Question Opinions on this interesting information relating to a freezing problem I've been having

[AdriftAGC]

I have recently been dealing with a strange pc problem where my entire pc freezes for a few seconds, makes a noise and then keeps going. I've been trying to diagnose it and I haven't found anything. I even had microcenter run a diagnostic and their software didn't diagnose a problem. I've been suspicious of the ram but It could be anything really. However, recently decided to leave the task manager open while using the computer so I can see what the graphs say after a freeze happens. What I found was interesting and I'm not sure what it could be. When the freeze happened, the GPU, CPU, and Hard drive usage spiked up to 100% usage for less than a second. The wifi seemed to dip down to 0%. And the strangest thing, the ram was completely normal. The ram didn't show even a slight spike or dip. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Am I right about the ram being the issue or could it be something else?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

Well, it could be a lot of things.

If you can start by listing your full PC specs. At this stage it's worth checking that all your system drivers, GPU drivers, and Bios are up to date, before trying to diagnose further.

 

[AdriftAGC]

Hey there,

Well, it could be a lot of things.

If you can start by listing your full PC specs. At this stage it's worth checking that all your system drivers, GPU drivers, and Bios are up to date, before trying to diagnose further.

GPU: GTX 1070
CPU Intel Coffee Lake i7 8700k Overclocked to 4.2 ghz
Motherboard: HP Tampa2 (also known as the hp 8437)
gskill 750 watt power supply (brand new)
8 gigs of ddr4 ram.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Thanks for the build details.

I'd start with taking any OC you might have. So CPU, but also GPU if you've done that. See if the problem persists.

Also, it might be worth considering upgrading your ram. You're system is a decent gaming machine, but it's slightly hobbled by having 8gbs of ram. Is it 2 x 4gbs or 1 x 8gbs? Either way, if gaming is priority, then having 16gbs in there will help a lot. What model ram is it? Speed? With just 8gbs of ram in gaming, the ram will max out, and can cause stuttering and frame drops. That may be the issue, but the noise you hear I'm not sure of. I guess it could be related.

Your mobo supports speeds of 2400mhz, so if you are going to upgrade the ram, the best option would be a 2 x 8gb matched kit of 2400mhz ram. With two matched DIMMS in a kit, your system will use dual channel, which can bring a big performance increase. If you currently have just one DIMM, then it's single channel mode. Dual channel can increase performance by 5-15%, task dependant.

 

[AdriftAGC]

I was planning on upgrading the ram this weekend actually.

Also do you mean overclock when you say OC?

 

[XXLMandalorian]

@AdriftAGC
What programs/tasks are you running when the freeze happens?
Can you take the door off and hear if it's comping from a specific component?
What is the config of the 8 gigs like Keith asked?
You say the PSU is new. Are the other parts used?
Have you checked for Bios/Chipset updates yet as Keith asked?

 

[AdriftAGC]

It happens regardless of what im running and regardless of if im running anything at all. However it seems like it happens more often whem im running a program.

It doesnt last long enough more me to be able to figure out where its coming from.

The ram is 1x8

The other components arent new but i didnt buy them used. I just had to replace the psu recently so thats why its new.

I updated the bios two months ago but havent checked since then

 

[XXLMandalorian]

Have you reverted the CPU overclock back to stock?

Well looking at your mobo here it says its "Dual Channel" and my money is on that. I did not find on that site what slot the mobo prefers first but in most cased DIM slots 2 & 4 need to be used first then 1 & 3. Id start with Red slots those are 2& 4. If you don't have another stick of 8 with the exact same specs Id get 2 new stick 8 gig each for a total of 16. Keep in mind the lower the CAS # number and the higher the Speed the better as a rule of thumb. Let me know if you have RAM questions

I made a pic of the RAM slots if that helps here

 

[AdriftAGC]

Thanks for the help. I was planning on going to microcenter to buy new ram this weekend. The mobo does seem to prefer dual channel, but I don't think that's the main source of the problem considering the fact that I've had the pc for two years and this is a recent problem. Unless you mean that the ram failed because of the fact that it was only in one slot. Either way, I was planning to upgrade to a 2x8 so I guess the point is kind of moot.

I haven't brought the CPU back to stock yet but that's the next thing I'll do if the ram doesn't fix it

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I was planning on upgrading the ram this weekend actually.

Also do you mean overclock when you say OC?

Yes, my apologies. OC is overclock.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Thanks for the help. I was planning on going to microcenter to buy new ram this weekend. The mobo does seem to prefer dual channel, but I don't think that's the main source of the problem considering the fact that I've had the pc for two years and this is a recent problem. Unless you mean that the ram failed because of the fact that it was only in one slot. Either way, I was planning to upgrade to a 2x8 so I guess the point is kind of moot.

I haven't brought the CPU back to stock yet but that's the next thing I'll do if the ram doesn't fix it

Yes, some apps/games don't respond well to OC'ed CPU. Try everything at stock, consider the additional ram.

You can also set up MSi afterburner to show your CPU/GPU/System ram during gaming to display on screen. You can look out for any 100% usage in either CPU/GPU/ram, and see if it correlates to your slowdowns. You might run HWMon/Info alongside, and see if there's anything funny happening in the background.

