GA-890GPA-UD3H (Rev 1.0): Freezing with looping sound

[CrockD]

Hello,

First time posting on these forums so I apologize if this is not phrased properly.

Specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 955
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H -  Rev 1.0
8GB Corsair 1600 DDR3
Antec Nine Hundred II
Zalman CNPS10X Performa
WD Velociraptor 10,000 RPM 300 GB
Diamond Radeon 5870 1GB
Thermaltake Tough Power 1200W
Samsung 23" Widescreen
Windows 7 - 64bit

I built this system (with help) in April 2010 and have basically had problems from the beginning.  Overall the system is stable however when I game, often after an hour or two has gone by the game will hang with looping sound for 5-15 minutes and then start running again.  While this is happening other programs (like Teamspeak) continue to work and I can sometimes Alt-Tab out, however programs such as Firefox and Steam will remain frozen until the game unfreezes itself.  The games it happens on include: Left4Dead2, CS:S, Borderlands, Starcraft 2, Civilization V.  It never happens on Bad Company 2 for some reason. The machine will also sometimes lock up by just surfing the net and also occasionally lock up at the "Starting Windows" splash screen.  

CPU and GPU temperatures are both well within safe limits when the problem occurs.  I run the RAM at 1333 (and set it back to 1066 to see if that helped, which it did not) and have run memtest86+ for about 3 passes and found no problems.  I thought it might be the hard drive, however I have performed Western Digital's extended diagnostic scans and found no problems.  I have formatted the machine and reinstalled everything and I have flashed the BIOS at one point to no avail. At this point I am beginning to lose my mind trying to figure out just what the problem could be.

I have heard that the on board audio can be problematic so tonight I am going to test it with the most recent audio driver and then if that doesn't work with the on board audio turned off.  I also have yet to swap out my RAM to see if that is the problem, however the programs that don't fail when it freezes tend to be the ones that work entirely off of RAM (like teamspeak) so I'm not expecting that to work.

I came here because I began to wonder if it's a MB problem.  If anyone has any help or advice I would be extremely appreciative, this machine was supposed to be my big upgrade to a proper gaming rig and for the last 8 months it has been mostly a disappointment.

Thanks in advance,
Crock

[absic]

Hi there,

A couple of things spring to mind.
Is your Northbridge overheating during your gaming sessions? Adding a fan for the Northbridge might help if it is overheating. Also it might be worthwhile removing the Northbridge heatsink and replacing the thermal grease as this can sometimes help.

Although your RAM seems to have passed Memtest, the symptoms you are describing are those I would expect to see if the memory was faulty. Also worth bearing in mind is that Memtest is not infallible and there have been several instances recently where RAM has passed Memtest only to be proved to me the cause of the problem all along.

You say you have 8Gig of RAM is this 2X4Gig sticks or 4X2Gig sticks? Try removing half your RAM and see if you still have the problem. If you do swap the sticks over and see if the problem still happens.

[CrockD]

Is your Northbridge overheating during your gaming sessions? Adding a fan for the Northbridge might help if it is overheating. Also it might be worthwhile removing the Northbridge heatsink and replacing the thermal grease as this can sometimes help.

A friend of mine I had look at it said something similar and did in fact change the fan configuration, but I will take another look.

You say you have 8Gig of RAM is this 2X4Gig sticks or 4X2Gig sticks? Try removing half your RAM and see if you still have the problem. If you do swap the sticks over and see if the problem still happens.

I have 4x2Gig sticks.  That's a good suggestion and actually what I was planning to do tonight.  I will let you know the results.  Thanks for the feedback.