hard freeze problem

I'm no expert but it may be one of two things or both:

One: running 3 monitors at full resolution may be stretching it some with a GTX970

Two: your Z87 is a bottleneck to your i7 4970K and you may need to upgrade to a mobo with the faster Z97 chip.

I say this because I have the same CPU, 32gb of RAM and an ATI  Radeon HD 7990 on a Gigabyte Z87 board and believe the Z87 chip does not allow the best performance from the 4970K, and thus the RAM.   I just ordered an AsRock Z97 Extreme6, which I hope to get on Monday/Tuesday, and hopefully it will improve system performance all-round... not that I was experiencing freeze-ups or anything.

My issue was more that my AMD FX 8350 rig was booting faster and performing better than my Intel i7 4970K rig.  It should be the other way around, and basically what I'm reading is that the Z87 mobo is throttling what the 4970K is capable of.  Anyway, I shall find out soon and will get back to you with my findings/the result.

Are you overclocking that 970?  The symptoms sound like it could be the graphics card hard locking which if overclocked could be the issue and would explain the time it takes to happen.

What I can say is it will not be Deskscapes causing the problem as it couldn't cause your PC to lockup even if it tried unless there is a problem elsewhere in the hardware / drivers / OS.  It is probably just having three things in use using the GPU is just pushing something in your hardware over the edge. 

Well there's a thought that didn't occur to me. I was thinking completely along different lines with regard to the GPU

Thanks, Neil, for offering a more likely answer than mine... but then I did say I'm no expert when it comes to such things.

Nah I don't OC GPUs. I hadn't considered the chipset of the MB. I think I'll configure for a ctrl+scrl lck+scrl lck memory dump and capture tonight. It'll give me something fun to blog about at least.

Everyone watch their heads tonight!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/out-of-control-russian-spacecraft-will-fall-from-space-overnight-tonight/ar-BBjnaIf?ocid=iehp

 thanks for the heads up. I'm wearing my helmet to bed

As with almost ALL forum posts [on any site at all] relating to some issue or other...the immediate inference is that it is an actual issue with the forum's 'related' program/entity...in this case DeskScapes.

One assumes [hopefully] it is first checked with and without the assumed problem program...to see any difference....

But still, assuming everything is actually 'fine' without DeskScapes running does not in itself define DeskScapes as the 'culprit'...but ONLY that it becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back...nothing more.

The fault may actually be with any of the other running processes and/or simply the exceeding of a system's capacity to manage several/many processes.

All systems have their limits....and in every one of them there is going to be a 'weakest link' that is first to fail.

When my machines get upset I don't blame a specific...but simply rethink whether or not I'm just asking too much.

A lot of it is all about 'chicken and the egg'...like Netscape continually breaking Windowblinds' skinning of it.  The 'drama' is always 'FIX WB' not 'STOP Messing with Netscape"...;)

Well its interesting, to be stable, all I have to do is click "pause deskscapes" and then i can game on one monitor (typically LOTRO or Pillars of Eternity, so DirectX11) and watch a movie on another monitor just fine (and have an RDP session into work on a third monitor)

Its only when the animation is actively running that it seizes, and usually takes 15 minutes or so.

I'm actually a windows performance instructor at Microsoft (search for "Jeff Stokes Microsoft" to see my work if you want, happy to share stuff). So I get the death of a thousand cuts scenario. I don't think this is it honestly. I suspect a problem in win32k.sys threading. talking this out just now convinces me I need a full memory dump, let me just reproduce the issue and get one here...

Thanks everyone for talking it out with me! Nice folks here.

Jeff, though your GTX970 wasn't overclocked by you, is there a chance it is factory overclocked?  I ask because I have a GTX560 OC, as in overclocked, that phased out when running Deskscapes animations on one monitor while I worked on another....  and Neil Banfield is a Stardock developer who knows his stuff.

As Jafo suggested, Deskscapes was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was not the cause. It was more a case of overtaxing an overclocked GPU, but once I upgraded to a GTX770 with standard clock speedsettings the problem was resolved.  The GTX560 OC was reassigned to another machine with a faster chipset and has performed without issue, including running deskscapes on a second monitor.

Anyway, it's something to think about,

Huh hadn't thought of that, the OC from the vendor. I've tried to reproduce the hanging tonight, and been tracing for about 30 minutes just for giggles, no interruptions.

I am almost starting to wonder if you guys are onto something with GPU and heat and maybe it has been hanging during the day (when its warmer in my room) than in the night time...

Isn't there some nvidia monitor for heat? Time to hit the interwebs...

This is the GPU, http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b3066/evga-gtx-970-superclocked-acx-2-0.html

SO yeah it is overclocked. Hm. the plot thickens. One thing I did do is profile my game + VLC + deskscapes running a dream:

It doesn't appear that the GPU is overtaxed here, imo. we don't break 40% utilization with all 3 running. I couldn't profile GPU ram though..

I'm installing this, will see if heat is the ultimate issue. I thought I had freezing at night too, but I'm recovering from a nasty head concussion so my memory is suspect.

http://www.evga.com/precision/

Jeff...in my post #6 the point was/is....how responsive/stable is your system if you actually kept DeskScapes running but paused one of the OTHER functions instead....like a- stop the game...or b- the movie.

What's the bet the 'problem' goes away.  In other words the potentially 'buggy'/problematic thing running may just be the movie player...or the game....

It's one of those guaranteed uncertainties that we all grow to love with computers...;)

And remember what 'overclocking' actually is....it is the process of pushing a 'system' past what has been shown to be 'genuinely stable'.  Whether or not it is a factory setting means nothing at all [only that you might be able to sue for restitution from the factory with the former] when your house burns down...;)

If it's OC from the factory and not personal OC, I believe you should be ok. It's not something you would go and turn off. Actually, IMO, I would avoid trying to disable any OC on a factory OC'd card.

I would suggest going through a clean driver install. Nvidia gives you an option when installing a new driver/current driver to wipe all previous drivers. I would try that and see if it helps.

BTW, Been using Precision since my 8800GT SC days to control fan speed and monitor heat. Excellent program, along with Rivatuner.

Oh yeah? I had never heard of it before. Thanks Wizard, I was a little leery of it, but it seems solid.

Apparently the trick for fixing my hard freezes lies in complaining on a forum about them, I can't repro it now..

Maybe cosmic rays.

Yep, works every time...;)

Yeah, it worked for me once....  with BSOD's occurring all tooooo frequently.  Reseating hardware, updating drivers for everything... none of it worked, and the forum advice was pretty crappy [not here, was before my WC days].  I was just about to spit the dummy [pacifier] with my rig and voila, the issue somehow was resolved and it never happened again... on that machine.

I hope this didn't occur while at work at Microsoft... as in you were banging your head against the wall trying to convince them NOT to go with the proposed icons for Win 10.

If so, is there a chance you can claim workers comp?