[SOLVED] Computer freezes randomly

[xtro99]

Basically, my computer hard freezes and sometimes will even restart itself at what appears to be random intervals. Most of the time, the freezes come when I'm browsing and switching tabs, I can play Dark Souls 3, WoW and Witcher 3 for hours without a single problem, but It'll freeze if I mess around with my browser tabs (Chrome and Edge chromium) Sometimes It'll freeze when I'm doing absolutely nothing, just moving the mouse pointer on my desktop. I've found a few dump files that I'm simply unable to read and discern due to my own ignorance, but they all seem to be caused by "ntoskrnl.exe+3f6c20"

I've tried using different ram sticks, reinstalling drivers, updating BIOS and Windows and my temps are good, so I'm at a loss here. :/

My build is:

TUF Gaming Z590 Plus-wifi
i7-10700k
RTX 3060
2x8 G.Skill Trident Z
Spectrix S40G 1TB M.2
EVGA Supernova 750W Gold
Windows home

 

[WS1995]

Basically, my computer hard freezes and sometimes will even restart itself at what appears to be random intervals. Most of the time, the freezes come when I'm browsing and switching tabs, I can play Dark Souls 3, WoW and Witcher 3 for hours without a single problem, but It'll freeze if I mess around with my browser tabs (Chrome and Edge chromium) Sometimes It'll freeze when I'm doing absolutely nothing, just moving the mouse pointer on my desktop. I've found a few dump files that I'm simply unable to read and discern due to my own ignorance, but they all seem to be caused by "ntoskrnl.exe+3f6c20"

I've tried using different ram sticks, reinstalling drivers, updating BIOS and Windows and my temps are good, so I'm at a loss here. :/

My build is:

TUF Gaming Z590 Plus-wifi
i7-10700k
RTX 3060
2x8 G.Skill Trident Z
Spectrix S40G 1TB M.2
EVGA Supernova 750W Gold
Windows home

Are you running any overclock on the CPU or RAM?
Did you alter the voltages on either? (if either are overclocked)

Freezing is usually due to voltage, very common if a system has been overclocked but no changes to the voltages have been made.

It can also occur with bad RAM modules, or RAM modules that are not the same (i.e from the same kit).

Download CPU-Z, and post a few images from the CPU and SPC tabs.

If it's a kernel - in this case, ntoskrnl.exe, that's causing the issue, that is typically to do with the install of Windows itself, either the installer was dodgy or did not have all the required files, or that file has somehow become corrupted.

You can also try running Windows Refresh, it essentially allows you to keep your files, but re-installs a clean copy of Windows 10, although you will lose your applications that are installed, but the files outside of the windows install remain unaffected.

 

[xtro99]

I was running it with XMP on, Voltage was 1,35. I also disabled xmp and the problem persisted.

Yes I made the mistake of purchasing 2 2x8 Kits and was using 4x8 on all 4 slots, I finally realized that those memories only have 1,2 socket support so I took out two of the sticks that came from the same package leaving on two 8GB sticks, same issue persisted. I ran memtest on them 1 by 1 and they showed no issues whatsoever.

I did have some problems at first getting the system to work, first, the board wouldn't recognize my M.2 in any of the M.2 Slots until I plugged in a mechanical harddrive into one of the SATA ports, THEN the M.2 got detected (I have no clue what was going on) then, I updated the BIOS, installed windows and drivers directly from ASUS's website yet, many drivers were showing as either bad or missing in the device manager, Ethernet driver included (Warning signs)

I notice the missing drivers because that's when my computer started Freezing.

BTW, here are the pics of what you asked:

https://imgur.com/LMDI7Vq

View: https://imgur.com/LMDI7Vq

 

[WS1995]

I was running it with XMP on, Voltage was 1,35. I also disabled xmp and the problem persisted.

Yes I made the mistake of purchasing 2 2x8 Kits and was using 4x8 on all 4 slots, I finally realized that those memories only have 1,2 socket support so I took out two of the sticks that came from the same package leaving on two 8GB sticks, same issue persisted. I ran memtest on them 1 by 1 and they showed no issues whatsoever.

I did have some problems at first getting the system to work, first, the board wouldn't recognize my M.2 in any of the M.2 Slots until I plugged in a mechanical harddrive into one of the SATA ports, THEN the M.2 got detected (I have no clue what was going on) then, I updated the BIOS, installed windows and drivers directly from ASUS's website yet, many drivers were showing as either bad or missing in the device manager, Ethernet driver included (Warning signs)

I notice the missing drivers because that's when my computer started Freezing.

BTW, here are the pics of what you asked:

https://imgur.com/LMDI7Vq

View: https://imgur.com/LMDI7Vq

That would indicate that the missing drivers are what is causing the issue.

