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AR15.COM
7/26/2014 7:48:26 PM EDT
My PC stutters.  I've reinstalled windows, updated all the drivers, etc.  But still after no pattern of use, the video and sound will stutter from anything between a game and normal web browsing, after a massive delay of exiting all programs and walking away, the system seems to self-heal itself back to normal.  

Can someone recommend a diagnostic tool that will either stress test my hardware components to find the culprit, or what is the typical diagnostic tool more PC repair shops use? (and then charge you an arm and a leg for)  Thanks
7/26/2014 10:59:31 PM EDT
[#1]
To be honest most computer shops, beyond hard drive and memory testing tools don't usually use anything more than that. Every once in a while I may use a GPU or CPU/RAM benchmarking tool to stress a system but that's about it. The rest is tracking down the issues via Event Viewer or investigating BSOD reports. 80 percent of all software and hardware problems are fixed or repaired this way. The rest is just swapping parts to find the culprit.



Go into your Event Viewer and read through any events that happen about the time your incidents happen, then run the problems you find on Google. Most of the time this will get you figured out.



I have a similar issue on my home PC, when running a video such as a tv show or movie and downloading a file at the same time will sometime trigger the screens to go black and the sound to go wonky. The only fix is a forced reboot. Nothing shows in event viewer and no BSOD reports either. After some trial and error it seems that in a few situations there is a bug in some nvidia chip-sets that will cause this. So in my case the problem wont get fixed until the next computer rebuild. The only reason I run into more than most is I always have some sort of video playing and I am constantly downloading files.
7/27/2014 7:50:03 AM EDT
[#2]
How much memory installed?
7/28/2014 11:01:13 AM EDT
[#3]
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How much memory installed?
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8gigs over two sticks.  I can lower it to 4 and swap back and forth to see if it's one of the sticks gone bad.  

Also, tried the Event Viewer thing, nothing to report while it was actively crashing =/
9/3/2014 11:56:09 AM EDT
[#4]
Update; I moved my two sticks of RAM to the other two opened slots (I have 4 ram slots available on my mobo); this fixed the problem.
9/3/2014 7:56:48 PM EDT
[#5]
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Update; I moved my two sticks of RAM to the other two opened slots (I have 4 ram slots available on my mobo); this fixed the problem.
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Sweet!

Were you getting any POST beeps before your fix?
9/3/2014 9:47:08 PM EDT
[#6]
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Update; I moved my two sticks of RAM to the other two opened slots (I have 4 ram slots available on my mobo); this fixed the problem.
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Burn a memtest86+ CD and let it run overnight.
9/3/2014 9:49:13 PM EDT
[#7]
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Burn a memtest86+ CD and let it run overnight.
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Update; I moved my two sticks of RAM to the other two opened slots (I have 4 ram slots available on my mobo); this fixed the problem.


Burn a memtest86+ CD and let it run overnight.


This. Also power supply problems manifest in often confusing ways.