I'll start off by saying that mine is an old PC and I know I should just build a new one sooner than later, this thread is just me trying to figure out if there's something that could be done to make it still useable in the short term.
My computer has been giving me quite a few troubles over its lifespan, but I always managed to find a workaround to get it to work properly again. Recently though, the issues it presented became more and more apparent and also more and more frequent; the main ones were the issues turning it on and the random hangs and it had got to a point where the PC was hardly any useable at all. I fixed some of the most pressing issues (like the PC not turning on at all or failing to restart) by replacing the power supply (a 700W Cooler Master PSU I bought back in 2014 when I originally put the system together).
I was hoping replacing the PSU would fix all of the long standing issues the PC had been presenting me with over the last few months but I guess I was wrong. The main issue still remains and I'm gonna do my best to try and describe it: the computer hands indefinitely when performing certain tasks. Most of the times, it has to do with games and 3D applications, but it also happens with video players and streaming services (more on this later); it does however never happen when idling, or on desktop or even with certain other applications open.
The hangs seem to be very inconsistent: on certain games they happen as soon as the game is launched or at the main menu, making it extremely predictable and easy to replicate (this happens with Half Life 2 for example), whereas with other games it happens after a seemingly random period of time (with LoL or Overwatch, for instance), sometimes it's 5 minutes in, some others 2 hours in; lastly, with other games or applications it does not seem to happen at all (this is the case with Dead By Daylight, Path of Exile and a couple others), however the majority of games I played fell in the first two categories here described. The hang I'm talking about is just the screen shifting from whatever was on it to a usually greyish or brownish screen with vertical stripes on it, while a very small section of the audio that was being played at the time gets looped for about 20-30 seconds before stopping completely. The computer stays like that indefinitely, until I perform a hard shutdown via the power button.
So, I figured, if my PC is dead/dying I might as well try this Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service, which worked.. until it didn't. As of right now, launching the software causes it to lock up and freeze. It's not a system wide hang like the one described above, I can just kill the process over and over, but the 'rule' seems to be that if it doesn't work the first time, then it won't work any other time during that boot, I need to restart to effectively try again. Furthermore, even when it is working, simply clicking outside of its window or tabbing out causes it to freeze and behave the same way. For comparison: I downloaded GFN on my even older laptop and it works just fine, presenting none of the issues my desktop has.
I've tried all the troubleshooting I could find on the internet, I did a clean reinstall of Windows 10 (twice, actually), reinstalled the GPU drivers (with and without DDU, multiple times, multiple versions), I updated every single driver manually, I ran all the tests I could, Burn In Test, Memtest86, Crystaldisk, checked the temperatures, everything seems fine, my PC appears to be 'healthy' but it clearly isn't. I've been tweaking every single Windows setting, messing with the Radeon software and even BIOS setting, but nothing worked so far.
A couple foot notes: the hang doesn't appear in the Windows event logs, at all, and the only thing that shows up there around the time it happens is the abrupt power off which I'm forced to perform after the hang. Also, in the past, I used to have artifacts and/or BSODs, which I fixed by simply lowering the GPU core and memory clocks. When I try to do it in the current Radeon software however, any change I make to either one of them causes the screen to flicker non stop.
If anyone has any idea what might be causing it or any suggestion on how to fix it, I'll be happy to hear them. Thank you in advance, if you somehow managed to read through all of that
My current specs are:
OS: Windows 10 64Bit
CPU: AMD FX 6300
Mobo: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0
Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 OC Dual-X
Memory: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1333MHz 4GBx2
Storage: WD Caviar Green 2TB HDD
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Gemini II SF524
Optical Drive: Samsung Super Writemaster CD/DVD RW (x2)
PSU: NZXT C850 (850W 80+ Gold)
Case: Cooler Master K350
My computer has been giving me quite a few troubles over its lifespan, but I always managed to find a workaround to get it to work properly again. Recently though, the issues it presented became more and more apparent and also more and more frequent; the main ones were the issues turning it on and the random hangs and it had got to a point where the PC was hardly any useable at all. I fixed some of the most pressing issues (like the PC not turning on at all or failing to restart) by replacing the power supply (a 700W Cooler Master PSU I bought back in 2014 when I originally put the system together).
I was hoping replacing the PSU would fix all of the long standing issues the PC had been presenting me with over the last few months but I guess I was wrong. The main issue still remains and I'm gonna do my best to try and describe it: the computer hands indefinitely when performing certain tasks. Most of the times, it has to do with games and 3D applications, but it also happens with video players and streaming services (more on this later); it does however never happen when idling, or on desktop or even with certain other applications open.
The hangs seem to be very inconsistent: on certain games they happen as soon as the game is launched or at the main menu, making it extremely predictable and easy to replicate (this happens with Half Life 2 for example), whereas with other games it happens after a seemingly random period of time (with LoL or Overwatch, for instance), sometimes it's 5 minutes in, some others 2 hours in; lastly, with other games or applications it does not seem to happen at all (this is the case with Dead By Daylight, Path of Exile and a couple others), however the majority of games I played fell in the first two categories here described. The hang I'm talking about is just the screen shifting from whatever was on it to a usually greyish or brownish screen with vertical stripes on it, while a very small section of the audio that was being played at the time gets looped for about 20-30 seconds before stopping completely. The computer stays like that indefinitely, until I perform a hard shutdown via the power button.
So, I figured, if my PC is dead/dying I might as well try this Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service, which worked.. until it didn't. As of right now, launching the software causes it to lock up and freeze. It's not a system wide hang like the one described above, I can just kill the process over and over, but the 'rule' seems to be that if it doesn't work the first time, then it won't work any other time during that boot, I need to restart to effectively try again. Furthermore, even when it is working, simply clicking outside of its window or tabbing out causes it to freeze and behave the same way. For comparison: I downloaded GFN on my even older laptop and it works just fine, presenting none of the issues my desktop has.
I've tried all the troubleshooting I could find on the internet, I did a clean reinstall of Windows 10 (twice, actually), reinstalled the GPU drivers (with and without DDU, multiple times, multiple versions), I updated every single driver manually, I ran all the tests I could, Burn In Test, Memtest86, Crystaldisk, checked the temperatures, everything seems fine, my PC appears to be 'healthy' but it clearly isn't. I've been tweaking every single Windows setting, messing with the Radeon software and even BIOS setting, but nothing worked so far.
A couple foot notes: the hang doesn't appear in the Windows event logs, at all, and the only thing that shows up there around the time it happens is the abrupt power off which I'm forced to perform after the hang. Also, in the past, I used to have artifacts and/or BSODs, which I fixed by simply lowering the GPU core and memory clocks. When I try to do it in the current Radeon software however, any change I make to either one of them causes the screen to flicker non stop.
If anyone has any idea what might be causing it or any suggestion on how to fix it, I'll be happy to hear them. Thank you in advance, if you somehow managed to read through all of that
My current specs are:
OS: Windows 10 64Bit
CPU: AMD FX 6300
Mobo: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0
Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 OC Dual-X
Memory: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1333MHz 4GBx2
Storage: WD Caviar Green 2TB HDD
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Gemini II SF524
Optical Drive: Samsung Super Writemaster CD/DVD RW (x2)
PSU: NZXT C850 (850W 80+ Gold)
Case: Cooler Master K350
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