 

[XXLMandalorian]

Thanks for the help. I was planning on going to microcenter to buy new ram this weekend. The mobo does seem to prefer dual channel, but I don't think that's the main source of the problem considering the fact that I've had the pc for two years and this is a recent problem. Unless you mean that the ram failed because of the fact that it was only in one slot. Either way, I was planning to upgrade to a 2x8 so I guess the point is kind of moot.


Well you can run one stick and if it posts w/ out beeps you are good and can do so no matter then DIM channel config the mobo maker set up but that said getting a pc to run is different then running a pc well. It can be going bad but I did not know it had been working for two years and now is an issue sorry if I missed that above. How old are all the parts?

I think you should also try crystal disk and see if its the HDD making sound about to crap out. It can be found here.

Id like to see temps/ the config of the pc better please try Speccy here, and post the summary.

Can you also post the windows version by pressing the windows key and typing winver and post it here as well?

 

[AdriftAGC]

Yes, some apps/games don't respond well to OC'ed CPU. Try everything at stock, consider the additional ram.

You can also set up MSi afterburner to show your CPU/GPU/System ram during gaming to display on screen. You can look out for any 100% usage in either CPU/GPU/ram, and see if it correlates to your slowdowns. You might run HWMon/Info alongside, and see if there's anything funny happening in the background.

I don't know if you saw when i said this, but it also happens on the desktop when nothing's running

 

[AdriftAGC]

Crystal disk said both hard drives are in good health. Here's the system summary:

Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 8700 @ 3.20GHz 34 °C (Shows up as 3.2 GHz here but it is 4.2 if you look at it in the task manager)
Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Single-Channel Unknown @ 1332MHz (19-19-19-43)
Motherboard
HP 8437 (U3E1) 30 °C
Graphics
R240HY (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (HP) 32 °C
Storage
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-60WN4A0 (SATA ) 30 °C
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM008-2FR102 (SATA (SSD)) 34 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

 

[XXLMandalorian]

Well thats good! Did you get new RAM? If its still an issue did you revert the OC?

 

[AdriftAGC]

I got new ram and reverted the oc. Its still happening so i definitely think its the mobo.

 

[XXLMandalorian]

Hmm Could be. Have you tried running Windows in Safe mode to rule out the GPU?

I would also run these commands in the Command Prompt but make sure you run it as admin. The scan health, restore health and sfc take a bit depending.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

sfc/scannow

 

[AdriftAGC]

No i havent tried safe mode but im pretty confident that its the motherboard since i dropped a screwdriver on it right before the problem started happening. This whole thread was really just me trying to find any potential non motherboard issues with it. Also I had the diagnostic run on the gpu a few weeks ago and it passed.

 

[AdriftAGC]

How would i check the gpu in safe mode though?

 

[XXLMandalorian]

No i havent tried safe mode but im pretty confident that its the motherboard since i dropped a screwdriver on it right before the problem started happening. This whole thread was really just me trying to find any potential non motherboard issues with it. Also I had the diagnostic run on the gpu a few weeks ago and it passed.

Yea it would seem you left a good amount of info out about your issue....

Oh, what was the diag used on the GPU?

Also what Diags did MicroCender do and how much was it?

Running Windows in safe mode disables most drivers to help rule out GPU but not entirely as well as turns on Himem.sys and a bunch of other fun things. It's not checking the GPU but it's seeing if it's a driver issue. You can also just pull out the GPU But who knows what you have done and not already since you seem to hold back info.

Was the power plug in the back of the PSU when you dropped the screw driver?

 

[AdriftAGC]

I did diagnostics with the command prompt and windows tools.

Microcenter did the pc doctor full system diagnostic for $50

Sorry for holding back info. I didnt mean for this thread to go on as far as it did since i was originallly only asking about the task manager thing. Since then ive just been answering what ive been asked.

It was unplugged at the time of the screwdriver incident.

 

[XXLMandalorian]

Task manager is really not a great help but it can show some clues. What you really need to do is look at the event viewer or better yet learn about systernals. If the PSU was unplugged and you did not static shock anything when touching stuff the screwdriver would of had to of knocked something off or lose. Yes, metal on metal can fry but only when live. I also asked where on the mobo because the cmos can still hold some power as well until drained.

 

[XXLMandalorian]

I strongly recommend running those DISM and SFC

 

[AdriftAGC]

I ran the dism and sfc and everything was good. Sfc found some corrupt files and repaired them but other than that no problem. The task manager thing was not a solution. It was just what prompted me to make this thread. To refresh your memory on what that was, when the freeze happened every component other than the ram spiked up to 100% usage and the wifi went down to 0%. This thread was to find explanations for why that happened. I did check the event viewer one time after it happened and i didnt see any errors relating to it (unless i just didnt recognize the relation to it).

I dropped the screwdriver on the bottom half of the mobo (on the side of the gpu opposite of the cpu. The handle of the screwdriver made contact with the gpu shroud (didnt touch any actual electronics on gpu and there are no dents) and then the metal part of the screwdriver hit onto the motherboard. The damage is most likely physical but i cant make out where the damage would be.

And i just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to try to help me. Ill be better about helping you help me