Question Occasional "soft freezes" after getting a new GPU - Power, thermal, or other issue?

[FlashlightBaboon]

Hello, everyone.
In mid-August, I decided to get a GPU to upgrade my PC, and even though it largely has been smooth sailing, I've had two particular recurring issues (both of which have only occurred after installing the GPU):

1. At apparently random intervals (anything from playing a game (only observed with Team Fortress 2 and Darkest Dungeon) to just browsing on Firefox) , my PC will do a "soft freeze" where the games will lock up, but Firefox and other programs apparently remain active, but only for a bit, and Ctrl-Alt-Del'ing to sleep, restart, or even shut down the computer just loops it doing whatever, only stopped by manually turning off the PC with the case's power button. I haven't tried waiting more than about five, ten minutes on it, but in my (admittedly semi-limited) experience, if waiting for that long doesn't do anything, it probably wouldn't do much to wait longer.
2. Sometimes, if I let my PC/monitor idle for a while, it won't display again, even if the PC is apparently on and responding to inputs, but also doesn't want to be turned off without using the case power button.

So far, I have done the following, in order, to fix the first problem, to little result:

1. Updated my display drivers
2. Physically reseated my GPU in its slot and its cables
3. Updated my display drivers again
4. Used DDU to uninstall all of my display drivers and just reinstall the ones that are for the GPU

As for the second, so far, I've just disabled ULPS. It's not as major of a problem, since I could always just turn automatic idle/sleep mode off.

I don't think it's thermal problems, since it's never exceeded 50 C or so (or at least, when I've been able to see it), so if I had to hazard a guess, it would be something to do with power, software, or the GPU itself. What do y'all think of this situation?

Case	Thermaltake Versa H18
PSU	EVGA Supernova 550 Ga
Motherboard	Gigabyte B550M DS3H AC
CPU	Ryzen 5 5600G
CPU Cooler	Stock AMD Wraith Stealth
GPU	PowerColor Fighter AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT
Case fans	Included Thermaltake fan + 3 Thermalright TL-C12C fans Two intake, two exhaust
Fan controller	Arctic Case Fan Hub
Memory	Silicon Power Value Gaming DDR4 RAM 16GB (2x8GB) 3200MHz (PC4 25600) CL16 1.35V Desktop Memory Module with Heatsink Camouflage Grey SP016GXLZU320BDAJ5
SSD	Silicon Power 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 SSD (SP512GBP34A60M28)
Monitor	Samsung LC24f390FHNXZA

 

[rgd1101]

brand and model of the psu?

 

[FlashlightBaboon]

brand and model of the psu?

Ah, I knew I was forgetting something. Updated the post with it: an EVGA Supernova 550 Ga.

 

[FlashlightBaboon]

The big thing that feels strange about all this is that it's never crashed or turned off itself during these episodes, which, from my research, appears to be common between all of my suspected issue sources.

 

[rgd1101]

check the ssd health?
how full it is?

 

[FlashlightBaboon]

check the ssd health?
how full it is?

According to the cursory checks in Windows, nothing's wrong with it, and as for how full it is, it currently has 102.2 GB of free space. The lowest it's gotten was around 40 GB of free space, which recently changed because I didn't really care about finishing Mankind Divided.

 

[boju]

Try run graphics card in full performance mode in Adrenaline software. Currently Amd are trying to address issues relating to multiple displays/refresh rates where the card can be unstable. Still not fixed for some btw, even after a few attempts. Other bugs could be introduced as a result. Running graphics card in full performance mode seems to help those who are affected but since you're only running one monitor it might not help at all. See what happens.

 

[FlashlightBaboon]

Try run graphics card in full performance mode in Adrenaline software. Currently Amd are trying to address issues relating to multiple displays/refresh rates where the card can be unstable. Still not fixed for some btw, even after a few attempts. Other bugs could be introduced as a result. Running graphics card in full performance mode seems to help those who are affected but since you're only running one monitor it might not help at all. See what happens.

"Full performance" mode? I'm not seeing anything like that in the options and Google searches haven't made it any clearer what it is. Is it the graphics profile?

 

[boju]

Hmm i saw a Reddit post saying there isn't power management settings to favor performance like Nvidia does, i just assumed AMD would have something like that. Obviously i don't have an AMD card .

Performance mode for Radeon cards might be associated with Windows power plan. @Colif you have Amd, how do you go about that?

 

[FlashlightBaboon]

Hmm i saw a Reddit post saying there isn't power management settings to favor performance like Nvidia does, i just assumed AMD would have something like that. Obviously i don't have an AMD card .

Performance mode for Radeon cards might be associated with Windows power plan. @Colif you have Amd, how do you go about that?

The performance tuning for the AMD GPU has three different categories: presets that automatically adjust based on quick testing (Undervolt and Overclock GPU, Overclock VRAM) and apparently static presets (Quiet, Balanced, Rage), and Manual/Custom tuning. There's also "Graphics Profiles" that pretty much just add various bells and whistles to games.

 

[FlashlightBaboon]

After updating my display drivers again, I seemed to be good for a few weeks, then it's happened again yesterday and today. I have no idea what, if anything, may have changed to cause this.