Question Windows freezing after CPU/RAM/MOBO upgrade ?

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berb12

Mar 10, 2025
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After a few minutes (can be instantly) windows will completely freeze and on occasion restart, but still frozen, requiring a shut down.

Windows is also having trouble updating anything, and the entire system feels extremely sluggish especially with extremely slow download speeds (50kb/s - 500kb/s, usually 10mb/s+.)

Here are the things I've tried:
*Updating BIOS to latest
*Updating Chipset to latest
*Updating LAN driver to latest
*Updating Windows to latest (failed)
*Different ram DIMMS in different slots
*Removing unnecessary USB connections
*Turning off EXPO
*clearing CMOS
*scannow in cmd prompt
*Reinstalling Windows (failed)

If you're curious how reinstalling windows failed, I used a USB to reinstall Windows 11 on the original boot drive. The system is so unstable that during the Windows download it will randomly restart the entire computer and reset the entire Windows setup process.

Another point of interest is that after each restart during the setup process, my peripherals are not registered unless replugged into the USB ports.

This happened after upgrading to a Gigabyte b850m chipset, R7 7700x, and DDR5 7600 cl36 and instantly started happening upon booting into windows. I'm coming from a R7 3700x, b550m-vc chipset, and DDR4 3600 cl18.

I'm currently stuck in a loop of trying to install Windows, restarting, installing Windows, etc.

Specs:
R7 7700X
GIGABYTE RTX 3080 10GB
DDR5 7600 cl36 32GB (running at 5200)
GIGABYTE B850m gaming x wifi6e
 
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Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

If you're curious how reinstalling windows failed, I used a USB to reinstall Windows 11 on the original boot drive. The system is so unstable that during the Windows download it will randomly restart the entire computer and reset the entire Windows setup process.
I noticed a tag on your thread that states 23H2, we're currently on 24H2. Use a donor system to recreate your bootable USB installer for Windows 11. To add, remove the discrete GPU from your build, work off the iGPU. If you don't encounter any hiccups, then it's probable the PSU you have is faulty or failing.

Specs:
R7 7700X
GIGABYTE RTX 3080 10GB
DDR5 7600 cl36 32GB (running at 5200)
GIGABYTE B850m gaming x wifi6e
When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

DDR5 7600 cl36 32GB (running at 5200)
Got a link to this ram kit? Looking at the frequency for the ram, I'm pretty cure you picked up a ram kit that's meant for an Intel platform.
 
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berb12 said:
windows will completely freeze and on occasion restart, but still frozen, requiring a shut down.
Windows is also having trouble updating anything, and the entire system feels extremely sluggish
Here are the things I've tried:
*Different ram DIMMS in different slots
*Turning off EXPO
Click to expand...
Install single ram module in slot A2.
Turn off EXPO.
Check CPU temperature in BIOS. CPU might be overheating, if CPU cooler is not installed properly.
 
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Lutfij said:
CPU: R7 7700x stock
CPU cooler: NH-D15
Motherboard: Gigabyte B850M Gaming x Wifi6e
Ram: FFXD516G7600HC36FBK (1 16gb dimm in the b2 slot as of now, Hynix A die)
SSD/HDD: Crucial 1TB nvme boot drive, 2TB HDD, 1TB HDD, 1TB SSD
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 3080 10GB
PSU: Seasonic focus 750w 80+ gold, 2 years old
Chassis: some cheap matx case
OS: Windows 11
Monitor: Gigabyte m27 q 1440p 240hz
Click to expand...
Here's the updated spec list, the bios is F3b, AMD AGESA 1.2.0.3a PatchA and the chipset driver is 7.01.08.129

Windows is being difficult with me, i finally was able to fresh install Windows but it's unable to install the "2025-02 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Version 24H2 for x64-based systems (KB5051987)"

It wants me to restart the system to apply the update I assume, but when I restart nothing changes and just prompts to restart again.
 
