Question Freezing when left alone

[haha_titan]

Disclaimer: I made this account just to post this because I'm out of ideas, so apologies if this is in the wrong section or something as I'm unfamiliar with the forum. I have looked at some other forums here regarding freezing but few seem to have my exact same issue. The top solution in a relevant thread didn't appear to actually be a solution and was just asking someone to look at event logs without explaining what to do after.

Issue:
Fairly new PC, a little over a month old, and about 2 weeks in I experienced a freeze. It didn't seem problematic, so I updated my drivers and went about my day. The freeze occured while I was afk from the PC for about 5 minutes. Around about 4 days later, another freeze happened - this time I was not paying attention to the PC and looking at my phone. Another freeze never happened for another week and, once again, it was while I was not actually doing anything on the PC. Multiple freezes have happened and every time it's when there is no activity (not playing anything, not watching anything, not browsing, etc).

The nature of the freezes is just a full freeze. Mouse doesn't move, can't lock, can't open task manager, etc, and the only way to solve it is by restarting the whole PC. I have tried a plethora of fixes that I'll get into in a second but, as you might expect, none of these have made a difference and the random freezing still occurs.

Specs:
Windows 11
Intel i9-13900KF
RTX 4080 16 GB VRAM
32 GB DDR5 RAM
Asus Prime Z790-P

What I've tried:

• Windows updates
• Driver updates
• Sfc scan
• Increasing virtual memory
• DISM check
• Disk check
• Memory test
• Cleared temp files
• Updated BIOS
• Uninstalled aura/crate applications because I read somewhere they cause problems
• Adjusted power settings to best performance in the NVIDIA panel

The only thing I can think of that I haven't done yet is reinstall windows 11, but if nothing up there worked I'm not too sure if that'd even make a difference, so I want to hear some other ideas before I go ahead with that.

 

[Lafong]

What memory test did you use and how extensive or how long did you let it run?

Is that DDR 5 a kit of two 16 GB sticks? I'd be tempted to run on one stick for a while to see if that had any effect.

I've occasionally had total lockups...probably no more than one a year. I just consider it part of PC life and have never noticed any correlation with what I was doing at the time.

I hesitate to mention Event Viewer, which might be the rabbit hole of all time.

Did you look at that Reliability History or Performance Monitor? May be pointless.

 

[haha_titan]

What memory test did you use and how extensive or how long did you let it run?

Is that DDR 5 a kit of two 16 GB sticks? I'd be tempted to run on one stick for a while to see if that had any effect.

I've occasionally had total lockups...probably no more than one a year. I just consider it part of PC life and have never noticed any correlation with what I was doing at the time.

I used the Windows Memory Diagnostic app built in to windows 11. I let it run until it was complete and it never found any issues. I have two sticks of 16 GB.

 

[Lafong]

I used the Windows Memory Diagnostic app built in to windows 11. I let it run until it was complete and it never found any issues. I have two sticks of 16 GB.

As far as I know, that tool is not as extensive as the likes of Memtest....which would take longer and should be left to run for several passes if possible...perhaps overnight.

 

[haha_titan]

As far as I know, that tool is not as extensive as the likes of Memtest....which would take longer and should be left to run for several passes if possible...perhaps overnight.

Is memory likely to be the issue though? I play games that have high memory demands and haven't experienced an issue during it even once. 100% of all freezing happens when nothing is actually happening - I'm practically always afk during them and have left it still on the desktop or browser. I feel that if my memory sticks were failing then that would be evident while they're actually in use. I'll have a look at memtest to see though.

 

[boju]

Was Windows fresh installed on current hardware or cary over from something else?

Might want to have a look in Windows power plan advanced options not to turn off hdd. Personally i use balanced plan but edit a couple of things in adv options, hdd being one and display the other. Type never in the field you want disabled.

Booting Memtest86 from usb is the more thorough way of testing ram. Though bsod is more likely than a hard freeze.

Try a different graphics driver. If on latest currently then try few versions back.

What is your power supply?

And how about cpu temps under load? Core Temp is easy tool to understand.

 

[haha_titan]

Was Windows fresh installed on current hardware or cary over from something else?

Might want to have a look in Windows power plan advanced options not to turn off hdd. Personally i use balanced plan but edit a couple of things in adv options, hdd being one and display the other. Type never in the field you want disabled.

Booting Memtest86 from usb is the more thorough way of testing ram. Though bsod is more likely than a hard freeze.

Try a different graphics driver. If on latest currently then try few versions back.

What is your power supply?

And how about cpu temps under load? Core Temp is easy tool to understand.

The windows version on this PC is a fresh install. It was never installed over anything. Pretty much a completely new build that's only a little over a month old and has had w11 since I got it.

The power plan had it set to turn off the hard disk after 20 minutes, but I set it to Never just there. All freezes can happen just minutes after me leaving the pc idle though so I don't think that will be the issue. Otherwise it's set to Balanced.

I've tried a few drivers. When I first had the issue I updated my drivers and the problem still persisted, so I rolled back to a version before and it never changed. Since then I've updated to and currently use 528.24, although 531.41 is available. I'll probably get that later today but since previous updates and roll backs never fixed it, I doubt it'll make a difference. Often these freezes take days before they actually happen again so anything I do today I won't even be able to check for another couple of days.

