Computer keeps stop responding

[Condi]

Wonder if anyone has any ideas - I have a reasonably decent spec gaming PC, nothing spectacular, but it's good enough. Recently (last 2/3 months) it has started crashing occasionally when playing games, just stopping to respond. No error message, no screen of death, no nothing. Either it will freeze, or the screen will go blank. The only option left is to hit the power button and reboot. This doesn't happen all the time, or at regular intervals, or at given points. There is no "reason" I can see for it happening. Graphics and CPU loads are nothing special, the PC isn't overheating.

So far I have....

Updated all the drivers.
Updated BIOS
Cleaned all the cache, temporary files, registrary faults etc
Scanned for viruses and malware

And honestly, are at a bit of a loss. I'm tempted to say it's a graphics issue, but the card is a 1660 Super and is hardly breaking a sweat during the games I play. Drivers are always up to date, and otherwise the card is performing well. PC has 32GB of RAM, so can't see it being a memory issue.

So, over to the house. Any ideas? Are there any crash logs Windows keeps I can look at to help pinpoint the issue?

[Mandat]

I build my own PC's so I think that I'm fairly adept with PC technology.

Troubleshooting your particular problem, I would check the following:

1. Check if CPU / GPU or case is overheating (which you've already done)

2. Update drivers & check for malware / viruses (which you've already done)

3. Open the case and check for dust build up. Clean as required.

4. Re-seat the GPU & RAM, as they can unseat themselves due to thermal cycling when the PC is turned on & off routinely.

5. Not sure what else to try after the above.

[xeny]

If it is locking up, it is unlikely Windows is able to write to a log. You could look at the system event logs to see if you're getting any indications of a root cause "grumbling" before the machine hangs.

I'd try
memtest86 from a bootable USB
Prime95 to see if the system is stable under CPU load.
If easy, swapping out the PSU.

You say it isn't overheating - what have you checked?

Is it from a large manufacturer such as Dell/HP/Lenovo that offer a diagnostics tool, often built in to the boot menu?

Edited by xeny on Thursday 28th December 16:38

[dudleybloke]

Could be a psu problem.

[h0b0]

It is unlikely to help but still worth a try. Reset your graphics card by

Windows + Ctrl + Shift + B


I am having similar issues with my Radeon Vega64. A good card in it's day but now seems optimized for black and white games of an old forgotten era. Also, I have had multiple issues with AMD drivers causing issues as well so now have a stable driver that I sometimes have to reinstall when an auto update happens that I have not found to turn off.

[donkmeister]

xeny said:

If it is locking up, it is unlikely Windows is able to write to a log. You could look at the system event logs to see if you're getting any indications of a root cause "grumbling" before the machine hangs.

This would be my next step. I've diagnosed a few Windows problems over the years by reviewing the system log.

[Condi]

donkmeister said:

xeny said:

If it is locking up, it is unlikely Windows is able to write to a log. You could look at the system event logs to see if you're getting any indications of a root cause "grumbling" before the machine hangs.

This would be my next step. I've diagnosed a few Windows problems over the years by reviewing the system log.

Thanks, where would the logs live?

Ahhh... in the diagnostics data is this...

"Hardware error"

Windows

Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\System32\WerFault.exe
Creation Time: 27/12/2023 17:02:09
Problem: Hardware error
Status: Report sent

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 141
Parameter 1: ffff9c064a505460
Parameter 2: fffff80375d763a0
Parameter 3: 0
Parameter 4: 0
OS version: 10_0_22621
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: (18446744073709551615)


The Code 141 is appearing in quite a lot of the crash reports, so am guessing that is the issue. Next question, what is code 141?!

Edited by Condi on Saturday 30th December 16:50

[snuffy]

This is your error message;

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/...

A dodgy RAM stick was found to be the issue.

Also, as it says, it could be overheating. I had that in the past, not freezing, but slowing down to almost a stop. It turned out that the fan on the CPU had died, so the CPU was getting very hot and throttling to the point of doing nothing.

I know you have said it's not overheating, but have you opened the case up and checked all the fans are spinning ?

[tele_lover]

Other possibility is you've used all the RAM and started to hit the swap space. This uses your hard drive when you run out of RAM.

[xeny]

tele_lover said:

Other possibility is you've used all the RAM and started to hit the swap space. This uses your hard drive when you run out of RAM.

If the case has a working disk activity light, high levels of disk activity would be an easy to identify symptom of this.

How much RAM has the system got? I'm presuming an SSD boot drive in this day and age?

