Hope some of you tech guru's can give me some advice.

Built/updated my rig recently - i5 2500k, xigmatek cooler, 8gb of Corsair 1600 CL9 DDR3 ram, Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H motherboard, 128 gb M4 SSD, and a 1 GB radeon 6850, running Win7 64 bit. Kept my Sonata III case and power supply (500 W) and audigy zs2 sound card.

The issue I'm having is that after (usually) 3.5 - 4 hours of active use, the system slows down to an extremely slow crawl, requiring a hard reset. This does not happen if I keep the system on (withou using it) overnight. After a reset, bios does not show high temps (neither does speedfan prior to the freeze). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Kout

PSU is probably overheating. That's just my guess based on your specs.

Did you update your BIOS, chipset (motherboard), and device drivers to the latest versions?

Did you make any changes to Virtual Memory settings? Is the SSD the only drive in the machine?

Did you set AHCI mode in BIOS for the SSD drive?

BIOS and chipset should be up to date. Audigy is discontinued but installed the latest available drivers. Catalyst 12.1 drivers for the Radeon.
There's also a 500gb and a 1 tb hard drive.

SSD is in AHCI mode.

B4T may be on to something with the PSU (although it ran a core 2 duo and 8800 gts 320 without issues).

To clarify: the system doesn't bsod, just goes into extreme slow motion.

Thermal or Power Throttling?

Does that result in mouse movements being performed with a 20 sec delay? I'll check the cpu cooler and perhaps replace the psu.

Is the video slowing or the USB peripherals?

Can you detect fan speed changes when it slows down?

Does it slow down if the case cover is off? If not, then it may be overheating someplace.

When it goes into slow mode, and if the cover is off, check the fans with a flashlight - PSU and vid card fans, too. And the fan over the chipset if there is one.


If it is the USB peripherals and they are plugged into a USB hub then it could be the hub.

WC

I had a similar issue a few years ago and it turned out to be the PSU overheating. I went through everything I could do to fix it and it turns out the PSU had two fans, one to suck and one to blow out the back of the case. The one that was to blow out the case had gone on permanent vacation as it was one of those ultra cheap 80mm fans. I guess the suck fan would pull in all that hot air and then it would kind of swirl around inside the PSU too long causing it to cook. I guess when it would get too hot, it would drop the voltage enough to cause all kinds of weird things. Replaced it with a better quality 80mm fan and that was the end of my problems.

Just saying it could be your problem. An overloaded PSU will do the same thing.

Could be poor airflow too. Take the side cover off the case and direct a box fan at the opening and see how long it runs. If it is OK then, you have poor airflow causing something to get too hot.

Thanks guys.

General overheating was my first thought as well but the case is quite well ventilated and t temp readigs pretty much don't go over 37 - 40 C max. Power supply is quit hol by now and may need replacing (I recall getting some off-base voltage readings on y previous build).

Any suggestions for a brand?

One of the few places that grinds power supplies into the ground is at this place...

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Review_Cat&recatnum=13