HTPC freezing?? (1 Viewer)

[goughy]

Hey guys,

I've had this issue for a while now and have pretty lazy with sorting it out. But it's really bugging me now. My htpc freezes often, sometimes once a week, sometimes a few times within a couple of hours. It seems to be random and I have no idea what could be causing it and how to find that out. It's completely locked and only the reset button or long hold on power button will work. I can't seem to get any logs as no errors seem to be being reported before the freeze, and obviously nothing is being recorded because of the freeze. If I'm watching a movie or something when it happens the sound also just blurts out, the sound that was playing when it froze. But it also happens when not doing anything as such, and also when mp isn't open, although I'm assuming the tv server is still running in the background.

I've uninstalled mp for the time being and am going to see if it still happens, granted they can be as much as a week between. I'll go stir crazy without mp running. More annoying is that I was running windows 8 pro, and just updated to 8.1pro. I thought wmc was spose to be included in pro but it seems not only do I have to download it, but pay 10 bucks for it! Whats the go with that?

So really, I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on what I can do to suss out what is causing this problem? I'm a bit of a gumby and just fluke my way through things, but this has me at a loss.
Thanks guys!

 

[kjarrig]

Have you tried to run MP in debug-mode? Without any plugins? I've run into similar things and after disable one plugin after another, I've found out the problem.

 

[breese]

Without logs it is very hard to help. I can suggest a few things prior to you reinstalling MP (you did not even mention what version)
Do you have anything listed in the Windows Event Viewer for Application or System? Maybe there is a hardware issue.
Do you have a virus scanner and is it scheduled to run about the same times you are having these issues?
Is it possible you have drive space issue, MP or something else causing the boot drive to run out of space but the reboot clears it out?
Just a few ideas....

 

[Vasilich]

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/16_Support/3_Forums/2_Log_Files

 

[goughy]

Have you tried to run MP in debug-mode? Without any plugins? I've run into similar things and after disable one plugin after another, I've found out the problem.

Yeah, I've tried it in debug, and just as a bare bones setup. Got nothing. The problem is that when it freezes it's completely frozen, so no record of what is happening is recorded. I've got watchdog enabled, and when I've had issues with my tv series db it picks that up. But the freeze is everything, no mouse, no activity at all. Can't ctl alt del, nothing, and it will stay that way for days. Only long press of power or reset button gets it going.[DOUBLEPOST=1382651204][/DOUBLEPOST]

Without logs it is very hard to help. I can suggest a few things prior to you reinstalling MP (you did not even mention what version)
Do you have anything listed in the Windows Event Viewer for Application or System? Maybe there is a hardware issue.
Do you have a virus scanner and is it scheduled to run about the same times you are having these issues?
Is it possible you have drive space issue, MP or something else causing the boot drive to run out of space but the reboot clears it out?
Just a few ideas....

Windows is recording nothing when it happens. I guess it's a complete freeze so it doesn't have time to record anything. I only use avg free, and have tried it with it uninstalled and it still happened. Same with windows firewall. My main os drive has been anywhere from 50% to 90% empty and still happened. My data drive is 50% empty.
Someone suggested to me that a complete freeze like that, with no mouse activity at all (it was happening when mp gui was not running too) could be a video card. Mine has onboard video so I've install an old ati hd4350 (I think that's it) video card and have the onboard disabled (not appearing in device manager any more). A few days with no freezes so far, granted they could be up to a week between.
The only thing bugging me is I seem to have lost many of my settings in catalyst control center! So I can't access overscan settings to get the image on my lg tv right. It's just slightly to small and not to the edges of the screen. I'm sure they used to be there with this video card in my old system, as I always had to adjust that.
When I right click on the screen and go to screen resolution the settings there tell me that it's an LG TV running a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (whatever it is) at 60hz. But when I go into device manager it says my monitor is a generic pnp monitor. So I don't know if that's affecting what settings are available in ccc. But I've lost all the settings in ccc like 'my flat panel display' etc and can't adjust it. In fact, in ccc the only settings I have available are Pinned, Presets, Performance and Power.

I've tried updating my driver, and I've installed ccc a few times and it doesn't seem to do anything more. Any clues here guys?

 

[kjarrig]

I would then think it would be hardware problem, motherboard or something like that. If you have problems with clean Windows install, my bet would be hardware.

 

[goughy]

Yeah, that's what my mate said. I've had a couple of clean installs, including win 7, win 8, and now back to 7. Issues still happened. A mate said that a freeze but mouse still moving is generally hdd. A freeze with a blue screen and shutdown/reboot is ram, and a freeze like mine, where nothing works is video card. That's why I'm trying the old one out. If it works then good. If not......

Edit to add - with regards to my scaling issues, I found an old version of ccc 11.5 (when installed it said vision control center) and that solved the problem. I'm guessing it will update itself as things go along.

 

[Vasilich]

Post logs, because windows usually writes the reason of last problem to system event log

 

[goughy]

OK, well I'd already reinstalled everything from scratch, but I had my old os drive that also had all the issues, sitting in my htpc but not connected. So I've disconnected the other drives, reconnected it. If I go into windows event viewer (through adminstrative tools) I can see all the stuff. But I don't know what I'm looking for. Or is there a way to post the whole log here?
I've installed who crashed, and it says crash dumps are enabled, but that there are no crash logs.

 

[breese]

Windows 7 and 8 have Memory and other diag's built in. You can also check the motherboard MF for other diag utilities.
It is really sounding like a memory or hard drive issue. if you have replaced the HD, run the mem tests