It may be worth trying a few things first...

Go into device manager, and expand all of the options... so expand "Storage adapters, display drivers, etc" and print screen it and post an image of it here.

It seems odd that using the latest drivers available would cause your system to keep locking up. Faulty drivers usually cause Blue screens, but freezing is normally due to either voltage configurations for RAM or CPU, especially if there is an overclock on either or both, or faulty RAM.

I assume it worked fine prior to installing any of the newer drivers... or has it never worked?

 

[xtro99]

That would indicate that the missing drivers are what is causing the issue.

It may be worth trying a few things first...

Go into device manager, and expand all of the options... so expand "Storage adapters, display drivers, etc" and print screen it and post an image of it here.

It seems odd that using the latest drivers available would cause your system to keep locking up. Faulty drivers usually cause Blue screens, but freezing is normally due to either voltage configurations for RAM or CPU, especially if there is an overclock on either or both, or faulty RAM.

I assume it worked fine prior to installing any of the newer drivers... or has it never worked?

It has never worked correctly. This system started acting up since day two. I think the drivers never really got fully installed to begin with, that's the very reason I started looking around the device manager in the first place. Many of the devices that had warning signs had all the "install", "update driver" buttons greyed out and due to my lack of knowledge, I resorted to using EasyDriver, and it basically autofilled the missing drivers, so the warnings are no longer showing but even after installing the missing drivers, the issue persisted. I'm going to try a different set of RAM sticks and see if anything changes.

I'm hesitant to mess around with voltages, the only thing I really did that resembles overclocking was to activate XMP but i never really did anything manually to the ram or CPU voltages. I guess I'll have to reset my bios and reinstall everything from scratch

 

[WS1995]

It has never worked correctly. This system started acting up since day two. I think the drivers never really got fully installed to begin with, that's the very reason I started looking around the device manager in the first place. Many of the devices that had warning signs had all the "install", "update driver" buttons greyed out and due to my lack of knowledge, I resorted to using EasyDriver, and it basically autofilled the missing drivers, so the warnings are no longer showing but even after installing the missing drivers, the issue persisted. I'm going to try a different set of RAM sticks and see if anything changes.

I'm hesitant to mess around with voltages, the only thing I really did that resembles overclocking was to activate XMP but i never really did anything manually to the ram or CPU voltages. I guess I'll have to reset my bios and reinstall everything from scratch

Ok... so this is a new or used PC that you have just started using, and it‘s not worked properly from the outset?

Personally, I would try to restore the bios defaults, I can‘t see this making any difference in this case, but it may do, a setting may have been altered that shouldn’t have been, you can usually find an option to restore defaults once you load into the bios, it usually involves pressing a function key, say F10 for instance.

If that doesn’t work, the next thing I would suggest is to perform a system refresh, also called Windows Refresh (assuming you are on Win 10), you can find this by clicking on start and searching for it in the taskbar. It should give you the option to keep your files but will remove all applications on the system, so any applications that don’t come by default with Windows 10 will be removed, but your files, so documents, photos, etc, will remain if you specify that.

It will then download and install a clean copy of Windows 10, allow it to activate and then once it’s done, check for the latest windows updates, if there are any, let them install.

After that, I would slowly try downloading the relevant drivers for each part, try them one at a time and restart the machine after each one, this way if one driver is causing the issue, it can be narrowed down.

See how you get on with those. If it comes to it, and you are happy to, I am prepared to remotely connect to your PC via teamviewer and take a look for you, whilst I can’t promise I will be able to fix the issue, it’s sometimes worth another set of eyes taking a look at the issue.

 

[SteveLosive]

I have been experiencing the same issue with my laptop. It completely freezes at random when I'm doing anything other than gaming or running anything in full-screen, which is completely strange. When it starts happening, I notice some slower performance in anything I have open than any window open freezes, taskbar right after, then my cursor freezes as well. Keep in mind that I cannot open anything (including task manager) during this. My laptop is a new OMEN that I've been using for around 2 months. This started happening during the 2nd week of usage.

It also cannot be linked to the CPU as I have slightly different specs:
CPU: Ryzen 7 5800H
GPU: RTX 3070 (Laptop Edition)
RAM: 16GB (15.3 usable)
OS: Windows 11 Home

I think this might be a software issue. It seems like that or power. I noticed my laptop never froze while running on battery. I keep it plugged in most of the time, though.

Edit: I read a couple of threads posted by people who have the same issue. Some of them figured out that the issue was RAM.

 

[USAFRet]

I have been experiencing the same issue with my laptop

Please start a NEW thread for your particular situation.
This one is almost a year old, and already Solved.