Question New PC randomly deadlock and needs to be force restarted.

[HelpMeI'mHopeless]

I built a new PC and almost every day it freezes randomly. Usually when it freezes I only have Chrome open. Doesn't happen during gaming sessions. Everything becomes unresponsive. Caps lock button doesn't light up. I need to hold down the power button and restart whole PC. There is no pattern, it just happens every couple of hours.

I ran diagnostics for ram, ssd, gpu, everything was fine.
I updated motherboard bios and that seemed to fix it but the issue came back.
I tried with xmp enabled as well as disabled, no difference.
Event viewer doesn't say anything. Windows doesn't create mindump files.
All drivers are up to date as far as I can tell. (If you know a better way of checking, please tell)
My power plan is set to most performance.

This has been happening pretty much since the day I built the pc. What else could I try before completely reinstalling the windows/drivers? I finally finished setting up environment for programming work, so I would rather not have to delete everything and start from scratch.

My pc specs:
CPU - intel i5-12400f
GPU - AMD RX 6600
MBO - Gigabyte b660m gaming x ax ddr4
RAM - Teamgroup tforce vulcan z
PSU - EVGA g5 650 watt

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[DavidM012]

No the idea is to isolate everything. Obviously you should power off, switch off the mains and press the power button a couple of times to drain the power, then remove the drive. and keep it in it's anti static bag for the duration of the test.

At this juncture I think running the system barebones will be more informative. It will help decide which parts to rma and detect any memory errors.

Memtest 86 only runs off usb anyway. You can use Rufus to prepare the usb disk for memtest. It will copy the .img to the usb and unpack it. Memtest also has a disk imager with the download. I just use Rufus.

 

[HelpMeI'mHopeless]

No the idea is to isolate everything. Obviously you should power off, switch off the mains and press the power button a couple of times to drain the power, then remove the drive. and keep it in it's anti static bag for the duration of the test.

At this juncture I think running the system barebones will be more informative. It will help decide which parts to rma and detect any memory errors.

Memtest 86 only runs off usb anyway. You can use Rufus to prepare the usb disk for memtest. It will copy the .img to the usb and unpack it. Memtest also has a disk imager with the download. I just use Rufus.

Understood. I will update you when appropriate. Thanks again!

 

[HelpMeI'mHopeless]

So I want to give an update.

The PSU power cable that I was using was off brand one because I have EU plug and my PSU came with US plug, so I went and bought EU power cable and that's what I've been using this whole time.

I realized that the off brand cable might be suspect when I was unplugging my pc to take it apart. While unplugging the cable made weird noises.

The next day I started using the original PSU cable but with EU plug adapter. Since then I haven't encountered any freezes/deadlocks. PC has been performing great so far although I haven't tested it thoroughly. However before changing the cable it never lasted this long without a freeze.

I guess we'll see if the off brand cable was the culprit after all but so far that's what it seems like. I will update in the future. Whatever the case might be, I want to thank you for you time and help @DavidM012

 

[DavidM012]

No probs, good to hear you resolved it, or at least detected one plausible source of the system instability. When you said the problem had been since you built the PC the immediate suspect to my mind was cpu socket.

The cpu freezing was a power related problem and could've easily been because of bad contacts in the socket. Strange that it worked partially but it is a new generation of cpu which is different to anything else before. So it fell into the suspect category anyway.

Sometimes the improvements that makes modern components more reliable means they show fewer symptoms or tolerate more faults than before and look like they're acting weird.

Well hopefully that's that.

 

[HelpMeI'mHopeless]

No probs, good to hear you resolved it, or at least detected one plausible source of the system instability. When you said the problem had been since you built the PC the immediate suspect to my mind was cpu socket.

The cpu freezing was a power related problem and could've easily been because of bad contacts in the socket. Strange that it worked partially but it is a new generation of cpu which is different to anything else before. So it fell into the suspect category anyway.

Sometimes the improvements that makes modern components more reliable means they show fewer symptoms or tolerate more faults than before and look like they're acting weird.

Well hopefully that's that.

OK, I have bad news. The freezes have returned. It happens the same way as it did before, but now it's more rare.

Some observations that I have made:

1. PSU has quite an audible coil whine. It gets worse whenever I move or drag my mouse.
2. When pc freezes, coil whine becomes quieter, mouse doesn't cause any more coil whine.
3. When pc freezes, led indicator on motherboard and case for ssd activity stops working, so it doesn't light up.
4. When plugging power cable in psu, all the cables that I tried make a weird buzzing/electric noise. If I don't plug it all the way and just hold the cable in a certain position, the buzzing gets worse and it even turned off my TV, which was in the same outlet.

All of this observations are pointing to the PSU being at fault. Is there any way to test and confirm it? I don't have warranty since I bought all parts in US and had them shipped in EU, so returning is not an option sadly. @DavidM012

 

[DavidM012]

You can try to read the power outputs in hwmonitor - the 12v and 5v lines should be +/- 5%, or with a multi meter - howto

Of course that info by itself isn't greatly useful. It doesn't tell you how much load the PSU can cope with.

The power cable or something turned off your TV - Do you mean monitor?

Well maybe you have an electrical wiring problem - your sockets or rccb (circuit breaker) or something (if it even has modern rccb's in it).

Your power supply (tier list) is tier B which is good enough for what you're using it for and I wouldn't expect it to fail though there's always the possibility of a unit being faulty before the warranty expires.

