System freezes since mid November - Windows 8.1 Pro x64

Since mid November I have intermittent system freezes on my system. It appears that under different circumstancens (when deleting files on the Raid array, when letting the system go to screen blank) the desktop becomes unresponsive and the moise pointer, which can be still moved, becomes blurry.

This usually happens when the system had been under load for some while (Handbrake), so about 18 hours or so.

In this state, when unresponsive, the only thing I'd need to do is to press the "Shift" key on my keyboard and everything goes back to normal.

It happens with different apps, and I don't know what do do.

What I did was:

- Take out the Adaptec Raid card
- Change RAM's in slots, take less RAM, reduce frequency from 1600 to 1333
- Disabe VT-d (I've VM Ware Workstation installed and there seem to be running some things in the back and I've got error messages)
- I've sent the board to Asus for an RMA, they found nothing, just did a Bios Update
- Re-install the whole system but even the naked system became frozen (HW unchanged).


Let me please ask the following questions:

- Can it be the SSD drive, where the opsys is installed? (Ive got a Samsung SSD 840 Evo 500 Gig, where I have applied this speed patch mid November).
- Can it be the CPU (system was a bit overclocked and Tj was always at the limit)
- Could it be the graphics adapter?
- Can it be a fix that has been applied with the MS November rollup, which doesnt work with my system?
- Which kind of tools could I install in order to log the problem?
- Does someone else have these problems since mid of November?

I would greatly appreciate your help.

well.. start with Intel Extreme utility and only monitor the system.. using the graphs etc.. learn to use them and customize them..

DONT' tweak anything with the tool.. in your case, use it for monitoring only..

start benchmarking with crystaldiskmark and AS SSD to check your SSD..

then look up process explorer and start looking or googling how to find out whats running on your system..


other thing is you have a raid system setup.. that has always been a major deal.. as i read about people with problems all the time with these raid setups etc.. so that could be firmware issue on the drive.. that could be the way windows handles your setup and is conflicting something.. all because of raid.. try it without raid if possible and see if you get these freezes..