Power supply is an RM850 which I am to believe is fine for my build. As for temperatures, everything is average under load. As I said earlier, none of the freezes happen when anything resource heavy is happening. It's all when nothing is really being used, most often on a pause youtube video or the desktop with no applications active, and the PC has been left alone while I'm afk for a couple of minutes; I just come back and it's frozen.

 

[boju]

It's a tough one. There's no standout red flags to me with what you've replied with. What about pcie cable to graphics card, it isn't resting against the side panel is it? There's been varying issues resulting in odd behaviour whereby the positioning of the pcie cable can cause strain from bending if it's against the case side panel. If it is try open it.

 

[haha_titan]

Update on this: Today, for the first time ever, it froze while I was actually doing something. I was just browsing google on firefox and it froze abruptly, rather than waiting for me to go afk. Nothing else was open. I did memtest and that was fine, my cables are fine etc. I think I just need to reinstall windows 11, but all things considered I'm not sure that'll help.

What shows up in the event viewer:

There's also a bunch of warnings that say "LSA package is not signed as expected. This can cause unexpected behaviour with Credential Guard" and give various PackageNames. These packages are: pku2u, negoexts, kerberos, tspkg, msv1_0, cloudap... and a bunch more, but they all happened in the same minute that the previous logs happened, so it might be related idk. I've had a look in the Event Viewer to some previous freezes and these warning seems to appear alongside all freezes. I'm not sure if the warning is causing the freezes or rather being caused by them.

 

[Ralston18]

Also look in Reliability History.

The timeline format may highlight some pattern.

 

[haha_titan]

Also look in Reliability History.

The timeline format may highlight some pattern.

Just updating what I did here: I looked at the Reliability History and noticed a pattern with something called Microsoft GameInput. On each of the freezes, this would either update or reconfigure at the same time. I looked around google and found that other people had similar issues with this thing. What I did was go into Services.msc and disable the GameInput Service.

I'm not entirely sure if that would resolve it - I read that some people's GameInput Service automatically enables itself after updates - but it's the only new thing I'm able to try at the moment.

 

[Ralston18]

Nicely done. Good start.

Do indeed determine if Microsoft updates re-enable the GameInput Service.

You may or may not be able to prevent that from happening. TBD.

Read the documentation and look through the relevant configuration screens very carefully.

There may be some "disable" or other "off feature" - just not obvious. Could be intentional.

Once the details are a bit more established then the focus can turn to finding a "fix".

In the meantime, avoid any third party tools or applications claiming to fix the problem.

And do stay out of the Registry. Registry editing is a last resort.

Also bear in mind that the problem could be some minor bug or glitch in Microsoft.

Might just get quietly fixed and disappear.

 

[johnbl]

you might start cmd.exe as an admin then run
powercfg.exe /energy
and look at the report.

what is the sleep timeout for your drive? thinking of a drive that goes to sleep but does not get the wake signal (or does not respond to the wake signal)

when the system freezes, if the keyboard still responds you could call for a kernel memory dump.
ie google how to force a kernel memory dump using a keyboard.
make the registry setting, then the next hang you force the kernel dump. Then copy the file to a server, share it for public access and post a link.

you might also go into windows control panel, device manager and find the option to show hidden drivers and take a look at the greyed out drivers. USB drivers are just hidden when removed. The device still runs and can cause problems.
delete any greyed out entries in the list.

 

[haha_titan]

Update on this:
Even though I've managed to get rid of GameInput services, the freezes still happen regularly. Only this time nothing shows up as happening at the same time in the reliability history. It sounds like it was a symptom of the freeze rather than being the cause, as the freezes still happen once every 1-2 days. The only odd thing now is that there is a "Windows was not properly shut down" message during a period where there wasn't a freeze. Hasn't replicated so probably a non-issue.

when the system freezes, if the keyboard still responds you could call for a kernel memory dump.

Unfortunately everything freezes completely, including the keyboard and mouse.

you might also go into windows control panel, device manager and find the option to show hidden drivers and take a look at the greyed out drivers. USB drivers are just hidden when removed. The device still runs and can cause problems.

The only hidden USB device is for the USB that I actually use. There's a few hidden things but I'm not sure if they're safe to remove? Something called "Asus System Product Name" is hidden under Computer; there's 3 different hidden Audio inputs/outputs; 8 different Wan Miniports that are hidden; some generic volume shadow copies. I can't find what the Asus System Product Name is so I won't uninstall unless someone says it won't be harmful, but overall nothing here looks too out of place.

 

[haha_titan]

you might start cmd.exe as an admin then run
powercfg.exe /energy
and look at the report.

I just did this and it came back with some errors and warnings. Here is what it shows:

 

[Endre]

Hello!

I believe that Windows 11 itself has some glitches.
In my case, if I don't use my PC for 30'-60', when I try to access any icon on the desktop, the PC will remain un-responsive for a few seconds, as if it would wake up from a sleep.
After that, it runs perfectly. No need to restart.

My suggestions:

1. I'd enter the BIOS menu and load optimal default settings (that will disable the XMP profile of the memory).
2. If step #1 doesn't solve the issue, try installing Windows 10 clean.