[SOLVED] New build keeps freezing at idle or light loads. Stable under heavy loads. No idea what is causing this.

[frenchbread]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor | $369.00 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler | $109.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Asus PRIME X570-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard | $259.99 @ Newegg
Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL14 Memory | $124.99 @ Corsair
Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL14 Memory | $124.99 @ Corsair
Storage | Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | $184.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | $239.99 @ Amazon
Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card |-
Case | Phanteks Eclipse P600S ATX Mid Tower Case | $169.99 @ Newegg
Power Supply | Corsair HX Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $184.99 @ Amazon
Operating System | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit | $139.88 @ Other World Computing
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-11-12 00:57 EST-0500 |
Running a fresh install of Windows 10 since I built this PC in September. No antivirus or internet security other than Windows Defender is installed.

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My new build is freezing at idle or under light loads and I cannot figure out what is causing this.

• It will freeze at idle during the screen saver. Given enough time at idle, this will always occur.
• It will freeze while browsing the internet. It gets really weird when this happens. I can scroll through webpages, but clicking on links or opening new tabs becomes unresponsive. I cannot open the task manager, and when I try to shutdown or restart, Windows is unresponsive. It's like the rest of the computer is frozen, but there is enough of Chrome still functioning to let me scroll.
• The only game it will freeze while playing is AoE III Definitive Edition frequently - almost every other match. (I had one freeze in Civ VI, but that is a funky game and could be unrelated.)

I have not experienced freezes during demanding games like Halo Infinite, Battlefield, Flight Sim, The Witcher, Dark Souls. I can play these games for hours with no issue. Idle and light loads are when freezing occurs.

Under heavy loads like Prime95 or OCCT the computer is stable while under stress testing and has no issues.

Windows Reliability History does not provide any useful information. I have upgraded through several Nvidia drivers and so far the issue remains. (This card was from my old PC and I never had issues with it, so it seem unlikely the GPU is the issue.) I have checked with the Asus utility that all other drivers are up to date, and I have made sure to reset the BIOS to default settings. Temperatures are good.

The only odd thing is I have tried to update my AMD Chipset Drivers using AMD's utility, but it continues to fail the installation with error 1603. I was able to install chipset drivers from Asus, though they are not as up to date.

Any help or guidance you can provide in diagnosing this issue is appreciated. I can't tell if this is a Windows issue or if I have a hardware issue (perhaps the motherboard?).

 

[Nighthawk117]

When I've had this behaviour with Ryzen in the past it was the RAM. Two kits at 3600Mhz can cause this sometimes, try disabling XMP and seeing if it's stable. If not I would try each RAM kit separately to see if it's stable. Has this issue always been present on this build?

 

[frenchbread]

Do you think MemTest64 would be able to find issues like this? XMP should be disabled when I reset the BIOS to factory, but I will double check. I guess I could always remove one kit and see if the problems go away.

I can't remember exactly when this started, but it's been happing for at least a couple of months now.

 

[Nighthawk117]

How long ago did you build the PC? It's worth running MemTest64 yes, though sometimes it can take a while to find the problem. I think from a hardware point of view RAM would be the first thing to look at as Ryzen can be a little fussy with XMP. My personal build is intel, I recently had an issue with random instability under light loads, it took me months of debugging and testing different RAM kits, GPU's, CPU's, SSD's, new Windows install ect... only to find it was actually the motherboard. Put another one in a couple of months ago and haven't had a problem since. I wouldn't go there just yet though because that's a right pain, I'd look at the RAM first.