[SOLVED] My PC keeps freezing and the only way to get out of it is power cycling it! Help

[michael.montanez]

FX 8350 Black Edt
Gigabyte R9 280X factory OC'd
Hyper X (2 sticks) 8 GB DDR 1866 MHz
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P
Rosewill Tachyon 650W PSU
1TB SSHD ~ 180GB Free
120GB Kingston SSD ~ 40GB Free

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Basically, I thought this was just a fortnite specific problem for months, about 5 months ago it just started crashing but allowing me to alt-ctrl-dlt out, about 2 months ago now it crashes and wont let me alt-ctrl-dlt and the mouse wont move at all! Nothing is responsive. I decided to try a few games and low and behold it crashes on them aswell! (Watch Dogs, DmC) and last night it crashed in GIMP also!

Please, help. I just want to be able to play fortnite with my brother

Also should throw in there, I ran GIMPS Prime 95 and on the first box all the way at the bottom it crashed in about a minute and a half and forced me to do another power cycle reboot.

 

[Satan-IR]

Those are somehow power-hungry CPU and GPU and I think can use something around 350W under heavy load. Crashes that are getting worse as time passes and are resolved by power cycling and cold boots might indicate a failing PSU.

You can disconnect everything from the PSU. Plug the PSU in mains and do the paperclip trick to turn it on and leave it running. If by any chance it goes off on its own with no load it's most probably failing.

 

[michael.montanez]

Would the power supply be the issue if the pc is just freezing and not shutting down? I have to manually hold the power button to reboot but the power is still on - so I just wanted to make sure,

Also whats the paper clip test?

 

[Satan-IR]

Yes as I'm sure you've noticed I said it "might indicate a failing PSU" as in it's not the definite cause. Sometimes the PSU just dies out of he blue and if you're lucky it doesn't take one or more components down with it.

Other cases there are random freezes/hangs then occasional BSODs and later random restarts and needs power cycling to reboot and so on and so forth.

I think if you're not familiar with the paperclip test you shouldn't do it.

If possible borrow a similar PSU from a friend or someone and see if the system freezes again. Or have your PSU tested by a skilled technician.

On a relatively different note it might not also be a bad idea to check your SSD/HDD's health. See if there are any bad sectors and such.

 

[michael.montanez]

Ok so once I get a new PSU (might be a few weeks) I'll confirm the issue. I forgot to mention that when I cold start my PC it never boots the first try, it cuts on as you hear fans spinning then cut off for about 1-2 seconds then cuts on and works again.