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Lutfij said:
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

If you're curious how reinstalling windows failed, I used a USB to reinstall Windows 11 on the original boot drive. The system is so unstable that during the Windows download it will randomly restart the entire computer and reset the entire Windows setup process.
I noticed a tag on your thread that states 23H2, we're currently on 24H2. Use a donor system to recreate your bootable USB installer for Windows 11. To add, remove the discrete GPU from your build, work off the iGPU. If you don't encounter any hiccups, then it's probable the PSU you have is faulty or failing.

Specs:
R7 7700X
GIGABYTE RTX 3080 10GB
DDR5 7600 cl36 32GB (running at 5200)
GIGABYTE B850m gaming x wifi6e
When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

DDR5 7600 cl36 32GB (running at 5200)
Got a link to this ram kit? Looking at the frequency for the ram, I'm pretty cure you picked up a ram kit that's meant for an Intel platform.
Click to expand...
Okay, I just replied to you and since then Windows crashed and booted me into the BIOS

The boot option priorities is greyed out and the system no longer boots me into windows.

I reseated the ram and got back into windows, so now I'm pretty confident this is a hardware (ram) problem.

Still, I'm not sure if just "bad ram" can make Windows not able to apply an update or work like this?
 
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For anybody following or trying to help me, I think I've finally figured out why it was freezing.

I ran memtest64 and there were no errors leading me to believe this had nothing to do with the RAM, I decided to check the NVME drive that Windows was installed on, I reseated the drive into another slot onto the board. Windows ran a set of restoration/update screens and eventually I booted into Windows.

First thing I did was attempt to install the updates that would not download no matter what, and sure enough after a restart they applied to the system and my Windows is now up to date. 2 hours later and still stable (woo!)|

Thanks everybody for the assistance.

tl;dr NVME SSD slot is shot on this motherboard
 
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berb12 said:
For anybody following or trying to help me, I think I've finally figured out why it was freezing.

I ran memtest64 and there were no errors leading me to believe this had nothing to do with the RAM, I decided to check the NVME drive that Windows was installed on, I reseated the drive into another slot onto the board. Windows ran a set of restoration/update screens and eventually I booted into Windows.

First thing I did was attempt to install the updates that would not download no matter what, and sure enough after a restart they applied to the system and my Windows is now up to date. 2 hours later and still stable (woo!)|

Thanks everybody for the assistance.

tl;dr NVME SSD slot is shot on this motherboard
Click to expand...
Might be worth re-seating the CPU in the socket.
 
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Yesterday I uploaded a forum regarding random freezing and crashes in Windows here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/windows-freezing-after-cpu-ram-mobo-upgrade.3875501/

Since then I was confident the issue was resolved by moving my NVME SSD from the main slot to a secondary slot on my motherboard, but the damn freezing still persists. Although the system is still unstable, the stability has greatly increased through slight tweaking and PBO curves in the BIOS, hardware reseating, and even more driver updates.

For anybody wondering what is actually happening here is a quick explanation: Cursor stops reacting, keyboard doesn't work, ctrl+alt+dlt doesn't work, and after some time the system will restart and boot back into windows, rarely does it need a full restart ever since I did those slight tweaks and troubleshooting. Occasionally when I'm in BIOS the system will restart, not sure if that's related in any way.

Here is a list of all the things I can remember doing to the system to try and remedy the stability issues:
*Reseat CPU
*Reseat all RAM slots, including exchanging each DIMM in each individual slot
*Reseat GPU
*Un-plug and Re-plug every SATA/DATA connection
*Fresh install of Windows 11
*Windows repair through settings
*Remove ALL unnecessary USB connections
*Update BIOS to latest (F3b, AMD AGESA 1.2.0.3a PatchA)
*Update Chipset to latest (7.01.08.129)
*Update Audio, WIFI, Bluetooth, and LAN drivers
*Clearing CMOS
*Turning off EXPO (running at 5200mhz jedec speed)
*Scannow in cmd prompt
*On/off hybrid mode on my PSU
*NVIDIA driver installation (572.70-desktop-win10-win11-64bit-international-dch-whql)
*Disable Global C-State Control in BIOS
*Turn off Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling in Windows settings
*Move my NVME around to the other slot

