Urgant help, (freezing?)

Alright, pulling my hair out over here.
So 2 nights ago my R2 starts acting up, first time it happened, the focused program started "Not Responding" which was Skype (By focused I mean program that is up on the screen and being used directly).
Shortly after Skype stopped responding I tried to click to my browser, which than stopped responding. Shortly the task bar stopped responding, and than everything froze. Including the mouse.

Left it there for 10min, than did a hard reboot. Hoping it was the only time it would happen.
Wrong.

Ever since than, it now seems to just want to freeze at its own will. One time it froze and BSOD.

I tried installing windows without formatting the drive.
It BSOD on that windows install.
So I completely formatted the drive and installed windows on it, windows installed fine. Thought the problem was fixed.
While installing my programs, it strikes again, everything freezes and forces a hard shut down.

Next I figure if its not the drive, its got to be the RAM, so I pull one stick out (have two in the system) and try letting it run that way, it froze, swapped the sticks to test the other, and it froze still, so I doubt both my RAM sticks went bad at exact same time.

So than I put HWinfo up to see the temps when it freezes, and everythings fine, GPU is at 36c and CPU is at 48c when it freezes.
Nevertheless I reseated the CPU and repasted it just to make sure.
Than I left it on idle while I slept last night to see if it was fine Idle and woke up to it being frozen.

Heres the thing, I did recently install a new GPU, about 2 days before this started happening, I was looking past it being GPU related since it was working fine the first two nights, but now I'm guessing theres no other option since I did my best to try and narrow the other components.
Question is, how could the GPU be causing this?
A friend mentions maybe the x-bracket isn't grounded fully and is causing a shock every now and than. Would that cause this?



Going to go to work and leave it idling in Safe Mode to see if its frozen when I come back.

Realllly want this solved :[


P.S. Yes I realize I spelled Urgent wrong in the title.


EDIT: It finally stood unfrozen long enough for Security Essentials to run a full scan on my storage drive, and found this:

Whats the best steps to remove it before I forma tthat drive too which I really don't want to do because I don't have much space on my SSD to back up my stuff like I did when I formatted my SSD last night.
Also it shows the path of that infection as "D:\ $Recyling.Bin$" which I can't figure out how to locate.

 

Try Malwarebytes.

 

Argh.Formatted both my drives completely, reinstall windows, still happens.
Ran Memtest86 off the disk and the memory checks out with No Errors.

I don't know what else it could be other than the GPU but since when does GPU problems cause things to stop responding and than freeze overall? Reallllly getting annoyed now

 

BSOD's generally point to a software or driver problem. The Trojan could have caused the BSOD and the system hang ups could be caused by something completely different. Run the PSA and see what it has to say. Make sure to do the extended memory tests to rule out any hardware issue.

PS: did you keep your old GPU? If you did and it still works, you can always reinstall your old GPU and see if the problem goes away. By to by, if you use the correct x-bracket for the 7970m (if your sig shows the correct specs) then you should be golden. But when I say the correct x-bracket, I mean the correct x-bracket. The 7970m x-bracket for the Dell version of the card may be different than the 7970m x-bracket for the Eurocomm version. Be advised of that distinction.

 

Yeah I formatted both of my drives and all security software shows its clean, I even downloaded and burned Kaspersky Rescue and ran it off the disk at boot and it declared both drives clean.
Definitely not a virus I assume.

What do you mean by "Run The PSA"?

And yeah I still have my 6970m I'll throw it in tomorrow night after dinner I guess, and the x-bracket is from my 6970m which has the same bracket, it fits just fine and the stick plastic thing is still attached to it.

Really don't want it to be the GPU since I just bought it :\

 

PSA stands for Pre-boot Systems Assessment. It tests the CPU, RAM, and PCH/Chipset for any hardware errors. It is ran completely independent of Windows or any other OS software. To run it, restart your notebook, at hit F12 at the Alien Head logo to bring up a list of Start up options. You want to select Diagnostics. It should be the last option at the bottom of the list. After you select it, the PSA will begin running the tests immediately. Follow any instructions it gives you, it won't be anything remotely complicated. If there are no errors detected, the PSA will ask if you want to run the extended memory test. Select yes. This will thoroughly check your RAM for any errors whatsoever. If the PSA still detects no errors, it means there isn't much of a chance the freezes will be caused by hardware problems...except, the PSA does NOT check the GPU for errors. For that, you have to swap out to your 6970m card and see if the system freezes still persist.

PS: did you use an anti-static bracelet or mat when you installed the 7970m? If not, it is POSSIBLE (not totally probable) that a bit of static zapped your new GPU and messed it all up something bad.

 

I put my 6970m and let it idle while I went to the grocery store and came back with it frozen. So I assume both of them can't be screwed...

Gonna run that PSA thing you mentioned.

Is there any other components that could cause it that I'm missing? Any way to test the motherboard?

EDIT:
Alright I have a question, if you guys run Intel Burn Test, are you suppose to be able to do anything else while its running?
Like if I run it, it'll run the test if I dont touch the computer, but if I click any other window, it'll freeze, thing is it unfreezes itself after about 30seconds, but its the same not-responding freeze that I've been having a problem with, except it unfreezes itself rather than forcing a hard shutdown.
I assume its normal since the CPU is running at 100% during the burn test? Or should I be able to click to my browser and stuff?

 

PSA tests the motherboard. It is more reliable than the Burn Test. And yes, the chances of both GPUs going bad a very low. Another thing to consider, you didn't mess with your CPU when you installed your new 7970m card, yes? If you did, sometimes dust can get in between the CPU pins and the motherboard socket. A quick blast of air from the can will clean that out. Also, you should have hit the MXM slot with a blast of air to get out any dust before installing the new 7970m card.

 

Thanks a bunch for your help man.
I believe it MAY be fixed (hasn't froze in 14 hours, watch it freeze now.... lol)
I updated my SSD's firmware and that seems to have been the problem. Go figure, after I format and tear apart my computer. Lol