[Condi]

xeny said:

If the case has a working disk activity light, high levels of disk activity would be an easy to identify symptom of this.

How much RAM has the system got? I'm presuming an SSD boot drive in this day and age?

32Gb of RAM. I think this might be the issue, will run memtest later today and see if it throws any errors. Boot is from an SSD, but the games are on a HDD.

Interestingly I did a graphics card test last night which was fine, card got to 75 degrees or so and performed well. However, when I quit the program the PC crashed, so I'm wondering if it's a RAM issue which is causing problems, as I suspect the crash happened at the same time it would have been releasing a lot of files from the memory.

Can confirm all fans are working normally.

[Condi]

Just ran Memtest for nearly 4 hours and it didn't find any errors. So gfx card seems fine, RAM seems fine. CPU?? Am running out of ideas!

[Ultuous]

Have you tried reseating the GPU as mentioned above? I had very similar symptoms on my gaming PC a few months ago (no apparent overheating, instant freeze at random) that a reseat (which I had very little faith in) fixed straight away.

[xeny]

Condi said:

Just ran Memtest for nearly 4 hours and it didn't find any errors. So gfx card seems fine, RAM seems fine. CPU?? Am running out of ideas!

Power supply getting a little tired? If the 32 GB is as 4 8GB modules, you could try pulling half, testing and swapping in the other half. 32GB seems a lot of RAM for you to be experiencing memory pressure in typical games.

Have you tried updating the BIOS?

[Condi]

Ultuous said:

Have you tried reseating the GPU as mentioned above? I had very similar symptoms on my gaming PC a few months ago (no apparent overheating, instant freeze at random) that a reseat (which I had very little faith in) fixed straight away.

I've not but can give it a go. I don't have much faith in that either!!

xeny said:

Power supply getting a little tired? If the 32 GB is as 4 8GB modules, you could try pulling half, testing and swapping in the other half. 32GB seems a lot of RAM for you to be experiencing memory pressure in typical games.

Have you tried updating the BIOS?

Possibly, how would you test that? The RAM is 2x16GB, but Memtest didn't find any errors earlier. I did think about taking out 1 module and seeing if the error is still there.

BIOS was updated a few months ago, will see if there are any updates.

Currently running Windows Checkdisk to look for HD errors, and then plan is to uninstall all the display drivers using DDU and re-install.

[xeny]

Condi said:

Possibly, how would you test that?

BIOS was updated a few months ago, will see if there are any updates.

I'd typically swap in a known good PSU, but you could try using hwinfo, which I think can be persuaded to write voltages to a log file.

Problem started 2-3 months ago, BIOS updated a few months ago. If there isn't a further update, is it worth considering rolling back?

[Ultuous]

Condi said:

Ultuous said:

Have you tried reseating the GPU as mentioned above? I had very similar symptoms on my gaming PC a few months ago (no apparent overheating, instant freeze at random) that a reseat (which I had very little faith in) fixed straight away.

I've not but can give it a go. I don't have much faith in that either!!

Hope your luck is as good as mine was - tried it as a last resort having seen it mentioned on the web and already done the whole DDU uninstall/ fresh install together with a multitude of other things... There didn't look to be anything wrong with how it was seated previously but it brought the machine back to life straight away!

[Condi]

xeny said:

Problem started 2-3 months ago, BIOS updated a few months ago. If there isn't a further update, is it worth considering rolling back?

Yes, I don't think the timings suggest the BIOS update is responsible, but definitely worth seeing if there is an update or something to roll back to.

[Condi]

Physically removed graphics card and RAM, and reseated them, took the opportunity to clean out what little dust was on the graphics coolers. Also done a complete gfx driver wipe and re-install. Got HWinfo logging now as well to try and pinpoint any issues. It's like chasing shadows.

EDIT - also flashed the BIOS back 1 version.

Edited by Condi on Sunday 31st December 20:48

[JoeMk1]

I had a similar (but not exactly the same) issue. After a while after loading up a game or accessing files, pc would really slow down and hang, eventually becoming unresponsive. Task manager would show CPU usage pinned to 100% (so different to your situation in that regard)

Tried lots of things, but it eventually turned out to be the few month old Kingston M.2 SSD that the games and files were stored on. The kingston software showed everything being healthy, no problems whatsoever when scanning the drive. Deactivating the drive solved the issue. Replaced with a 2.5" Samsung SSD and all is well, although copying everything over was an exercise in frustration with multiple reboots and transferring of files in-between freezes

You could try de-activating or disconnecting your HDD and see if that stops the freezing.