Question New PC freezes randomly, suspecting RAM issues

[LiljaFX]

Hi,

I put together a PC for my boyfriend about 1 month ago and since the start random hard freezes occur (meaning I have to shut the PC down via pressing the power button).
These freezes occur randomly, sometimes there a no freezes for a couple of days and then it suddenly freezes again. Also we had freezes while in idle, during gaming and once after booting up in the Windows Login screen.

I have read many posts and articles about such freezes but none of the proposed solutions did the trick.

The system:
intel i5-10600K
ASUS ROG STRIX Z490G-WiFi
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz
ASUS PH-GTX1050Ti-4G
Crucial MX500 1TB SSD
Corsair CX650M Power Supply

The GPU and old PSU were taken from the previous computer but after suspecting the PSU as the cause of the freezes I bought the mentioned Corsair CX650M with no improvement. The GPU has also been exchanged temporarily but no luck in avoiding the freezes.

After the freezes occured the first two times I stress tested CPU (Prime95), GPU (Unigine) and RAM (Memtest86) with no problems, no components were overheating or seemed unstable.

BIOS is on the newest version and all drivers are up-to-date. I looked into Windows energy settings but no improvement, the Event Log only shows the unexpected shutdown as a critical error but no other leads here. I looked into the BIOS settings for my RAM and changed the "auto" settings to manually set 3200MHz and 1.35V, as it says on the motherboard's support page regarding my memory.

What I found interesting was that, when testing the RAM sticks seperatly (stick 1 in slot 2 and next stick 2 in slot 4) the system froze quite quickly, with option 1 maybe after 5 minutes and with option 2 after roughly 30 minutes. That led me to the conclusion that it's no faulty RAM stick, but maybe I overlooked some settings in the BIOS regarding my RAM? It could have been coincidence but the normally the freezes happen every other day and not two freezes in the span of one hour.

I am back to the two RAM sticks inserted (correct slots as the mainboards manual says) and tried the "XMP II" setting ASUS offers in their BIOS (XMP without ASUS optimizing) to try and avoid any "auto" settings which may disturb the RAM, but just about an hour ago the next freeze occured (went 2 days without one beforehand).

I really can't be sure it's the RAM but maybe someone here has experience with something similar and can give me some advice. Thanks!

 

[rocktalkrock]

When you say freezing do you mean the video screen freezes or goes black or blue screens?
If you have audio playing when the PC freezes does the audio stop as well?

 

[LiljaFX]

I mean no inputs work anymore, the video screen just "freezes" (e.g. one time I let the PC run for a time while I was out and when i came back at say 4pm the monitors still showed 2pm, when the freeze happened). If sound was playing it is looping I guess, sounds like buzzing. If no audio played there will be no sound after the freeze.
I never once had a blue screen or a black screen, it always shows the last frame before the freeze. Also forgot to mention pressing the caps key on the keyboard doesn't light up the caps LED.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Try starting up Task Manager and going to the Startup tab. Try disabling any software you do not need like Sonic Studio, Sonic Radar, Virtual Mixer or DTS Sound Unbound. Any of the extra high end software that came with the motherboard and may be causing problems.

 

[LiljaFX]

Thanks for the advice, I will try that and see if it fixes the problem!

 

[LiljaFX]

Unfortunately this didn't fix the freezes, just now the computer froze while watching a video in Firefox and a very loud buzzing sound came from the headset.
After the force shutdown via power button it froze during starting, in the frame where Windows is loading (has a ROG logo instead of the Windows logo because of the mainboard) and the dots are moving in a circle. Had to force shutdown again. Does this somehow narrow down the possible causes?

 

[rocktalkrock]

Unfortunately this didn't fix the freezes, just now the computer froze while watching a video in Firefox and a very loud buzzing sound came from the headset.
After the force shutdown via power button it froze during starting, in the frame where Windows is loading (has a ROG logo instead of the Windows logo because of the mainboard) and the dots are moving in a circle. Had to force shutdown again. Does this somehow narrow down the possible causes?

"Freezing while watching a video with loud buzzing in the headset" and "freezing while starting up" sound like driver issues. Does your 1050ti also have the latest drivers?
At this point i would try removing the graphics card and boot using the onboard Intel graphics, just to see if you still have the same problems or they go away.

 

[LiljaFX]

"Freezing while watching a video with loud buzzing in the headset" and "freezing while starting up" sound like driver issues. Does your 1050ti also have the latest drivers?
At this point i would try removing the graphics card and boot using the onboard Intel graphics, just to see if you still have the same problems or they go away.

The 1050Ti drivers are up to date and I already reinstalled it once, unfortunately both GPUs I have are 1050Ti (different editions) so driver problems would probably occur with both.
I hope for now I messed up installing drivers so I will reinstall Windows and download the drivers again. If that doesn't fix it I will definitely take your advice and try it without the GPU.
Thanks again, I will get back when I have tested some more.

 

[rocktalkrock]

The 1050Ti drivers are up to date and I already reinstalled it once, unfortunately both GPUs I have are 1050Ti (different editions) so driver problems would probably occur with both.
I hope for now I messed up installing drivers so I will reinstall Windows and download the drivers again. If that doesn't fix it I will definitely take your advice and try it without the GPU.
Thanks again, I will get back when I have tested some more.

You can also try doing a clean install of your video drivers using DDU software (Display Driver Uninstaller).

 

[LiljaFX]

You can also try doing a clean install of your video drivers using DDU software (Display Driver Uninstaller).

Thanks for the tip, I will look into it!

 

[LiljaFX]

I reinstalled Windows 10 four days ago, this time taking the drivers from the mainboard's CD instead of downloading them from the support page because I had a feeling something could have gone wrong there the first time. Disable every unnecessary software on startup again and went fine for 4 days until it froze this morning when in a Teams call.
I installed the GPU driver with GeForce Experience, the mainboard drivers from the CD and have installed all available Windows updates. I will try to download the mainboard drivers from the ASUS support page later today but since this is what I did in the first place and the freezes happened I really don't see it fixing anything here