Computer Freezes When Using Both Monitors

[Mjgamer]

So this has been an extremely annoying problem that has extended for some time now, and I think I may have finally narrowed down what it is. My computer has been randomly freezing. The only way to get out of the freeze is to hit my reset switch. I say random because it doesn't matter if I'm playing a game or not. It could happen shortly after I restart (as in I can freeze and restart my comp 3 times in a single PUBG game), or many hours after I restart. At first I thought it might have had something to do with Steam and Discord, but then it froze when they weren't running.

After that I thought it might have had something to do with how my second SSD sometimes won't be recognized by Windows anymore. But the thing is, I don't often run programs off of that SSD, and my OS is on my first SSD so I don't understand how that could cause my entire computer to freeze. It was only recently when I realized that I have never crashed when using only my main monitor, or only my secondary monitor, but I only crash when I use both.

I have tried everything I can think of to fix this other than reinstalling Windows which is a huge pain in the ass since I would need to spend ages getting all of my stuff reinstalled and back to normal settings. I've updated my drivers, updated Windows, run MalwareBytes and Avast (both saw nothing), and nothing has fixed this. I'd really like to be able to use my second monitor without worrying about freezing, so I was wondering if anyone has ever had an issue like this before, or if anyone has any ideas about how to fix this.

2 Samsung 850 Evos 500GB
1 Seagate HDD 2TB
i7-4790k
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard
GIGABYTE Aorus GTX 1080Ti
Agon 1440p 144hz IPS monitor (main)
HP 2310m 1080p monitor (secondary)

 

[johnbl]

generally when you get a system freeze that does not produce a bugcheck. The freeze is due to a graphics driver getting messed up.
It is very common for motherboard audio drivers to mess up the gpu card sound support. Generally, you would want to update the motherboard audio driver from the motherboard vendors web site as a fix attempt. You might also want to disable any sound source that does not have a speaker attached to it. (ie if your monitors don't have speakers driven by your video cable, you would disable the gpu sound support, just be sure to keep the GPU sound drivers updated before you disable them or you can have other problems down the road)

also, make sure your gpu video drivers and your GPU sound drivers come from the same build. Sometimes Microsoft does a basic GPU driver update and people directly install the drivers from the GPU vendor without rebooting first.
Microsofts method copies the 1 new driver on the next system reboot. The GPU vendors install copies 3 new drivers without a reboot. When you eventually reboot your machine the Microsoft driver gets installed over the top of one oft the GPU drivers.
(same file name) and you end up having files from mixed versions of the drivers.


ssd with old firmware can cause the system to freeze, the firmware handles garbage collection when the system is idle.
if the drive firmware has a bug, the firmware does not get to run. The firmware Garbage collection runs after the drive is idle after 5 minutes. if you have the drive go to sleep at 10 minutes then the Garbage collection routines can get behind and slow the drive down. if the drive is full then the Garbage collection routines might not be able to move failing blocks to new locations. Oten the fix for this is to free up some space by deleting files and then booting your machine into bios and just leave the drive powered but not in use for a few hours. if the problem is related to a firmware bug you have to update the firmware. (seeing less and less of these bugs, lots of them in ssd made years ago.

there are also bugs in gsync and free sycn setting with certain graphics cards/monitors that hang the graphic card at certain refresh rates.

sometimes when a system is hung you can still force a memory dump to see what the problem is.
you would google "how to force a memory dump with a keyboard" make the registry settings and then force the memory dump the next time the system hangs. generally work when the gpu hangs but windows does not notice the hang.
IE the windows system still thinks it is running ok even though the graphics stopped updating.
newer versions of windows try to catch this case with watchdog timers that call a bugcheck