I would at this juncture more suspect the power source than the power supply. You went from the US to Europe - I don't usually deal with differences in power sources. Is EU 110v the same as the US. or is the Power supply supposed to be able to deal with international travel, I simply don't know because I don't do that sort of thing.

'American appliances run on 110 volts, while European appliances are 220 volts. If you see a range of voltages printed on the item or its plug (such as "110–220"), you're OK in Europe. Some older appliances have a voltage switch marked 110 (US) and 220 (Europe) — switch it to 220 as you pack.'.

STABLE POWER The G5 series has outstanding electrical performance with ultra stable voltage and extremely clean power output. This can help you achieve the highest possible overclock (optional) and provide the most stable and reliable power to all components. The G5 series also has high efficiency up to 90% (115VAC) / 92% (220VAC~240VAC) efficiency and is 80 PLUS® GOLD certified.

Should be able to cope with it? So more power source, perhaps, than supply. Whether to call an electrician or try another power supply? Do you know how up to date the electrics are in your situation?

I'm not really sure what's going on apart from red flags on various symptoms - eg, mouse pointer freeze is a cpu stop, could be anything and the power situation might bes dodgy too. ug.

Also can't really see how the system was assembled or if there's anything amiss - I'd take it apart to check for standoffs in the wrong place, causing a short for example, or cruddy wires or something. Something is wrong but I can't really guess what it is.

 

[HelpMeI'mHopeless]

Just as I was checking hwmonitor, it froze again . I could not find what you mentioned, (12V and 5V lines). All the voltage measures where 2V or lower than that, on every component (MBO, CPU, GPU etc).

About electrics being up to date, they should be. I haven't had any similar issues with other tech. PS4, multiple TV's laptops, etc.

CPU freezes sounds plausible, but what about weird coil whine from PSU and cable buzzing noise. Also mbo led stops when pc is frozen, maybe it's just not getting power?

About power source, I tried 2 outlets but both in same room. Maybe checking in another room would help? But I doubt it.

Biggest red flags for me are coil whine (when moving mouse) and power cable buzzing noise (noise happened with 2 different cables, so not cable fault) + turning off my tv.

I will take apart the pc right now and check for extra standoffs but I'm pretty sure there won't be any.

BTW, you say cruddy wires, what should I look out for when reassambling after I take it apart?

 

[DavidM012]

Well if you used the cables that shipped with the PSU it should be ok. I'd just look for anything abnormal. Or also a loose screw. it's only a check.

Hardware monitor ITE IT8721
Voltage 0 12.11 Volts [0xEB] (+12V)
Voltage 1 4.93 Volts [0xE6] (+5V)
Voltage 2 1.31 Volts [0x6D] (CPU VCORE)
Voltage 3 1.64 Volts [0x89] (VIN3)
Voltage 4 1.00 Volts [0x53] (VIN4)

Well last resort for hardware monitor, save the monitoring data and navigate to the folder where hardware monitor is installed and open the hwmonitor.txt file

On my hardware monitor the voltages are at the top of the page, the first section.

As to the electrics of your situation 'should be ok', because you haven't had problems with anything else, doesn't really prove anything.

Either you have another power supply to try, or you do not, either you have an electrician to check things over, or you don't.

Could check at a friend's house?

 

[HelpMeI'mHopeless]

Yeah I could try at another house.
But I made another observation. Very weird one. Remember that I said mouse makes PSU coil whine when moved? That coil whine stops for 30 secs when I move files around in folders lol. What the hell does that mean?? Maybe ssd is somehow involved with this whole problem.

 

[DavidM012]

No I don't think that's the case. Presumably you've disassembled the system and had looked in the cpu socket for any misaligned contacts?

Weird stuff going on and now the power supply started to coil whine? Could've been damaged during transportation. You can't however open the power supply to look at it however because a)even if you saw a problem you couldn't do anything about it, and 2)Residual charge from the capacitors can kill. And 3) you might not see any problems if there was one, since it's up to technicians or experienced amateurs to do that kind of thing. Some people actually modify their power supplies and motherboards by purchasing more quality capacitors for them, or renew them after a while to keep them buff. Not saying anyone should start a new hobby though.

The point is you've passed the point where there are any simple fixes. The options are to try other components if you have spares available (don't) or take to a shop which will charge a fee (and parts) to replace anything and also have an electrician look at the electrical situation. Or buy parts and save on labour.

Faced with those choices, I'd think purchasing another power supply would be the cheapest so find something from the Psu tier list.

However the obvious drawback of that approach is, it isn't 100% certain the PSU is at fault. It's entering the zone of costing money to eliminate it as the cause of the problem.

You also have to not mix up the cables of the two power supplies if you buy another modular one, very strictly don't.

So once you've frittered away $ for that and it might not resolve the problem, there's the electrician and there's the computer parts: The CPU, mobo, Ram isn't suspect (yet, did you manage to run memtest86 off a usb?).

As for drives well, I have actually seen a case where it appeared 'normal' but was actually the source of a crashing bug. However the symptoms were totally different, it was not a freeze it was merely games stuttering.

The absence of monitoring data since you can't access it without the PC freezing reveals no information. Though it doesn't say much either. Either way, a struggle to get that.

If you had the parts, I'd start with PSU, CPU, then GPU, then Mobo, then drive. But you don't. So If you take it to a shop and they 'can't find anything wrong with it, mate', then you might know it's something to do with the power source.

So the Only free option available at the moment is to try it at a friend's house to eliminate the electrics as a suspect. So hopefully your friends have recently tested electrics.

Well overall I simply wouldn't expect new parts to behave like this.