[SOLVED] PC Freezes when Idle or Miniscule Tasks - Please Help

[AsusFellas]

Hey guys,

I have an ASUS P6TD Motherboard with 16GB RAM installed but I have a feeling I'm not utilizing this properly based on other folk's advice.

I was advised to change the RAM mhz in BIOS, preferably to the 2nd closest speed to my RAM's capability listed there ("If RAM is running at 2666, select 2500"). Unfortunately I cannot find the option to change these settings on this motherboard - I don't have an option to view/adjust the RAM speeds.

Side notes

• The PC freezes randomly. Sometimes if I leave it idle on boot, it freezes at the login screen.
• Sometimes after logging in, if I leave the PC idle it freezes.
• Using basic programs like Word or Notepad, or assignments for school in Chrome, it will sometimes freeze randomly.
• Ironically, I'm able to game with no issue - doesn't freeze at all and I'm able to play games like Insurgency Sandstorm on medium settings at ~60 fps. The PC almost never freezes when I'm gaming, only when it's idle. This seems wild to me. If I leave a game paused it will sometimes freeze though.

Anyone have any advice? I've listed my specs below.

Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz 109 °F
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P6TD DELUXE (LGA1366) 114 °F
Graphics
Hanns.G iX191 (1280x1024@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (Gigabyte) 112 °F
Storage
931GB Seagate ST31000528AS ATA Device (SATA ) 92 °F
74GB INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC ATA Device (SATA (SSD))
Optical Drives
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223L ATA Device

 

[Colif]

what make/model PSU is it?

ram isn't going to cause PC to freeze at idle, its far more random than that. This sounds like either the storage drive or PSU

 

[AsusFellas]

what make/model PSU is it?

ram isn't going to cause PC to freeze at idle, its far more random than that. This sounds like either the storage drive or PSU

PSU is a Corsair HX 850W Pro Series, friend of mine said that should be good to go.

I've also ran the disc cleanup image/restore health commands in command prompt (admin), found a few errors earlier this month but those seemed to have been fixed.

 

[Colif]

I would run SFC /scannow in CMD (admin) as well

try running seatools for windows on 1tb drive - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/

74GB INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC ATA Device (SATA (SSD))

is this boot drive? how much free space does it have? have you run chkdsk on it?
try running crystaldiskinfo on the ssd - Blue icons

 

[dennisr48]

I had a somewhat similar problem that took me months to solve. I put together a gaming pc. Initially it worked fine but then I experienced hard freezing always under low load, such as watching videos. This was a complete hardware freeze that required a hard power reboot. The freeze ups continued randomly about once every 2 or 3 days. I tried every type of troubleshooting software I could run but everything seemed to check out fine. I finally tried a different brand of memory - no effect. Next I tried a different SSD. I got a Samsung 970 model 2T, cloned it and swapped out the Samsung 1T 980 Pro. After that, the freeze ups stopped. In my case, it seemed clear that the cause of the problem was the Samsung 980. Of course, there are other possibilities but your problem seemed close enough that I thought I'd share my experience. In any case, if you get desperate as I did, and you have another SSD, it might be worth cloning your OS and swapping it out to see if the SSD is the source of your problem.

 

[AsusFellas]

I would run SFC /scannow in CMD (admin) as well

try running seatools for windows on 1tb drive - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/


is this boot drive? how much free space does it have? have you run chkdsk on it?
try running crystaldiskinfo on the ssd - Blue icons

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Yes this is the boot drive! 8 years ago I had some issues partitioning the drive (I don't recall what) but I keep my files/documents on my C: drive and my OS/other main stuff on the SSD, my B: Drive. I recall not being able to designate the SSD as my C: drive for some reason. I forgot why I'd wanted to do this but I feel I thought keeping the OS on the smaller drive would've been a good idea at the time.

The 1 TB HD (B: ) is like 11 years old and still kicking but I feel that it may also have issues (files sometimes don't verify within Steam) - when I ran those sfc /scannow commands in CMD prompt (Admin) a few months ago, it found some errors so I ran the other 5 checkscan commands and it resolved those issues.

I have a feeling you're right, I sometimes receive notifs to clear space on the SSD, which I then do. But it isn't long until files automatically get downloaded to that folder (games or other programs etc), and I manually delete them or redesignate the file path in Steam.

How could I run the chkdsk command for that drive? - "chkdsk B:" in command prompt as admin?

I had a somewhat similar problem that took me months to solve. I put together a gaming pc. Initially it worked fine but then I experienced hard freezing always under low load, such as watching videos. This was a complete hardware freeze that required a hard power reboot. The freeze ups continued randomly about once every 2 or 3 days. I tried every type of troubleshooting software I could run but everything seemed to check out fine. I finally tried a different brand of memory - no effect. Next I tried a different SSD. I got a Samsung 970 model 2T, cloned it and swapped out the Samsung 1T 980 Pro. After that, the freeze ups stopped. In my case, it seemed clear that the cause of the problem was the Samsung 980. Of course, there are other possibilities but your problem seemed close enough that I thought I'd share my experience. In any case, if you get desperate as I did, and you have another SSD, it might be worth cloning your OS and swapping it out to see if the SSD is the source of your problem.

Yeah I feel your hunch is also right. I'm currently budgeting but once I'm back on my feet I should be able to just get another new rig entirely. It's about time lmao

 

[Colif]

i would suggest buying a new drive and using it for windows,
8 & 11 years is good going for any hardware. 8 years for an ssd, especially so.

new PC is a good idea too.

 

[AsusFellas]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I got lucky and the issue basically "resolved itself" while troubleshooting something else.

You're not going to believe this - it was some iTunes error, or some apple program that goes along with it.

I deleted all of the iTunes programs associated with the app itself, and I haven't had the issue since. There isn't anything else I can recall that was significant enough for the fix. Had syncing issues with a new iTouch and decided to do a clean install. My PC hasn't frozen since.

 

[AsusFellas]

Also @Colif , thanks for linking the "How to mark threads as solved" in your signature. I'll go ahead and close the thread

 

[bignastyid]

Also @Colif , thanks for linking the "How to mark threads as solved" in your signature. I'll go ahead and close the thread

You missed this part of Colif's thread.
"Due to an error in the software, the forums allows you to award the solution to yourself. Please don't as its actually against the rules and you should reward the people who tried to help you."
Also marking a thread as solved does not actually close it.