[SOLVED] PC crashing/freezing. What sounds like the cause of these issues to you?

[ormey9]

I built my PC about 5 years ago. About a year and a half ago, things started going haywire. No matter what I am doing, whether it's light browsing, or gaming, here are the issues that occur:

Every once in a while when I power on my pc, my monitor won't display any video but my pc otherwise starts up as normal.
My PC will randomly freeze and then either reboot on its own or sometimes it just stays frozen, unresponsive, until I manually reboot.
My PC will randomly freeze for a second, then screen turns off for a second, and comes back on and seems to "recover".

I've eliminated my hdd and cd drive from system, no errors from memtest after 10 passes, pc is quite clean inside and temps seem fine, tried a clean install of win10, tried reseating ram and gpu, tried unplugging cables and connecting them again, tried my ram in different slots, tried keeping gpu drivers up to date, tried downgrading gpu drivers, still the problems persist

So my question to you is, in your eyes, what sounds like the cause of these issues? And if you have any other troubleshooting suggestions, I would really appreciate it as well.

Thanks everyone

 

[Aeacus]

Without any system specs, including PSU make and model (or part number), possible culprits are: CPU, MoBo, GPU and/or PSU.

 

[ormey9]

Without any system specs, including PSU make and model (or part number), possible culprits are: CPU, MoBo, GPU and/or PSU.

Hey thanks for the response. My specs are: i5 4460, gtx 960, asrock h97 anniversary, 8GB ram, evga supernova 650 gs, pny cs1311 ssd

 

[Aeacus]

any other troubleshooting suggestions

When you can boot into OS, you can rule out CPU and MoBo.

For troubleshooting: remove your GPU and plug your monitor directly to MoBo, by using your CPU's built-in iGPU. Use your PC for several days with iGPU, and look if you get any the current symptoms.

If you don't get any issues with iGPU, the issue is most likely in your dedicated GPU (GTX 960). If you still get the issues, even with iGPU, then your dedicated GPU is fine.

Another troubleshooting method to try (either before or after the test with iGPU): boot into Safe Mode and look if your PC gets the symptoms.

As far as your 3 symptoms go: 1st one points towards either MoBo or GPU, 2nd one points towards PSU and 3rd one points towards GPU.

 

[ormey9]

When you can boot into OS, you can rule out CPU and MoBo.

For troubleshooting: remove your GPU and plug your monitor directly to MoBo, by using your CPU's built-in iGPU. Use your PC for several days with iGPU, and look if you get any the current symptoms.

If you don't get any issues with iGPU, the issue is most likely in your dedicated GPU (GTX 960). If you still get the issues, even with iGPU, then your dedicated GPU is fine.

Another troubleshooting method to try (either before or after the test with iGPU): boot into Safe Mode and look if your PC gets the symptoms.

As far as your 3 symptoms go: 1st one points towards either MoBo or GPU, 2nd one points towards PSU and 3rd one points towards GPU.

Thanks a lot. I've just now removed my GPU, and am running on the integrated graphics. One thing about these issues is that I've gone from crashing multiple times a day for weeks on end, to literally not getting a single crash in 6 months (aug 2020 - jan 2021) without changing anything as far as I know. I'll let you know if I get any crashes with the iGPU.

 

[ormey9]

hey aeacus, I just wanted to ask you what you think of this. lately after my pc crashes and is frozen, I will either hit the reset button on front of pc, or turn off and back on, and after doing either of those, my pc will be running, but I will get no display. I had this happen to me on 2 separate days and tested something while the pc was still running with no display:

day 1: unplug monitor from gpu, plug directly into motherboard, display is now working properly. plug back into gpu, display is NOT working again.
day 2: unplug monitor from gpu, plug directly into motherboard, still no display.

after day 1, I thought for sure that my gpu was faulty, but after day 2, I no longer thought that. do you think at this point I can rule out my gpu being faulty after seeing what happened on day 2?

 

[Aeacus]

but I will get no display.

Full checklist here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...deo-output-troubleshooting-checklist.1285536/

unplug monitor from gpu, plug directly into motherboard, display is now working properly. plug back into gpu, display is NOT working again.

