Question Asus laptop just started freezing constantly. What could be the culprit?

[Garbage_Can]

My partner's laptop just in the last month started to freeze occasionally (maybe once a day), and just this past week it's become unusable to the point that it will often freeze within the first minute of use. I've tried my best to debug it but I'm stuck and hoping for some suggestions.
So far I've tried:

• Reformatting hard drive - Runs smoother... until it freezes still
• Checking CPU temp with core temp - Idles around 35C, can get up to 45-50C if you do something more intensive. Seems fine
• Ran chkdsk - No errors
• Ran 4 passes of memtest - No errors
• Looked into disabling hardware accereration but this laptop didn't have the option to enable/disable
• Updated drivers
• Running in safe mode - still freezes

Any other easy tests I can try? I'm assuming its hardware given that reformatting didn't work.

 

[SchizTech]

CHKdsk checks system files but doesn't really address the health of the physical HDD. I'd run a proper hard drive diagnostic program like Seatools.

 

[Garbage_Can]

CHKdsk checks system files but doesn't really address the health of the physical HDD. I'd run a proper hard drive diagnostic program like Seatools.

That's a good point! I just ran Seatools but alas all the basic tests passed (S.M.A.R.T, short & long generic, short drive self test). Thank you for the suggestion though

 

[SchizTech]

Can you get to the Windows Event Viewer? Error codes there might help find the culprit.