Introduction and what i was doing when issue started.
Recently i made some upgrades to my PC a new monitor and few days later new Ram kit (Replaced old not added) booted up the PC browsed internet a little played 3 hours of State of decay 2 all working perfectly shut down the game went afk to load up the dishwasher when i got back PC refused to wake up from sleep so pressed the reset button and this issue occurred quite randomly and it is ONLY happening in windows / Browser but not in games.
I cannot watch youtube, happens a lot there (but when i tried to bait the issue and record ofc it didnt happen for 30 min) since it mostly happened in browser (Vivaldi) i swapped to Brave same thing there then i went into AMD Driver and it happened there as well and since it was a fresh instal of the driver i figured i would re-install Windows IF it is a software issue that should solve it nope didnt... now im on Firefox which seems to be most reliable but it still happens. sometimes not at all for 30 minutes sometimes i dont even get into windows before it happens
The issue.
first i was having issues with Display port and my AMD drivers the full installation did not want to work had to reinstall it and select minimal but every time my pc went into sleep it reset all settings and discord said "new audio device found" (not sure if this is relevant but all this happened within 3 days)
When i am not in a game (oddly enough) my screen gets sort of like flickering artefacts (lines) similar to a broken monitor and hard freeze when i reboot it says "Usb device not recognized" and my keyboard didnt work had to replug it and this now happens on every reboot
one time it happened it did a auto scan / repair of C: and once in windows
few times when it made the artefacts but did not fully freeze i got AMD Driver Time out warning or something like that hard to translate
Video of the artefacts happening
What i tried.
- Since it started shortly after i changed my ram i swapped the old ram back and it still happens, swapped in some really old 4gb and same issue so it cant be the ram unless the slots on motherboard.
- Reinstalled windows totally fresh install and same issue
- Googled and watched youtube on my TV and phone to perhaps find a fix
- I could not find any dump file in "C:\Windows\Minidump" so shouldnt be windows related shrug ?
- I checked for driver updates but i am using the latest 21.5.2 driver and i did read many had issues with this driver so i downgraded and still the same issue.
What i think
Option 1: i think it might be PSU sending Power spikes that cause the artefacts and freeze
Option 2: Motherboard / CPU since it is not the Ram it could be the ram slot on the motherboard if that is the issue but some on google said it could be CPU so perhaps?
Option 3: GPU Since this device controls the frames that show up on the monitor it would make sense that it is this device that is malfunctioning (it is also one of the oldest in the system) and if anything i hope it is this since i am waiting on price drops to replace it
Most my friends say its either Motherboard or GPU one guy on Linustechtips said it leans towards GPU but i want more opinions
fun note: what i find interesting is that all the problems so far i googled for, the specs of the PC were always - Radeon graphic card, and 50/50 on AMD or intel CPU
Might steal my wifes GPU when she not using her pc and see if that fixes things
Speccs
Motherboard; ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-H GAMING (Bios Version 2701)
Cpu: Intel Core i7-8700K Overclocked to 4.3 (Noctua NH-U12S)
GPU:Sapphire Radeon TRI-X R9 290 4GB
Ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB) / 3200MHz / DDR4 / CL16 / CMK32GX4M2E3200C16
Bootdrive: Corsair Force MP510 SSD 240GB M.2 NVMe
Psu: Corsairs HX750W
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