This would point towards GPU issue, since monitor works when plugged into MoBo.

unplug monitor from gpu, plug directly into motherboard, still no display.

But this would point towards MoBo issue or it could be monitor issue as well.

It's hard to tell what the issue may be. 1st step would be doing the checklist i linked above.

But failing PSU can cause all those issues as well.
While your PSU is of a good quality, EVGA 650W GS is made by Seasonic and it uses the G-series platform, nothing lasts for forever and it is possible that your PSU (for whatever reason), is dying and producing all these issues. EVGA 650W GS came out in 2015 and it ever had only 5 years warranty. While it's very rare that good quality PSU (especially Seasonic made) would die just before or after it's warranty is over (since Seasonic is known of their PSUs lasting far longer than the warranty period), it has happened.

Based on your symptoms so far:

• you got lots of freezes/crashes with your dedicated GPU in the system
• once you removed it from the system, thus reducing the load on PSU, your system was stable for some time
• but even with iGPU you got issues (no display on POST)

At this point, it's really hard to tell if it's PSU or MoBo.
MoBo is usually the main culprit to these kinds of issues (if you've done the whole linked checklist). But based on the age of your PSU and better stability when you removed dedicated GPU, i'm leaning towards PSU issue.

If you have 2nd monitor to try with, do that as well, just in case.

If i were you, i'd 1st go and buy new PSU, in 650W range, Seasonic Focus or PRIME series (former comes with 10 years or warranty while latter comes with 12 years of warranty). Since replacing PSU is far easier than replacing MoBo and your current PSU is at the end of it's life as well. (Oh, all three of my PCs are also powered by Seasonic, full specs with pics in my sig.)

When even the new PSU doesn't fix the issue, it's safe to assume that MoBo is the culprit. Here, i'd go with new MoBo, or better yet, new CPU-MoBo-RAM combo since your Haswell build is relatively old and you'll get better performance per dollar/euro with brand new CPU-MoBo-RAM combo, including DDR4 RAM.

 

[ormey9]

Full checklist here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...deo-output-troubleshooting-checklist.1285536/



This would point towards GPU issue, since monitor works when plugged into MoBo.



But this would point towards MoBo issue or it could be monitor issue as well.

It's hard to tell what the issue may be. 1st step would be doing the checklist i linked above.

But failing PSU can cause all those issues as well.
While your PSU is of a good quality, EVGA 650W GS is made by Seasonic and it uses the G-series platform, nothing lasts for forever and it is possible that your PSU (for whatever reason), is dying and producing all these issues. EVGA 650W GS came out in 2015 and it ever had only 5 years warranty. While it's very rare that good quality PSU (especially Seasonic made) would die just before or after it's warranty is over (since Seasonic is known of their PSUs lasting far longer than the warranty period), it has happened.

Based on your symptoms so far:

• you got lots of freezes/crashes with your dedicated GPU in the system
• once you removed it from the system, thus reducing the load on PSU, your system was stable for some time
• but even with iGPU you got issues (no display on POST)

At this point, it's really hard to tell if it's PSU or MoBo.
MoBo is usually the main culprit to these kinds of issues (if you've done the whole linked checklist). But based on the age of your PSU and better stability when you removed dedicated GPU, i'm leaning towards PSU issue.

If you have 2nd monitor to try with, do that as well, just in case.

If i were you, i'd 1st go and buy new PSU, in 650W range, Seasonic Focus or PRIME series (former comes with 10 years or warranty while latter comes with 12 years of warranty). Since replacing PSU is far easier than replacing MoBo and your current PSU is at the end of it's life as well. (Oh, all three of my PCs are also powered by Seasonic, full specs with pics in my sig.)

When even the new PSU doesn't fix the issue, it's safe to assume that MoBo is the culprit. Here, i'd go with new MoBo, or better yet, new CPU-MoBo-RAM combo since your Haswell build is relatively old and you'll get better performance per dollar/euro with brand new CPU-MoBo-RAM combo, including DDR4 RAM.

aeacus, I really really appreciate you taking the time to write this, it's exactly what I needed. thank you mate!!