Praying that you fine people will be able to help me figure this out because at this point I don't know where to turn anymore.
Here is my setup:
The computer and display will completely freeze up, seemingly randomly. At least once or twice per day. Never the same times. Sometimes it's a gradual freeze where certain windows stop responding before freezing completely. Sometimes it's a full freeze and then the screen goes black. Sometimes it freezes and then recovers itself. So weird. Sometimes (though not always) it also makes that sound that a device or cable has been disconnected. Also, sometimes when it freezes up it appears to be just the visual things (external and laptop monitors) while the lighting effects on my keyboard+mouse+laptop all continue. Other times the lighting on everything freezes too.
Not sure if related or not, but certain apps and games cause the screen the flicker like crazy while others do not. Research shows that this may be a refresh rate issue and that's been happening long since these freezes/crashes so never thought it would be related but maybe I'm wrong.
At first I tried figuring this out with software drivers and updates etc but eventually I just wiped all partitions and did a full clean install of Windows 11. Updated everything properly (especially GPU). The Ryzen has onboard Radeon tech so I made sure not to install the actual Radeon software package, only the drivers. Nor did I install any of ASUS's nightmare-in-a-file (Armory Crate and so on), save for the MyASUS app which I thought would be harmless enough. Freezes continue to occur. I tried pausing Windows Update because I thought that might be it, no luck. Also thought maybe something could be broken with the monitor software so I turned off the Gigabyte Auto Switch Input feature. And for good measure I tried a different DisplayPort port. Nothing, still occurs.
The main reason this is maddening is because I can't find out how to replicate the issue. It really does appear to be random. The ONLY common denominator appears to be that the freezing begins when I click on something - the notifications tab on Twitter, a tab in my browser, switching windows, I don't know. But it could also be that this is only when I notice it. Regarding times of the day - random.
After every occurrence, I check the Windows Reliability Monitor history. Often times it's a LiveKernelEvent 117 or 141. Sometimes it's bad_module_info. And on at least several occasions, like the most recent one that made me write this post, it didn't show anything at all other than "Windows was not properly shut down".
The reason this is being posted under Windows 11 and not Hardware is because I want to try and eliminate the possibility of this being a software/driver issue, am still not certain yet. Can anyone recommend some sort of info/log software I can install that will help track what's going on every time there's a freeze?
Thanks so much in advance to anyone who's contributed the 10 minutes to read all this!
[Edit: just a small addition that I ran Heaven Benchmark on max settings and it was smooth as butter. Does not appear to be a "GPU load" issue]
Here is my setup:
- ASUS ROG Strix Scar 15 with AMD Ryzen 9500 and Nvidia GeForce 3080 (Laptop Edition)
- 32 GB RAM
- Connected Gigabyte G34WQC monitor (the laptop has DisplayPort power on its sole USB-C port so I'm using a USB-C to DisplayPort cable)
- Razer keyboard+mouse
The computer and display will completely freeze up, seemingly randomly. At least once or twice per day. Never the same times. Sometimes it's a gradual freeze where certain windows stop responding before freezing completely. Sometimes it's a full freeze and then the screen goes black. Sometimes it freezes and then recovers itself. So weird. Sometimes (though not always) it also makes that sound that a device or cable has been disconnected. Also, sometimes when it freezes up it appears to be just the visual things (external and laptop monitors) while the lighting effects on my keyboard+mouse+laptop all continue. Other times the lighting on everything freezes too.
Not sure if related or not, but certain apps and games cause the screen the flicker like crazy while others do not. Research shows that this may be a refresh rate issue and that's been happening long since these freezes/crashes so never thought it would be related but maybe I'm wrong.
At first I tried figuring this out with software drivers and updates etc but eventually I just wiped all partitions and did a full clean install of Windows 11. Updated everything properly (especially GPU). The Ryzen has onboard Radeon tech so I made sure not to install the actual Radeon software package, only the drivers. Nor did I install any of ASUS's nightmare-in-a-file (Armory Crate and so on), save for the MyASUS app which I thought would be harmless enough. Freezes continue to occur. I tried pausing Windows Update because I thought that might be it, no luck. Also thought maybe something could be broken with the monitor software so I turned off the Gigabyte Auto Switch Input feature. And for good measure I tried a different DisplayPort port. Nothing, still occurs.
The main reason this is maddening is because I can't find out how to replicate the issue. It really does appear to be random. The ONLY common denominator appears to be that the freezing begins when I click on something - the notifications tab on Twitter, a tab in my browser, switching windows, I don't know. But it could also be that this is only when I notice it. Regarding times of the day - random.
After every occurrence, I check the Windows Reliability Monitor history. Often times it's a LiveKernelEvent 117 or 141. Sometimes it's bad_module_info. And on at least several occasions, like the most recent one that made me write this post, it didn't show anything at all other than "Windows was not properly shut down".
The reason this is being posted under Windows 11 and not Hardware is because I want to try and eliminate the possibility of this being a software/driver issue, am still not certain yet. Can anyone recommend some sort of info/log software I can install that will help track what's going on every time there's a freeze?
Thanks so much in advance to anyone who's contributed the 10 minutes to read all this!
[Edit: just a small addition that I ran Heaven Benchmark on max settings and it was smooth as butter. Does not appear to be a "GPU load" issue]
Last edited:
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