Question PC freezes randomly only when I use my Nvidia graphic card but not my default card

[marcolampt]

Hello! I have a newly built desktop (PC's specs are listed below) for around 1 month but it has been frozen randomly, nothing is working when the problem occurs, not the keyboard, mouse and just a freezing screen (no bluescreen or error window). I have to do a hard shut down everytime.


My pc will work NORMALLY (more than a day):

• when I plug my monitor HDMI cable from my graphic card (RTX2080) port to my motherboard HDMI port (and my device manager will show a new display adaptor: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630)
• when I leave my PC idling and not using any other program intentionally (i.e. just idling on desktop and leaving some basic softwares, programs on e.g., anti-virus software, network, windows basic programs etc.), my PC WON’T freeze even my monitor is connecting to the RTX2080 graphics card
• when I using FurMark for stress testing my RTX2080 for around 15 mins (temperature at around 83°C and 9x% workload)
• when my PC is requiring high power consumption (e.g., in FurMark stress test) (Joulemeter Taskbar shows my PC power consumption is under 200W) (using RTX 2080)

My pc will get FREEZE:

• when I use some programs intentionally (except those basic programs like anti-virus, network), it seems to work fine but my pc will get freeze in a random time, maybe after using the programs an hour or hours later (this happens only when I am using the RTX2080 graphic card)
• I tried to use only one program in each time (except those basic programs) and my pc still freezing even when different program is running

Possible pattern of freezing:

• my pc seems to freeze randomly in the above situations, however, it’s mostly to freeze around 11:00 to 16:00, however, exceptions do happen

What I am currently trying to do:

• I am using ProcessMonitor to try to collect if there is/are any related process(es) happens right before the freeze, so far I observed two same processes right before the freeze (Process Name: SearchIndexer.exe, PID: 7196, Operation: FileSystemControl), I will try to see if the same occurs on my 2nd freeze later

I am really noob about PC stuff so I wonder if this really is my RTX2080 graphic card problem? I saw some people having the similar problem but not exactly same as me said SSD, PSU or motherboard is the main problem actually. So I hope if anyone can tell me how to find out the possible cause(s) in case I spending more money on a normal hardware. The methods I have tried are list below too. Thanks so much


My PC's OS:

Windows 10 Home 64-bit Full Version Box USB


My PC's specs:

- CPU: Intel i7-8700K (3.7GHz)

- Graphic Card: MSI RTX2080 GAMING X TRIO OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 3 Fans

- MB: ASUS ROG Strix Z390F Gaming

- RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z RGB DDR4 3600MHz (2x8GB)

- SSD: Samsung 500GB 970 EVO M.2 NVMe

- HDD: WD Blue WD10SPZX 2.5" 1TB 5400rpm 128MB Cache SATA3

- Cooling: NZXT Kraken X62 Water Cooling

- PSU: Corsair RM750X 750W 80Plus Gold

- Network Adapter: ASUS PCE-AC88 AC3100 Dual-band 4x4 PCIE Wireless Adapter


Methods I have tried but all failed:

• Memtest86 (free version) and no error founds
• Windows Clean Boot (but some programs can't be disabled in System Configuration like "AsusUpdateCheck")
• Reinstall Windows (clean install) (by my Windows 10 Home 64-bit Full Version Box USB)
• Update all drivers in the Device Manager (I manually select all drivers and search updated driver software automatically)
• Download and update my graphic card, SSD, Motherboard, Network adaptor drivers from its official website
• Windows Update check is latest
• Look at the Event viewer (administrative events) and no possible error/warning founds
• Look at the Task scheduler
• Update BIOS
• BIOS set to default
• In my BIOS changing "primary display" from "AUTO" to "PCIE"
• In my BIOS changing "Above 4G Decoding" from "Disabled" to "Enabled"
• Change my HDD SATA power Cable
• Use avast Cleanup
• Uninstall all third-party Anti-virus software (just leaving the Windows defender on)
• Use 2 RAMs together OR try each RAM individually on my motherboard A2 RAM port
• Turn on my GPU's fans by MSIAfterBurner all the time (my GPU's fans won't run if temperature is below 60°C by default)
• Observe my CPU, graphic card & RAM's condition, the temperature, loading were normal right before freeze
• Clean PC's temp file
• Adjust virtual memory
• Run windows disk check
• Run a windows system file check
• Turn off Link state power management
• Set my PC power plan to highest performance or balanced
• Set my Hard Disk "turn off hard disk after __" to never
• Turn off all windows background apps
• Unplug the whole network adapter from my motherboard
• Contacting MSI and then updating my graphics card BIOS and drivers

 

[rgd1101]

contact msi? might be gpu issue. try another psu?

 

[rageful_me]

Was looking through the internet for problems related to ASUS PCE-AC88 adapter and found your post with totally the same problem. Try to remove your wifi adapter and check if it helps.

 

[marcolampt]

Was looking through the internet for problems related to ASUS PCE-AC88 adapter and found your post with totally the same problem. Try to remove your wifi adapter and check if it helps.

Hey rageful_me thanks for suggesting a new angle to face my PC problem, I never tho about it before. However, my PC was still freezing after removing the whole network adapter from my motherboard, it happened around 3 to 4 hrs after that.

 

[marcolampt]

contact msi? might be gpu issue. try another psu?

Thanks rgd1101! I contacted MSI and waiting for their reply, hope they can give me new suggestion. Is there any way to narrow down if the cause is on the graphic card or PSU? Unfortunately I don't have extra hardware to do a cross testing. Also, if it is really my PSU problem, is that mean the power supply is insufficient or any other reason?

 

[marcolampt]

Late update, if someone facing the same problem, here is a possible temporary fix:

1. when your PC is off (shut down), you can first plug your HDMI cable to your internal GPU (to the mother board)
2. then turn on your PC and log in windows
3. plug the HDMI cable to the external GPU (e.g., RTX2080)
4. Then open device manager (in my case there are two adaptors under the display adaptors: Inter(R) && NVIDIA), I hv found that the FPS of your PC will be much better if you disable the Intel(R) driver (internal GPU), but your PC wont freeze even if you keep it enable (u can test and decide yourself)

If you have the same problem as me and using this temporary method, your PC wont freeze if you keep turning it on (or even in sleep state), all softwares and tasks are fine, however, once you turn the PC off and restart, the freeze problem will occur again if u leave the cable in the external GPU port all the time. So u hv to do the above steps again. Please noticed that the above steps must be in the same order.

Notes:
i) if you restarted your PC when the HDMI cable is on the external GPU port, you may turn into black(grey) screen once u log in windows again, then u hv to shut down PC and redo the above steps (or u can just restart PC again with the cable on the external port but u will experience the random freeze problem)
ii) if u turned the internal driver off in the device manager, once u restart the PC, the driver will remain off, and if u switch the cable from internal to external GPU now, you may experience bugs in the desktop, e.g., all the icons in the desktop are gone. so u hv to turn on the internal driver when ur HDMI cable is in the internal port, then switch the cable, finally turn off the driver again
iii) i prefer to turn my monitor off (monitor only) when switching the cable from internal to external port
iv) there may be potential problem by using this temporary method but for me everything seems normal so far (for around 0.5 year) except u hv to keep restart the PC and repluging the cable.

Hope this helps