Question PC Constantly Freezing and turning completely unresponsive

[jrlftw]

Specs:

-Motherboard: MSI Z490-A Pro

-CPU: Intel I9-10850k 3600Mhz

-GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060

-Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600Mhz

-PSU: Corsair RM850

-Cooling System: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

-SSDs: Western Digital 2TB WD Blue SATA III and Crucial P3 Plus 2TB PCIe Gen4 3D NAND NVMe M.2

-OS: Windows 11 Home ver. 10.0.22621 Build 22621



I built my PC in August of 2021 with the specs listed above with a few Corsair case fans added for airflow. Before now, I've had no major issues with my PC; however, for the past couple weeks my desktop has been freezing and going completely unresponsive after about an hour or so of gaming. I get about some static for a fraction of a second right before everything goes unresponsive, to the point where even the RGB of my fans and memory change to default. The only way I can get out of the freeze is by pressing the power button to shut off and turn back on my PC. I've done a bit of research and I've learned it can be my RAM, SSD(s), and/or my GPU. I've tested my RAM with MemTest64 and left it running for about 2 hours and it had shown no errors were found. I've also ran some sort of NVMe test through my BIOS for my M.2 SSD and no errors were found there either. I've tried doing a few scans through CMD and they found a couple corrupt files and fixed them, but the problem still persists. I've updated my GeForce drivers to 537.13 as of yesterday (8/28/2023). The only temporary solution I've found is to decrease my RAM speed by 100 MHz with MSI Afterburner, taking it from 7500 MHz to 7400 MHz, but my PC will still freeze after several hours to a day later. Oddly enough, I've run VR through my Oculus Rift with the decreased RAM speed and my PC has lasted 3-4 days without freezing, yet when I run games like Path of Exile, Going Medieval, Mordhau, etc. my PC freezes within 30 minutes to a couple hours. I don't know what else to say about what I've tried but I'm kinda losing my mind over this issue. I'd appreciate any help with troubleshooting. Thank you!

 

[Ralston18]

Look in Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer.

Either one or both tools may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events just before or at the times of the freezes, etc..

Start wth Reliability History. Much easier to navigate and understand.

Event Viewer requires more time and effort.

FYI:

How To - How to use Windows 10 Event Viewer | Tom's Hardware Forum (tomshardware.com)


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Another thing you can do:

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connections, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Use a bright flashlight to inspect for signs of damage.

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Based on the described symptoms my thought is that the PSU may be at or nearing its' designed in EOL (End of Life). History of heavy gaming use - correct?

Varying errors and increasing numbers of errors make the PSU a likely suspect.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Have you checked the cpu/gpu temps as you are playing your games? if you install CPUID HWMonitor https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html It will show you your gpu and gpu memory temps. I had a problem like yours and found out my 3080 memory was overheating. I had to replace the thermal paste. Something to check on to exclude it as a problem.

 

[jrlftw]

Have you checked the cpu/gpu temps as you are playing your games? if you install CPUID HWMonitor https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html It will show you your gpu and gpu memory temps. I had a problem like yours and found out my 3080 memory was overheating. I had to replace the thermal paste. Something to check on to exclude it as a problem.

I can't say anything about any particular temps, only what's being recorded by MSI Afterburner. From what I've seen, while sitting idle my temps range from 55-60C. While gaming, I've seen the temp reading 80C before but I've never seen MSI Afterburner read any higher. I think my average while gaming is like 70C depending on what I'm running.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

I can't say anything about any particular temps, only what's being recorded by MSI Afterburner. From what I've seen, while sitting idle my temps range from 55-60C. While gaming, I've seen the temp reading 80C before but I've never seen MSI Afterburner read any higher. I think my average while gaming is like 70C depending on what I'm running.

If your gpu is reaching 80 sometimes it may be worthwhile to use the HWMonitor to check on your memory temps also.My gpu temps were fine but found out my memory was overheating.

 

[jrlftw]

If your gpu is reaching 80 sometimes it may be worthwhile to use the HWMonitor to check on your memory temps also.My gpu temps were fine but found out my memory was overheating.

I'm currently running cinebench and I'm reading temps reaching 100C on some cores, according to Core Temp 1.18. I've never seen temps like this so I'm assuming this is no bueno.

 

[jrlftw]

I'm currently running cinebench and I'm reading temps reaching 100C on some cores, according to Core Temp 1.18. I've never seen temps like this so I'm assuming this is no bueno.

I went into my BIOS and disabled Smart Fan Control and it seems to have helped my temps at bit, at least when idle. The highest I was getting while idle was 50C, with an average of like 46C.