Question Newly built PC random freezes (DRAM led)

[Lostorm]

So I just built my PC the other day. After installing windows, my graphics driver, and beginning to install/download other programs the PC screen froze on whatever picture I was on and my keyboard and mouse shut off. The led on all my pc parts are still on and the fans are still spinning, the only thing that changes is that there is a solid orange DRAM light on the mobo. I then force restarted the PC by turning the power switch off and on but after using the pc for awhile it would happen again. Every time it is the same, it boots up fast and fine, everything seems normal then it will randomly decide to freeze with the solid DRAM led anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes and my only option is to force reset by turning off the power.
I installed temperature monitoring software and that doesn’t seems to be an issue. When in bios my cursor is pretty laggy (doubt that helps but saw someone else mention this)
Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super
CORSAIR Vengence RGB PRO 16GB (2x8) 3600 MHz
ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus
EVGA 650 GQ
Samsung Evo 970 M.2 (500GB) + Pioneer 2.5” SATA (1TB)
Cooler Master MasterCase H500

Only my second build so not super experienced or knowledgeable but my first build never did this. I’ve seem other posts of similar probablems but it’s hard to find my specific instance, any help is appreciated!

 

[Lostorm]

It felt like the GPU was pretty hot (just from the back and connections) last time it froze.. Any ideas yet?

 

[EricSeastrand]

I am running into a similar issue and have similar hardware to you:

ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS
CORSAIR 32GB 2X16 RGB D4 3200 C16 (CMW32GX4M2E3200C16 )
EVGA GeForce GTX 1650 Super SC Ultra Gaming, 4GB GDDR6

Seems the common trend is the memory/mobo combo (I too took a risk and ignored QVL).

I actually built two of these: for my wife and her brother in January 2020. They both experience this random "once every few weeks" lockup. Nothing in the event log about it. No obvious trend: happens even during casual web browsing (low CPU load/temps).

I see that ASUS just released a firmware update yesterday (2020/04/10) with a note "Improve system stability". Guess I'll try that and hope for the best. Let us know if you figure it out.

 

[EricSeastrand]

Well, I updated to the latest bios Saturday, and the issue happened again today (2 days later).

Since you've already determined that this issue happens with RAM that is on the QVL, I'm curious what else our builds have in common.

What hard drive are you running? Is it by chance the Samsung 970 EVO NVMe drive?

Or maybe it's some quirk with letting software control the RGB. Are you letting software control lights?

 

[Lostorm]

That sounded great to hear that they updated bios but that's a bummer it still happened... I updated my bios to 1407 too anyways.

The hard drive I was running Windows on was the Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2. I'm guessing your using that as well?

I ended up formatting both hard drives and completely reinstalling windows from scratch onto my other SATA SSD. I was letting software control the lights so I think I'm not going to download any RGB software and see if that helps as well.

If it was a software issue maybe this will help but I doubt it.

 

[Lostorm]

After everything, it didn't work. Its actually been doing it more if anything. Dissapointing..

 

[EricSeastrand]

I too am still having this issue. 🙁

A few other things I've read, but haven't tried yet:

These folks had the exact same symptoms, but with different Ryzen chip/chipset: https://community.amd.com/thread/226197
They suggest it's related to underclocking that the system does to save power, and that "turning off C states" or overriding the processor voltage so it won't drop so low can fix it. They link to a solution here: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=7890

I also remember reading that going into the bios and disabling the onboard wifi device can help, though I can't find that link anymore.

Oh, to your question about hard drives: I also have the 970 EVO, which I thought could be related to this, but many threads I read online with similar symptoms don't have that disk, so now I'm less convinced it's HDD related.

 

[Lostorm]

Nice digging. Problem has been happening at least once a day after reinstalling windows so I figured I'd try the "C states" fix.

Possibly since my/our mobo is pretty new, some of the BIOS options seem to be different. I did find a setting for "PSS Support" which apparently is the equivalent to the C states or Cool n Quiet options (I think?). I changed that from enabled to disabled.

Also, my mobo doesn't have WiFi included so I didn't really look into that.

Only thing I've noticed since startup is the fans may be working a bit harder, but temps and performance are still great. I guess time will tell if this helps at all.

 

[Lostorm]

Seemed to help but the freezing still happens rarely, maybe the problem actually is a funky PSU...

Have you had any progress?

 

[Selljo]

Hey there! I built my computer a little over a month ago. I have pretty much the same issue with one twist: the last time it happens I was browsing YouTube; I clicked to open up a video and when the page finished loading my audio started glitching and all the sudden my mouse and keyboard locked up. Right after that the system started running ok but when I opened a new video, it happened again this time fully crashing any visuals. My fans would spin but I was getting no video output and no amount of clicking or spacebar spamming would bring it back. Forced reset fixs it until it happens again.

I had some earlier issues with the dram turning orange and then crashing my computer when booting after I tried pushing my super cheap ram to it's advertised speeds so I reverted back to default and have had pretty good stability.

Anyway, thanks for posting about this. Thought I was going crazy or that I might have done something wrong. Hope my added info helps find a solution.

 

[superhiperpolulo]

Hi guys, almost exact same problem, random freeze/black screen with solid orange DRAM led on MOBO.

My build is:
-ASUS X570-PLUS WIFI (similar model)
-AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
-Corsair LED RAM 2666MHz (CMU16GX4M2A2666C16, not on QVL)
-Samsung 970 EVO 500GB (Same as most mentioned here, huh)
-AMD Sapphire Nitro RX 5600 XT
-EVGA 750B2 PSU

PC randomly freezes or black screens with this orange DRAM led, happens every 3 or 4 days of casual PC use (light gaming, casual browsing). I had been using until a few months ago the same parts but with a GIGABYTE GA-AB350-GAMING 3 without problems but then it broke and had to RMA it (got it repaired and sold it, maybe wasn't the best idea). Didn't do a clean install on new MoBo but it seemed to work just fine for some time, then I swapped my old RX 560 2GB to the RX 5600 XT and I started noticing these freezes (maybe because I began using the PC way more).

Question is, has anyone found any hint of solution? I truly don't want to clean install my PC as that would mean having to reinstall a lot of stuff and so on, will try updating BIOS and firmwares of SSD and RAM(until now I didn't know you could update ram firmware). May post news if I find a definite solution or if I keep having problems

 

[COLGeek]

Hi guys, almost exact same problem, random freeze/black screen with solid orange DRAM led on MOBO.

My build is:
-ASUS X570-PLUS WIFI (similar model)
-AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
-Corsair LED RAM 2666MHz (CMU16GX4M2A2666C16, not on QVL)
-Samsung 970 EVO 500GB (Same as most mentioned here, huh)
-AMD Sapphire Nitro RX 5600 XT
-EVGA 750B2 PSU

PC randomly freezes or black screens with this orange DRAM led, happens every 3 or 4 days of casual PC use (light gaming, casual browsing). I had been using until a few months ago the same parts but with a GIGABYTE GA-AB350-GAMING 3 without problems but then it broke and had to RMA it (got it repaired and sold it, maybe wasn't the best idea). Didn't do a clean install on new MoBo but it seemed to work just fine for some time, then I swapped my old RX 560 2GB to the RX 5600 XT and I started noticing these freezes (maybe because I began using the PC way more).

Question is, has anyone found any hint of solution? I truly don't want to clean install my PC as that would mean having to reinstall a lot of stuff and so on, will try updating BIOS and firmwares of SSD and RAM(until now I didn't know you could update ram firmware). May post news if I find a definite solution or if I keep having problems

Please start your own thread. Closing this one now.