : DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL(D1)... Strangely enough - after seeing Pinnacle freezing my whole PC...I used Sony Vegas 11 and everything was fine. I have various video editing software on my PC and Pinnacle is the only one that causes this - I suspected the Pinnacle driver to be the culprit - but it used to work just fine some time ago with the exact same configuration.Now my PC freezes randomly - start Mozilla and it may freeze(or not, like now), fire up Chrome and same thing can happen....play a song and it may freeze while making an awful sound. After the computer freezes - if I reset it(via the reset button on the case) it may not send an image to my display. I would have to reset it again and again and again...and it still wouldn't show anything on my display. Then, if I take out the power cord from my power supply ..wait for the energy to leak(about 5 sec) and reconnect it back...everything works fine in terms of image output. NOW: I fired up Event Viewer in Win7 and: The following list is there(for the 5th of May - that's today): Error - Service Control Manager - The AODDriver4.01 service failed to start due to the following error: The system cannot find the path specified. The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load: cdrom I should say I have NO optical drives connected to my PC - I use an external DVD-RW (usb-based) Critical - Kernel Power The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly. Critical - Kernel EventTracing - Session "Microsoft-Windows-Setup" stopped due to the following Error - Audit events have been dropped by the transport. 0 error: 0xC000000D I am exhaustingly looking for a solution to this issue as I spent a lot of money on my computer and I really need it to work. If there are ANY suggestions you can think of, PLEASE feel free to give me a hand.
Hate to tell you this, but NOX isn't listed in nVidia's PDF of http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US/en_US/pdf/PSU.pdf]SLI-Certified PSU's[/url]. Unfortunately, some companies are pulling this stunt, and if they're doing that, what else are they lying about? I would suggest replacing that unit. Corsair and Antec come to mind. I think a similarly rated PSU from either company should do the trick. Other things to check: CPU temp. I'm a little rusty at this, but if you're getting in to ty 60-70*C range, you need to look at your cooling starting with the CPU cooler and making sure that it's properly seated. Also make sure you don't have major obstructions in airflow. MSConfig: type this into the run box and see what's starting up. Since Pinnacle seemed to be a culprit, make sure nothing is lurking in start up. It shouldn't be since you uninstalled it, but never hurts to check.
