New build PC freezes for about 10 seconds and then resumes but sound stops playing

[alfie_miskin]

Hello all,

I am relatively new to PC's and builds however I decided to build my own PC before starting university in September just gone. Specs are:

Motherboard - MSI Z370 Gaming pro carbon
RAM - 2x8gb Gskill F4-3200C16D
GPU - MSI GTX 1070 8GB Armor OC Ed
Processor - i7 8700K
PSU - Seasonic 750W (SSR-750FX)

I've got 2 240GB kingston SSD's raided and a 1tb normal HDD.

The issue has been from the start, annoyingly. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing on the PC, it's happened whilst i've been playing a game (The Forest), just been scrolling through facebook and listening to music, whilst watching a tv show. It doesn't seem to relate to what I'm doing.

The issue is my PC freezes for about 10-15 seconds and then resumes but sound stops playing through my speakers afterwards. If I'm listening to music at the time it continues to play whilst frozen but almost in slow motion and robot like and then as it comes out of the freeze the music stops and I have to restart my PC to get sound back (however if i switch to my monitor speakers they still work). Also, when it freezes, I'm not sure what component it would be but something (or the entire PC) sounds like it's working really hard. It whirls up and for the entirety of the freeze but then drops back to normal afterwards.

Things I've tried:
- Due to the sound turning off I tried disabling all sound through the BIOS and device manager but it still froze.
- I stress tested my memory and CPU for 20 hours using Prime95 and it came back with no issues.
- I've run a GPU stress test for 20 minutes and it came back with no issues.
- I've tried updating drivers for everything and it still persists.
- Just last night I tried resetting my PC through windows 10 and then reinstalling drivers and it's just froze on me again.

I spent a lot of hard earned money on this PC and it's really frustrating me that it is not working correctly! Anyone able to help? Please let me know any further questions you may have if I've forgotten anything.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ralston18]

You can look in Reliabilty History for error codes and warnings.

You can open and run either Task Manager or Resource Monitor to observe what your system is doing.

Open one or the other and watch/explore for a few minutes. Then slide the window to one side bu leave open. Game and work as usual while continuing to observe what your system is doing.

You may spot some bottleneck or discover some combination of events that causes the freezes to occur.

 

[alfie_miskin]

Hi Ralston,

I have had a little look at reliability history and there wasn't any errors or warnings of the time my computer froze. But I'll keep an eye on it just in case anything does pop up.

I'll give leaving task manager open a shot and see if anything peculiar arises.

Thanks for your advice and I'll update next time it freezes.

 

[alfie_miskin]

So my PC just froze on me again however nothing odd seemed to pop up in regards to the "performance" tab in task manager. There's also nothing in reliability history. This time when it froze I was watching a tv show and the sound didn't go slow motion but just made one loud noise. And the sound is working afterwards this time without me having to restart.

Any further ideas as to things to check or perhaps more detail or what I should be checking?

Are you aware of any monitoring software that would pick up on the freezing given that reliability history doesn't seem to?

 

[Ralston18]

What was the "loud noise"? A pop, a beep, a crackle, something else?

How is everything plugged in: different wall outlets, a generic outlet extender, a surge protector, UPS?

Event Viewer may help:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

And after that, Performance Monitor.

Start with Event Viewer: You can click entries to get more information about what happened.

Also it can also report "Number of events 0" but what is actually happening is that data is being gathered in the meantime. So allow any particular selection/view a minute or so to ensure that there are, indeed, no events. After a few looks you will probably get a sense of the process and the times needed.

Performance Monitor is more cumbersome but something may be found therein..

 

[The Original Ralph]

i've posted this suggestion about 10 times now, and posters have come back about half those times that it worked for them. I had a similiar issue with my screen going black unpredictably, didn't matter what i was doing, but i didn't loose sound. The below solution worked for me

- there's a thread over on the Geforce forums, with the mods there indicating the current Nvidia drivers are buggy, and they identify the last known stable driver - start at about the 3rd post in the thread
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1035287/nvlddmkm-sys-crashing/?offset=1

if you try it, be sure to follow their instructions for un-installing your existing driver, ie running DDU in safe mode

hope that helps

 

[bmockeg]

If it's been from the start, probably that SSD raid. I'd try one single and see how it reacts.

 

[Calvin7]

F4-3200C16D looks like a partial model number.

i7 8700K supports 2666MHz and higher frequencies are commonly used when overclocking.

