Question Computer Freezes around 10-15 mins into cold boot every time

[Ahmed Shaltout]

Hi. I have an issue I have not been able to fix for months


Whenever I start the pc after it has been shut down for around 6-8 hours, the first run of windows crashes and stops responding 10 to 15 mins after I have fully and successfully loaded windows, after which I can only do a hard reset. The only solution I found so far was to turn on the PC on cold boot, go to BIOS, and leave it there for 30 mins before getting into windows, and then everything runs fine.

The issue started after a windows update in December where my Sound Blaster Z card was suddenly not working after the update, after which i found a new driver for it dated Sep 2019, but ever since that issue happened and for some reason the PC always crashes on cold boot.

I am currently doing some experiments, like I noticed the sound card is too close to the VRM heat sink, so i switched things around for it to be away from it. My next test might be unplugging the sound card altogether before going to bed, but that is under the assumption that it is the sound card. It doesn't make sense to me that it would cause the crash (I am in windows 10 updated to the latest version but Sound Blaster Z have not released new drivers since September.) I also disabled the built-in Realtek audio from the BIOS

I am wondering if it is an issue with my motherboard or if it simply got old because I had this system for years even though i have been swapping a lot of parts in it over time

I was overclocked when the issue happened, and I did go back to stock speeds and did a full reset for the motherboard BIOS back to stock, and it did the same exact thing.

There was a point when we thought it was a power issue, and I took it to a technician, only to have it work properly when we were at the technician. i realized I had the PC hooked up to a faulty UPS that may have not been able to supply enough power to my PC since the pc got upgraded over time, so I connected the PC directly to the power socket on the wall and bypassed the UPS, which seems to have improved it that before it used to crash whenever I turn off the pc for 30 mins only and start it up again, but now it is limited to crashing on cold boot only after its been shut down for hours.

I also did a memtest to discover there is no issue with my RAMs

I also wonder if my power supply may not be adequate enough. The thing is, I can't afford the kind of testing that requires swapping hardware. I literally have no money at the time and I am living in a country where the ease of swapping hardware is pretty much non existent, leaving me only with the option to test with what i already have. I am wondering if there is a way to at least identify the core problem like a log file. I am not good at locating log files and even when i do find them I do not understand them, so i was wondering if someone could at least help me locate the root issue, and if it's something I can't fix right now, that I would at least know what it is and work around it till i could afford a new system. Otherwise if it turned out to be something simple that I overlooked then perhaps i could get it fixed.

My specs are below

Operating System: Windows 10 64 bit
Motherboard: 990XA-GD55 (MS-7640)
Processor: AMD 8300 FX, currently clocked at 3.5 GHz using the motherboard's built in OC Genie feature (current experiment i am doing as i already tried stock and manual overclocking)
Ram: 2 Corsair 4 GB DDR3 rams and one Cruical Technology 8 GB ddr3 ram stick
Graphic Card: Nvidia 1660
Power Supply: Seasonic 520 watt 80 Bronze
Hard Drives: Several - Boot Drive 750 GB SSHD, secondary drive 2 TB SSHD
Cooling System: Thermaltake water 3.0 120 ARGB Sync

Edit:

I also would like to mention that part of what makes discovering this issue difficult is that I have only one chance per day. That is because it happens mostly after the pc has been shut down for 4-8 hours or more, and I have daily work on the PC so i only find out if the test or experiment i did worked the next morning.

And also I did a clean fresh reinstall of Windows 10 a month ago and formatted the main drive prior to that, and the problem persisted.

Also, unless i am using the OCGenie, if I am at stock or overclocking manually, the PC boots in 2 tries and all the fans spin fast twice before it starts loading up windows.

 

[geofelt]

FX processors and motherboards are notorious for heat issues.
It is not clear to me what might be wrong.
Possibly your fan controls are not working properly after a shutdown.
As a suggestion, take the case covers off and direct a house fan at the innards to see if you might have a cooling issue.

Perhaps a better solution is to not ever shut down.
Use sleep to ram(no hibernate) instead.
This puts the pc and your monitor into a very low power state almost as low as a full power off.
The benefit is that sleep/wake is very fast, only a handful of seconds.

 

[Ahmed Shaltout]

FX processors and motherboards are notorious for heat issues.
It is not clear to me what might be wrong.
Possibly your fan controls are not working properly after a shutdown.
As a suggestion, take the case covers off and direct a house fan at the innards to see if you might have a cooling issue.

Perhaps a better solution is to not ever shut down.
Use sleep to ram(no hibernate) instead.
This puts the pc and your monitor into a very low power state almost as low as a full power off.
The benefit is that sleep/wake is very fast, only a handful of seconds.

Thank you for your reply. I might try a fan on the system. My case cover is already off so that might be an option.

Regarding sleep, i avoid it entirely due to the fact that for some reason, once I come back from sleep mode, the core clocks are all wrong. It either clocks it up or clocks it down a bit causing system instability with time. (For some reason)

 

[MadsModsat]

I f you are not sure if the Creative driver is causing issues, perhaps due to a failed update, Display Driver Uninstaller actualy also has an option to completely remove both Creative and RealTek drivers.

If you use DDU to remove soundcard drivers, you could then do a fresh install of your Creative card.

I'd mostly consider this step as a way to eliminate potential problems, as the problem most likely lies elsewhere.

I'm using a SoundBlaster ZxR myself, with no driver or hardware related issues, so it shouldn't be a problem using your SoundBlaster Z, if it is in any way related to the problems you experience

 

[Ahmed Shaltout]

I f you are not sure if the Creative driver is causing issues, perhaps due to a failed update, Display Driver Uninstaller actualy also has an option to completely remove both Creative and RealTek drivers.

If you use DDU to remove soundcard drivers, you could then do a fresh install of your Creative card.

I'd mostly consider this step as a way to eliminate things, as the problem most likely lies elsewhere.

I'm using a SoundBlaster ZxR myself, with no driver or hardware related issues, so it shouldn't be a problem using your SoundBlaster Z

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into it. i don't feel it is needed though, because as I mentioned, one of the steps i did recently was a fresh install of windows. That would cover any corrupt driver installations being removed, and the issue persisted anyhow.

 

[MadsModsat]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into it. i don't feel it is needed though, because as I mentioned, one of the steps i did recently was a fresh install of windows. That would cover any corrupt driver installations being removed, and the issue persisted anyhow.

I'm sorry, I think I missed that part in your original post. I apologize, hopefully you'll find a solution asap. Fingers crossed