Question ASUS ROG GL552VW - random freezes / locks

[rodmarcos]

Hi all

I'm writing because I have an issue with my laptop that I simply cannot pinpoint the cause of the issue.
My laptop simply freezes completely. The mouse doesn't move, CTL+SHIFT+ESC; CTL+ALT+DEL don't work. When this happens the only thing I can do is press the power button for a few seconds for a hard shutdown.
This happens randomly: it has hapenned as soon as I login to windows, 5min after logging in, after 2h of browsing the web, with battery, without battery, with wireless mouse connected, without mouse connected. Sometimes, when it freezes, the harddrive light is on, sometimes is totally off.

I don't see anything on the event viewer that would indicate a critical error before the freeze.

Funny thing is that the laptop was working fine for the last 2 years. But I had so many programs/crap that I've decided to start fresh so I re-installed windows from scratch. This lead me to believe that some driver was not installed properly or I forgot but I've already re-installed windows twice and triple-checked that I was installing all drivers properly.

I've created a Windows 10 Setup Media, installed Windows 10 Pro fresh and installed the drivers from Asus portal.
Afterwards, I've installed the Intel Driver & Support Assistant, Nvidia Geforce Experience and updated all drivers to the latest.
At this point, I thought I had exactly the same drivers as I had before. BIOS is updated to the latest 304.

Two days ago I even installed the latest drivers of my SSD, just to be on the safe side.

I've run the command prompt with admin rights and ran dism, sfc, chkdsk: all is fine

I've played with power settings
PCI Express-> Link State Power Management: OFF
Intel Dyamic Platform->Config TDP Level: 45W@2.6GHZ
Wireless Adapter: Maximum Performance

I've played with BIOS settings:
Disabled Intel Virtualization technology
Disabled Intel AES-NI
Disabled VT-d

and it still freezes completely randomly.

Any help in order to find the culprit would be deeply appreciated.


System Model: GL552VW
BIOS: GL552VW.304 (type: UEFI)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB
HD0: Sandisk 256GB SSD
HD1: HGST 1TB 7200RPM
Graphics 1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
Dedicated Memory: 4055 MB
Graphics 2: Intel® HD Graphics 530
Dedicated Memory: 1024 MB

Edition Windows 10 Pro
Version 20H2
Installed on ‎07/‎11/‎2020
OS build 19042.630
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.31.0

 

[rodmarcos]

Another hint:
It seems that the critical moment is 5 min booting into windows.
If I boot into windows and after 5min it hasn't frozen yet, then it doesn't freeze at all. Until I either shutdown or sleep. When it boots up again, I am doing my stuff and bam. Complete freeze.

Today I had to boot 4 times in order to have a functional laptop.