Full spec list:
CPU: R7 7700x stock
CPU cooler: NH-D15
Motherboard: Gigabyte B850M Gaming x Wifi6e
Ram: FFXD516G7600HC36FBK (running at 5200 jedec)
SSD/HDD: Crucial 1TB NVME boot drive, 2TB HDD, 1TB HDD, 1TB SSD
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 3080 10GB
PSU: Seasonic focus 750w 80+ gold, 2 years old
Chassis: some cheap M-ATX case
OS: Windows 11
Monitor: Gigabyte M27Q X1440p 240hz and ACER XB241H 144hz 1080p

My old system was a Ryzen 7 3700x, B550-vc chipset, and DDR4 corsair vengeance LPX cl18

80% of the crashes occur when playing in file explorer, browsing the web (Opera GX), and 70% of that 80%, downloading apps/files/anything. The other 20% are trying to load up benchmarking software or stress testing (rare.) The BIOS settings I've touched on earlier were the Global C-State Control, and a -30 offset to my PBO curve, and 85C temp limit to the CPU. Everything else is default/auto.

None of these things ever happened to my system prior to installing the R7 7700x, Gigabyte MOBO, or new RAM, all drives are <4 years old and have NEVER given me issues and come back healthy with crystaldiskmark and windows format software.

I ran furmark and prime95 for roughly 30 minutes together and zero crashes after BIOS tweaks, Cinebench for 25 minutes and zero crashes after BIOS tweaks, crystaldiskmark for a few tests on each drive and one crash on the C drive during write, but never happened again after 2-3 more tests, memtest64 for 30 minutes and zero crashes.

In short, I have zero clue what's happening, I thought it could be my PSU, but it was sitting at full load for 30+ minutes without a crash. The RAM could still *maybe* be a culprit, but probably not? The GPU worked fine in the last build so no reason it would cause any problems here. The CPU never errored in prime95. I don't know. The system froze once just writing this with few things in the background.

EDIT: My temps are normal, 40c CPU idle and 30C GPU temp idle
 
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How much time did you run the memtest? You should leave it for several hours. Have you tried running windows in safe mode? That would say something if there are no crashes.
At this point, i would start from scratch, make a new windows media creation tool, connect only one booting drive, if it fails the NVME, connect only one SSD , occupy half of the ram slots,. If it passes testing start adding parts to find the culprit
 
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Tolis_GR said:
How much time did you run the memtest? You should leave it for several hours. Have you tried running windows in safe mode? That would say something if there are no crashes.
At this point, i would start from scratch, make a new windows media creation tool, connect only one booting drive, if it fails the NVME, connect only one SSD , occupy half of the ram slots,. If it passes testing start adding parts to find the culprit
Click to expand...
I'm currently running the memtest at different frequencies and can't even get past a 5 minute run (or past ~3 loops.) I've tried as low as 4800 and as high as 7600, both are unstable as hell.

This is quite odd, as yesterday it was passing this test for 20+ minutes just fine. So I guess the RAM is suspect and I'm crazy? Either that or the PSU is failing.
 
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berb12 said:
I'm currently running the memtest at different frequencies and can't even get past a 5 minute run (or past ~3 loops.) I've tried as low as 4800 and as high as 7600, both are unstable as hell.

This is quite odd, as yesterday it was passing this test for 20+ minutes just fine. So I guess the RAM is suspect and I'm crazy? Either that or the PSU is failing.
Click to expand...
Not likely for a psu to fail in a memtest. You can try each ram stick separately in the same slot because if they pass you should look at mobo/cpu
 
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