Question All my games freeze - PC still works, games require crashing though

[HousePlantParty]

As the title says, most if not all of the games on my PC freeze after an indeterminable amount of time. This kind of freeze isn't lag, I physically have to crash the game in order to start playing again.
Unfortunately 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 cannot find the solution. I'm in serious need of help as I can't figure it out on my own.

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 monitor is an oldish Hitachi TV
• The PC was built by myself and a friend, we didn't encounter any real troubles during building other than your standard teething issues.

Other Details:

• During the freeze ups, whatever audio was playing begins to loop over on itself.
• 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 CTRL ALT DEL to crash the game in order to play again, otherwise the screen will be frozen forever.
• I'm not sure if this is related, but I have to play all of my games in either windowed or windowed full-screen mode, if I try play in straight up full-screen mode, the games usually immediately crash on themselves. Destiny being the exception which just performs at a much lower FPS.
• Of the games that I have and actively play in the past 6 months, including: ARK Survival Evolved, RuneScape, Stardew Valley, Sims 4, Minecraft, Rocket League and Destiny 2, only Destiny plays without freezing, which makes me wonder if Destiny runs 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.

I have tried a variety of tests over the months (heat tests, stress tests etc) but I'm willing to give them all a go again to get this problem sorted once and for all because I'm honestly at my wits end! I should also note I have already done a clean reinstall of Windows and the problem still persisted.

So please, if you want me to try anything, let me know! I'm in desperate need of help and I would be so grateful if anyone could help, thank you very much!

 

[rgd1101]

cpu/gpu temp and usage during the game?
ram and sdd/hdd usage during the game?
run any ram test? malware scan?

 

[HousePlantParty]

cpu/gpu temp and usage during the game?
ram and sdd/hdd usage during the game?
run any ram test? malware scan?

Hi, thank you for getting back to me
I've just tested 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 also ran the RAM test using the Windows memory diagnostic tool and that came back with no errors. I am right now in the process of doing a malware scan.

 

[HousePlantParty]

It's the morning now and my scan completed overnight, everything is fine in that respect.

Currently I'm in the process of trying to capture the freeze as a recording in case it helps here, or if I need to take it into a shop, I'll give an update when I'm able to get a clip as I can't easily replicate the freezing since it can happen 10 minutes into a game, or 10 hours, it's very inconsistent 🙁

 

[HousePlantParty]

I've been playing Stardew Valley today and after about 4-5 hours of playtime over the course of the day, it has unsurprisingly locked up. Below is a recording I caught of it happening (skip to 20 seconds in to see it sooner)

As you can see I had just completed an in-game action, although I don't know if that affected the freeze.
As usual I had to crash the game forcefully because it just stopped working entirely. As the freeze happens you can just about hear the audio looping over on itself, this game doesn't show that effect too well, I will try and get a freeze clip on Rocket League to better show how it locks up both visual and audio.

I have also just performed a malware-bytes scan which found 8 pop ups which I cleared.

I really hope this helps, thank you all.

 

[HousePlantParty]

Just used HWinfo to check my PSU voltage, my 5V range was 5.088-5.122V and the 12V range was 11.904-12.192V. I experienced a crash while playing but it didn't make these figures dip or rise.

Any help would be really appreciated!

 

[Redhacker2]

Nothing sounds really out of the ordinary there. Have you tried taking out everything but the vital components, not even storage drives and reintroducing them one by one. Start with CPU MOBO one stick of ram, boot drive and psu and work your way through. replacing one component at a time. RAM or GPU are the biggest suspects here but ram would more likely give you a BSOD so IDK. I am leaning twoard a GPU or very unlikely but possibly a storage drive being the issue. As such I would start replacing RAM sticks and GPU after that.

 

[HousePlantParty]

Nothing sounds really out of the ordinary there. Have you tried taking out everything but the vital components, not even storage drives and reintroducing them one by one. Start with CPU MOBO one stick of ram, boot drive and psu and work your way through. replacing one component at a time. RAM or GPU are the biggest suspects here but ram would more likely give you a BSOD so IDK. I am leaning twoard a GPU or very unlikely but possibly a storage drive being the issue. As such I would start replacing RAM sticks and GPU after that.

Thanks for getting back to me!

I haven't yet, however I do plan to in the future once I get past all these default scans/checks etc. I'll add it to my "to do list"!

The thing that has me a bit confused with this problem of mine, is why both Forza and Destiny 2 have never experienced this kind of freeze up, whereas all my other games have. It leads me to wonder if they launch or run in a specific way that doesn't trigger this strange issue, because I would have thought freezing up in games would mean ALL games, or at least during other resource heavy programmes.

I just feel like there's this one tiiiiny issue wrong somewhere in my system that's throwing things out of order, I swear I will find it eventually! If not, after I've exhausted all these tech forums, I'll take it into a shop and explain all the tests I've done. Here's hoping haha!

 

[HousePlantParty]

Okay I finally caught the freeze happening in Rocket League, here the audio loop is much clearer. Skip to around 20 seconds in.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhoqbvnRhE&feature=youtu.be

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I'm stumped here and about ready to call it quits and hope to god a nearby computer repair shop can fix it.