Question PC hard freeze help - both idle and full

[acerbic]

Hi,

I need some help thinking about what else this could be. Seems like a plethora of people are suffering from hard freezes lately looking at the boards and sadly I am in this boat.

My issue is very similar to this person here (frozen, stuck on last screen, pc continues to hum, peripheral lighting does not turn off, but cannot re-connect to the system), but I did not want to hijack the thread: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/completely-random-freezes-no-real-cause.3752802/

Tl;dr started 8 days ago, randomly, after a day of using PC, pure hard freezes; at first in intervals of 10min-3hr, now more 5-10hr if actively used. Crashed only 4 times while in-game, the rest (approx 16 more crashes) were on idle or browsing basic desktop apps (eg. event viewer). No actual indication of an error in event viewer, except critical after hard resetting. Please read on to see what I have tried thus far after reading some people experience similar crashes.

• Dusted away the PC - clear as can be except video card where I can't reach some dust.
• SFC scanned 4 times by now, still no errors
• Samsung Magician no errors after 3 checks
• No SSD errors detected via default Microsoft tools, but occasionally when I restart from hard lock it shows the system is checking the disk
• Internal windows memory ran 2 times, no errors. Memtest86 7.5hr cycle - no errors.
• CPU performed fine while running P95blend
• Ran unigine heaven benchmark for 5.5hrs before, maxed out at 78C - ran a game that has similarly high usage since for three sessions of 8, 9, 5 and 10 hours (1 crash)
• Left PC to AFK in safe mode - no issues for 9hrs of use (was running P95 in safe mode, did not crash)
• Used CCleaner to update and wipeout drivers - reinstalled drivers for Nvidia and majority of hardware
• Disabled XMP - did not help
• Disabled C-states, adjusted power settings both in Bios and in desktop (eg. usb suspend, min proc rate, etc.) -did not help
• Removed flat voltage - had no overclock per se (default boost to 4.8), but had a flat voltage of 1.25 - did not help
• Downclocked GPU with afterburner - did not help
• Altered cables from my display (Dell s2721dgf), reseated most drives and external fans
• Removed my KVM switch (feared it was shorting maybe - did not help)

• Have not tried taking out GFX card and reseating - not risking to break it
• Have not changed PSU
• Have not messed with the CPU
• Have not updated BIOS
• Have not reinstalled windows

• PC will crash if left AFK 100% of the time within 3-4hours
• No temperature spikes before/after error

Any advice would be super helpful and massively appreciated.

My setup (most bought end of 2020, except Super bought in 2019):
BIOS: 1.20 (type: UEFI)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz (16 CPUs), ~3.8GHz
Memory: 32768MB RAM (Kingston Vengeance 2x16 @ 3200Mhz)
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
Mobo: MSI Z490 GAMING CARBON
Cooler: Noctua NH-U12 + additional Chromax x2
SSD: 3x, M2 Samsung 970EVO + 860 EVO + 840 EVO backups

 

[Lutfij]

If you're indeed on BIOS version 1.2, you have a number of BIOS versions pending update, i.e, version 1.3>1.4>1.7>1.8>1.9>1.A. You forgot to mention the make and model of your PSU. Might want to also see if your Samsung drives are pending any firmware updates(using Samsung's Magician app). What OS are you working with? If WIndows 10, please mention the version(not edition) for your OS,

 

[acerbic]

If you're indeed on BIOS version 1.2, you have a number of BIOS versions pending update, i.e, version 1.3>1.4>1.7>1.8>1.9>1.A. You forgot to mention the make and model of your PSU. Might want to also see if your Samsung drives are pending any firmware updates(using Samsung's Magician app). What OS are you working with? If WIndows 10, please mention the version(not edition) for your OS,

*Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 19042)
*do not want to risk flashing bios in case it decides to crash so as not to brick my bios
*Corsair tX750
*all firmware updated

EDIT: Ironically just crashed after doing another update. 😀

 

[acerbic]

Just to add tot he above, I have just installed the latest feature update. Afterwards my PC would not shut down (had to hard shut off) and I started to hear a ticking sound coming from the pc that i never heard before.