PC System Freezes

I've bought a PC based 4 channel system for my shop. It initially ran for about 30 mins then froze. I sent it back to the supplier who bench tested it and it ran fine. I ran it in my own house and it's fine. I installed it back at my shop and it froze after 30 mins. It was suggested that it could be "spikes" at the shop (no idea what they are!) but a UPS might help. I bought a 650VA/360W UPS from Maplins but, in all honesty, it seem worse. It freezes after about 10 mins. Anyone any ideas?

I've bought a PC based 4 channel system for my shop. It initially ran for about 30 mins then froze. I sent it back to the supplier who bench tested it and it ran fine. I ran it in my own house and it's fine. I installed it back at my shop and it froze after 30 mins. It was suggested that it could be "spikes" at the shop (no idea what they are!) but a UPS might help. I bought a 650VA/360W UPS from Maplins but, in all honesty, it seem worse. It freezes after about 10 mins. Anyone any ideas?

hi monty. one thing to look at is the position you are putting unit..... at home it works at shop it stops ......are you leaving room around the unit to get air intake ???

also run unit again at shop without cameras connected and see if it does the same.

Does the whole operation system (Windows?) froze or just the software?

I've bought a PC based 4 channel system for my shop. It initially ran for about 30 mins then froze. I sent it back to the supplier who bench tested it and it ran fine. I ran it in my own house and it's fine. I installed it back at my shop and it froze after 30 mins. It was suggested that it could be "spikes" at the shop (no idea what they are!) but a UPS might help. I bought a 650VA/360W UPS from Maplins but, in all honesty, it seem worse. It freezes after about 10 mins. Anyone any ideas?

Hi,

As a system builder, I can probably tell you what is going on.

On your shop it freezes (with all cameras connected) after 30 minutes of operation, but in your house (assuming without any cameras connected) it runs OK and doesn't freeze.

This could be a number of issues here:

Assuming it only freezes when all cameras are connected AND recording could tell that there could be a problem with the recording hard drive, and if the recording hard drive is the same hard drive where the operating system in installed, only separating the two with two partitions setup on the hard drive (one for the operating system+program and the other for the videos/recordings), if this is the setup, if the hard drive is not that good and it freezes because of heavy I/O activity, it will take the operating system as well, thus freezing the system. But here's the problem, this type of failure is typically followed by a Blue Screen of Death (because the operating system can read or write to important system files, etc)

^--- but you state that the dealer performed a benchmark, which I shall also assume that he did at least performed a SMART hard drive test followed with some what a semi extended hard drive checks which most likely turned up OK for he to tell you the system is fine. So, I would have to assume that the hard drive is not the problem here.

The fact that the system freezes dead frozen, assuming that not even the mouse pointer moves on the screen could also indicate problem with the motherboard. The vendor could have used a cheap motherboard on you (I am only assuming here) and it could be based on the cheap VIA chipsets which is typically NOT recommended for a DVR production setup. Also, the motherboard could have bad capacitor(s) which is known to cause the system hangs that not even the mouse pointer will move, the BSOD (blue Screen of Death) wont even appear because I/O processes has come to a complete halt.

What I would do is I would open up the system, use a flashlight, and see that no capacitors are bulging

Take a look at the following example:

http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/ka7/index.html

(coutesy of badcaps.net)

The piles of blue components that you see between the AGP port and the Pink Bulky parallel Printer Port are capacitors, please notice the top of these capacitors, some of them are bulged (as in Cone Shaped -- NOT flat) while some of them are flat. If you see ONE, and I mean ONE capacitor on your system motherboard that looks bulged, or like the example that I shown you on the above picture then you should take the system back to the shop, but this time, do not ask for a repair, because the shop owner had already their opportunity to check the integrity of the system and missing/overlooking bad capacitors is a huge turn off and speaks volume of the system builder, this time, ask for a full refund and purchase your system on another dealer.

You claim that power spikes could be the cause of the issue, but most power supply units on Computers are regulated. Regulated means that it is tolerant to voltage fluctuations. In my house, I have a PC DVR that I assembled my self, and I used a Regulated Power Supply Unit manufactured by Thermaltake, 650Watts, and 2 months ago I had a brownout, when it happened, I took my volt meter, put it in AC mode and inserted the probes into my house's wall outlet to measure the voltage, and it went down from the standard 125.6 Volts AC that I normally get to 68 Volts, and guess what, my DVR what still up and running, all monitors, including my flat panel TV with cable box, my cable modem was fully operational. The only thing that failed to work was my refrigerator, because it requires no less than 92 volts AC for the compressor to start. Regulated power supply unites are very tolerant to a degree for plus and minus voltage fluctuations. if it doesn't go too overboard, then your PC DVR shouldn't fail.

Another possibility could be faulty or crappy DVR PCI/PCI-E card being used. Again, your vendor probably checked on this before he gave you the OK that everything was working normally.

I am always very meticulous on the components that I choose when I am designing my PC Based DVR servers, that's probably why none of them have failed since when I began building them on 2007. The motherboard that I have always used is the Intel Desktop Board, chipset is always Intel. Power supply unit is always Thermaltake 650W (way more power delivering potential than what is actually being consumed) to ensure that PSU will never be an issue. For the hard drives, I am under the impression that Seagate makes the best durable drives, as I was having issues with Western Digital Drives on the earlier years when I began my CCTV business. Therefore, all my drives are Seagates, 5 year manufacturer's warranty. You know that hard drives are sold with different warranty levels, starting from 1, 2, 3, and 5 years, if the manufacturer tells you that it has a 1 year warranty, dont go after that drive, and dont expect that drive to last 3 years either, it called planned obsolescence . Because I want the hard drive to barely be an issue with all my installations, I like to stick with 5 year warrantied seagate hard drives.

I have made the observation that alot of installers use cheap components, I am called so often to perform complete system replacements to an installation that was performed by someone else about 6 to 10 months ago that keeps on failing, I see that a combination of bad capacitors, cheap hard drives, extremely cheap power supply units (#1 reason) are the majority of the root cause of the failures on systems less than 1 years.

If you want, you can take the system back, tell the shop that the same problem is persisting. Ask for a new system. If the problem persist with the new system take the new system back to the vendor and get a refund, if the vendor wants to checkout your shop, then wait for that, but failing that ask for a refund. Don't wait past the vendor's refund policy (typically 14 to 30 days), and you might want to verify what warranty period the system has in the even you decide to stay with the system because vendor sorted out the problem.