Question All but 2 of my games freeze after a random amount of time.

[HousePlantParty]

Issue: All but 2 of the games I own, freeze after an indeterminable amount of time. This kind of freeze isn't lag, it just point-blank freezes my game screen and forces any audio that was playing to loop over on itself. I physically have to crash the game in order to start playing again. I've been having this issue for several months now, but the problem is so obscure that no matter what I've tried, I simply can’t find the solution. Below is a video clip I've gotten showing this freeze (skip to around 20 seconds in)

PC Details:

• Windows 10 OS
• i5-7600K CPU @ 3.80GHz
• 8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM (2x4GB)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
• ASROCK B250M-HDV S1151 mATX Intel B250 DDR4 Motherboard
• Cooler Master 212 EVO
• Corsair CX450M
• Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD (My OS is on here and 1-2 games)
• 1TB Seagate HDD (Where I store most of my files and bigger games)
• My everyday monitor is an oldish Hitachi TV
• The PC was built by me and a friend, we didn't encounter any real troubles during building other than your standard teething issues.

More Details:

• During the freeze ups, whatever audio was playing begins to loop over on itself. This is more evident on some games than others.
• I can still move my mouse and use keyboard shortcuts during these freezes. I'm not sure if I'm immediately kicked out of the game when these freeze-ups occur, or if in the game it just looks like I've stopped moving.
• As mentioned above, I have to physically use keyboard commands such as CTRL SHF ESC to crash the game via task manager in order to play again, otherwise the screen will be frozen forever as no error messages appear.
• Of the games that I have and actively play in the past 6 months, including: ARK Survival Evolved, Forza Horizon 4, RuneScape, Stardew Valley, Sims 4, Minecraft, Rocket League and Destiny 2, only Destiny & Forza play without freezing, which makes me wonder if these games run/launch in a specific way which doesn't bug out my system?
• It's only during games that my computer freezes, I run 3D modelling software alongside your standard day to day programmes but it's only games that cause a freeze.
• I never get any error messages pop-up when the freezes happen, it's out of the blue and with no immediately obvious explanation.
• The 2 games that run correctly are on my HDD alongside most of my other (freezing) games.

Tests and Solutions, I’ve Tried:
Here are some heat tests for my PC at both idle and whilst playing Rocket League (as this game seems to crash most frequently, however that could be because I play it a lot!)

Idle Temperature (in Celsius):

• CPU: 29
• Motherboard: 30
• Graphics Card: 35
• SSD: 31
• HDD 27

• Rocket League Temperatures:
• CPU: 46
• Motherboard: 39
• Graphics Card: 61
• SSD: 32
• HDD: 28

• Idle Usage:
• CPU: 2-20%
• Memory: 36%
• Disk: 0-20% (a couple of background tasks were occasionally moving this percentage)
• Network: 0%
• GPU: 0%

• Rocket League Usage:
• CPU: 75-85%
• Memory: 61%
• Disk: 0%
• Network: 0%
• GPU: 78-92% (with 100% very occasionally)

• I ran a RAM test using the Windows memory diagnostic tool and that came back with no errors.
• I did a security scan using my antivirus software which came back clean. I also used the malware bytes application to scan my PC, it found 8 popups which it cleared for me.
• I ran a voltage test using HWinfo to have a look at the 12V rail, I even had a freeze-up during this test, but it didn't spike or crash my readings, which were a normal 11.904-12.192V.
• I've run my PC through various benchmark tests which all came back saying that my hardware was performing well.
• I recently uninstalled my graphics drivers using DDU, this seemed to work for a couple days of game time but then the freezes still occurred.

I’ve tried most of the tests I could think of asides from swapping out parts since I don’t have any easily to spare. However, on the face of it, the hardware tests fine, and it honestly runs like a dream in every other aspect. I meant to try take out 1 of my RAM sticks but 1 is underneath my CPU fan which would mean disassembling that to get to it, and the other had 1 very stubborn clip which I gave up on trying to pry at because I didn't want to break anything.

Below are some final few guesses I have before I admit defeat and see if the people at my local computer shop can help me

• Whenever I open one of the 3D texturing programmes I use (Substance Painter) I get an warning dialogue telling me that it's recommended I change my TDR value as it's too low, which could cause that program to crash or become unresponsive (which I believe is down to the PC taking too long to compute something, and crashing the program) I wondered if this had anything to do with what I'm experiencing.
• I know this is unlikely, but since I'm running on an older TV, could that be perhaps an issue? I am doubtful with this one because of the nature of the freeze, since I can still operate my PC to open new windows etc, it's not just a flat out visual freeze.
• I've heard mention of corrupt memories in the GPU and RAM that could be only getting triggered at certain very specific times and therefore causing crashes/freezes, which would explain why they happen at completely random times. And maybe why 2 games are unaffected? Though I'm not completely sure, this issue is getting way beyond me.
• At this point I've backed up all my data in preparation for a clean Windows install using it's built-in tools, however at this point I'm not even sure if it would fix my issue.

I'm planning to talk to the people at the computer shop on Friday, is there anything you guys recommend asking about or trying before then because I'm utterly stumped.

 

[HousePlantParty]

Going to reinstall Windows and see if this works, if not, it's definitely going to the repair shop.