Complete computer freeze

[Syftelurth]

So this started a while ago, I wanted to change something sound related on my motherboard, but it seemed I fried my motherboard with an ESD.

So, I bought a new motherboard; a MSI 970 Gaming, using all my old hardware I just swapped everything out onto my new motherboard, using the same OS I had used before this happened.

Everything seemed to work fine, but I will now randomly get complete PC freezes, seemingly at random, except it seems to occur especially when I have very needy programs running.

The symptoms of the freeze are just a complete screen freeze, the audio will loop indefinitely.

Usually the PC will hardlock, and completely freeze, and I have to hard reset my PC to get out of it.

But sometimes my PC will come out of the freeze after a few seconds.

I usually know my PC is hardlocked since my fans will slow down significantly.

I have tried to troubleshoot for this specific problem but it's very hard to find a fitting answer since I don't have any error codes or bug screens to show.

I will try to get some kind of CPU/GPU read out screenshot whenever my PC recovers from a freeze, but as of now I don't have any read outs.

CPU usually hangs around 80°C, not going above 86°C, GPU has a solid 50°C which never seems to fluctuate.

I will try to refresh the cooling paste on my CPU soon, maybe I can get it to under 70°C, but I doubt this is the issue.

If anyone has any idea at all as to what might be the problem, I'd love to hear them out.

Additionally, if anyone has an idea for a better forum to post this in, please say so.


OS:
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

CPU:
AMD FX-6350 78 °C

RAM:
12,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard:
MSI 970 GAMING (MS-7693) (CPU 1) 72 °C

Graphics:
Acer P235H (1920x1080@60Hz)
Philips 226V4 (1920x1080@60Hz)
3072MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (MSI) 50 °C

Storage:
232GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB (SSD) 38 °C
2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1CH166 (SATA) 37 °C

Optical Drives
ATAPI DVD A DH16AASH
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

 

[cin19]

CPU usually hangs around 80°C, not going above 86°C, GPU has a solid 50°C which never seems to fluctuate.

For fx 6350, the max temp will be under 60C. What cooler do you use? You have to solve the overheat problem. You may reseat the cooler, also use the new thermal paste too. I think overheat caused the pc frozen.

And other question, what is your PSU? Which R9 200 series GPU do you have? because the PSU may cause that problem too.

 

[Syftelurth]

CPU usually hangs around 80°C, not going above 86°C, GPU has a solid 50°C which never seems to fluctuate.

For fx 6350, the max temp will be under 60C. What cooler do you use? You have to solve the overheat problem. You may reseat the cooler, also use the new thermal paste too. I think overheat caused the pc frozen.

And other question, what is your PSU? Which R9 200 series GPU do you have? because the PSU may cause that problem too.

Ah, sorry, this specs list is less reliable than I thought.

I have a Sapphire R9 280, un OC'ed.

For PSU I have a 550w Corsair unit, which should be enough.

I will be getting an RX Fury X2 soon, and was wondering if 550w would be enough to support my current build with the R9 280 exchanged, would love a reply on this as well, but anyway.

Another friend suggested it might be an overheating issue since I don't often reapply new thermal paste after having taking off the cooler.
I'm just very confused as to why this might start being a problem now, and why the CPU overheating isn't turning my PC off but rather freezing it.

I will look into the new thermal paste and reply back, thanks for the suggestion so far.

EDIT: And thanks a bunch for moving my thread to a more appropriate section!

 

[cin19]

The 550w Corsair unit will be fine for your r9 280+ the fx6350.
When you take off the cooler each time, you should reapply new thermal paste on it. And try update the AMD chipset driver too, the heat sensors may not have the right drivers, keep in mind even the chipset is old, but try it out.

 

[Syftelurth]

The 550w Corsair unit will be fine for your r9 280+ the fx6350.
When you take off the cooler each time, you should reapply new thermal paste on it. And try update the AMD chipset driver too, the heat sensors may not have the right drivers, keep in mind even the chipset is old, but try it out.

So I got a new fan, applied new thermal paste, and installed my new GPU, updated my chipset driver (don't think I had an outdated version though).

My CPU is hanging around ~40 - 50C now, but I am still getting occasional hang-ups. But, I have not had a complete computer freeze again, yet.

Something I might not have shared earlier about the RAM sticks; when I was changing motherboards I noticed some kind of sticky solution (brown-ish color) on the RAM sticks, which I tried to clean but essentially I just smeared it out a bit. I was thinking this would've been a problem before the motherboard swap, and just put them back in, but now I'm thinking it might be the cause of the freezes.

Not a lot got on the circuit board, but I wouldn't know how much is enough to ruin a RAM stick, and I also don't know what the solution is, but I'm thinking it might be soda.

So, since my CPU is no longer seriously overheating, I'm thinking it must be the RAM then. Thus I intend to buy new RAM sticks when I get the money to do so, but if you have any other insight as to what could be the cause, I'd be open for it.

As of now, I have a 750w Corsair PSU, AMD FX-6350, XFX R9 Fury X, MSI 970 Gaming, and I don't quite remember which RAM sticks I have, but all four are DDR3 and have a total of 12GB (2x4 + 2x2).

 

[cin19]

Just try to use the two sticks only, either 2x4GB or 2X2GB. And don't use the memory slot that had the sticky solution on it.