[SOLVED] PC Freezes while gaming/watching videos

[kreedz]

Good Afternoon,
Basically whenever I play a game, watch Youtube or do anything related to opening new programs my monitor would freeze and I have to reboot it from the power button(pc still runs as the fans do). The mouse and keyboard don't work but their lights do and I can't open Task Manager or whatever, also the monitor just doesn't respond, if I leave it frozen it restarts itself in a few minutes. It happens randomly and sometimes when it freezes and I restart it , the PC would freeze again while booting up. This problem started happening after I wasn't using my PC for a few months then I started using it again and the freezes started. I will attach below images of temperatures while idle.
I though that if the PC freezes then I restart it and it freeze again while windows is booting it could be hardware fault but not sure.

PC specs:
Motherboard: Gigabyte f2a68hm-hd2
Processor: AMD Athlon x860
GPU: Radeon R7 200
RAM: Teamgroup 8 GB DDR3 1600Mhz
HDD: Seagate 1 TB (St1000DM03)
PSU: ATX-500B 500W
Fan: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo


So far I have tried a few things:

Hardware related:

• Removed the old thermal paste and applied new
• PC case and fans cleaned
• Swapped my RAM from the first to the second slot
• Removed the BIOS battery so it restarts itself

Software related:

• I have reinstalled windows 10 and completed every update
• Updated every driver from device manager one by one
• Ran Windows Memory Diagnostics and it gave 1 problem which it removed and then ran it again a few times and it was okay
• Ran CCcleaner with the registry cleaning on
• Tested HDD using a program and it was okay
• Used CPUz to put my cpu at 100% for 30 minutes and all was okay
• Used AMD overdrive to see thermal margin which was at 40-50 during gaming and 60-70 during idle
• Used HWinfo to see rail voltages +5V and +3.3V seems stable but +12V minimum while in game was 11.740V and maximum 12.024V idle (not sure if this helps)

Regards
kreedz

 

[Ralston18]

How old is that ATX-500B 500W PSU?

Condition: original to build, new, refurbished, used?

Past history of heavy use for gaming, video editing, or bit-mining?

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, and even informational events that may be being captured when freezes, etc. occur.

Start with Reliability History. Much more user friendly and the time line format can reveal patterns.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Did you try uninstalling gpu drivers and reinstall them?

 

[kreedz]

How old is that ATX-500B 500W PSU?

Condition: original to build, new, refurbished, used?

Past history of heavy use for gaming, video editing, or bit-mining?

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, and even informational events that may be being captured when freezes, etc. occur.

Start with Reliability History. Much more user friendly and the time line format can reveal patterns.

Hello thanks for the replies first.
The PSU is about 5 years old. I was only playing League of Legends, csgo, overwatch and etc since then. It was brand new when bought.
Well when I started using my PC again I did a few videos (editing and rendering using Hitfilm express). I have only done about 3 videos since before the reinstall of Windows.

In the Reliability History it only says critical events: Windows (Windows was not properly shut down). Every time it freezes this is displayed in the Reliability History nothing else.

As for the Graphics Drives ,yes I have tried reinstalling them from the Device Manager a few times and also from Radeon Installer.

 

[Ralston18]

The PSU being 5 years old, used for gaming, and the "improperly shutdown" critical events make the PSU the prime suspect.

Even though the PSU works it may be nearing its' designed in EOL (End of Life) and starting to falter and fail when under load.

Do you have access to another known working PSU to swap in and test? At least 500 watts and of higher rating.

The PSU can also be tested to some extent if you have a multi-meter and know how to use it. Or know someone who does.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-manually-test-a-power-supply-with-a-multimeter-2626158

Not a full test because the PSU is not under load. However, any voltages out of tolerance make the PSU even more suspect.

 

[kreedz]

Well the PSU has 11.730 V on the 12V rail while in BIOS so this is probably the problem with the PC. Also I would like to ask why after full windows reinstall some files from the last windows are still on my drive?

QUICK UPDATE:
After looking through Event Viewer as suggested from Ralston18 I noticed critical Error 41 whenever it was locking up and I had to restart. Then I did a search on the internet and found out this is the sound drivers. After disabling the sound drivers the problem has been fixed at least for now so make sure you check them if you have similar issue especially if you have sound playing on and on after windows freezes.