Model F4-3200C16D-16GVKB
• DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)
• Timing 16-18-18-38
• CAS Latency 16
• Voltage 1.35V

What is the current memory clock speed, timings and DRAM voltage? Is CPU overclocked?

Check for defective memory with Memtest86:
https://www.memtest86.com/

 

[alfie_miskin]

What was the "loud noise"? A pop, a beep, a crackle, something else?

How is everything plugged in: different wall outlets, a generic outlet extender, a surge protector, UPS?

Event Viewer may help:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

And after that, Performance Monitor.

Start with Event Viewer: You can click entries to get more information about what happened.

Also it can also report "Number of events 0" but what is actually happening is that data is being gathered in the meantime. So allow any particular selection/view a minute or so to ensure that there are, indeed, no events. After a few looks you will probably get a sense of the process and the times needed.

Performance Monitor is more cumbersome but something may be found therein..

Hi again Ralston, thanks for coming back to me.

In regards to the noise it makes, I'd describe it as a "whirring". Not sure how else I'd describe it, to me it sounds like something working very quickly - for example something spinning quickly. My GUESS would be a HDD (which reading other comments on this thread it could be the SSD Raid). I don't know PC's that well if I'm honest hence it being a blind guess, would any other components be likely to make a noise as that I've described?

Everything from my PC (The tower itself, 2 monitors & speakers) are all plugged into a standard extension lead. Unfortunately I'm not blessed with much other option in regards to spreading plugs around. The extension lead itself is a little old though, if you think it may be worth replacing.

Thanks for the advice in regards to Event viewer. I'll keep that open and try and monitor anything that pops up next time it freezes. Ironically it has literally just frozen as I was writing this message!! Nothing on event viewer as of yet.

I'll report back. Thanks!

 

[alfie_miskin]

If it's been from the start, probably that SSD raid. I'd try one single and see how it reacts.

Hi bmockeg,

Thanks for your advice, I'll give this a go and see what happens!

 

[alfie_miskin]

F4-3200C16D looks like a partial model number.

i7 8700K supports 2666MHz and higher frequencies are commonly used when overclocking.

Model F4-3200C16D-16GVKB
• DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)
• Timing 16-18-18-38
• CAS Latency 16
• Voltage 1.35V

What is the current memory clock speed, timings and DRAM voltage? Is CPU overclocked?

Check for defective memory with Memtest86:
https://www.memtest86.com/

Hi Calvin,

My apologies, I bought the ram through Amazon - the full name is:
"Gskill F4-3200C16D-16GVGB Memory D4 3200 16 GB C16 RipV K2, 2 x 8 GB, 1.35 V, RipjawsV Black"

I haven't done any overclocking to any components at all. Forgive my naivety but how would I go about finding out my current memory clock speed, timings and DRAM voltage?

I'll give memtest a go as well, thanks.

 

[alfie_miskin]

i've posted this suggestion about 10 times now, and posters have come back about half those times that it worked for them. I had a similiar issue with my screen going black unpredictably, didn't matter what i was doing, but i didn't loose sound. The below solution worked for me

- there's a thread over on the Geforce forums, with the mods there indicating the current Nvidia drivers are buggy, and they identify the last known stable driver - start at about the 3rd post in the thread
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1035287/nvlddmkm-sys-crashing/?offset=1

if you try it, be sure to follow their instructions for un-installing your existing driver, ie running DDU in safe mode

hope that helps

Hi Ralph, thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot. Willing to try anything at this point!

 

[Calvin7]

If you don't know how to set memory parameters, your going to have problems. Here are some pictures of the AC model BIOS which is similar. Notice DDR Speed is 2133MHz in the pictures.
https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8424/msi-z370-gaming-pro-carbon-ac-motherboard-review/index5.html

PAGE 61 of downloadable Motherboard manual:

• Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.) [Disabled]
X.M.P. (Extreme Memory Profile) is the overclocking technology by memory module.
Please enable XMP or select a profile of memory module for overclocking the memory.
This item will be available when the memory modules that support X.M.P. is installed.
• DRAM Reference Clock [Auto]*
Sets the DRAM reference clock. The valid value range depends on the installed CPU.
This item appears when a CPU that supports this adjustment is installed.
• DRAM Frequency [Auto]
Sets the DRAM frequency. Please note the overclocking behavior is not guaranteed.
• Adjusted DRAM Frequency
Shows the adjusted DRAM frequency. Read-only.