[SOLVED] PC just kind of stops working

Ijustdontknowanything

Commendable
Feb 8, 2021
21
0
1,520
Alright so i have had this issue for months.
What happens is my pc just freezes up. The mouse pointer get stuck, keyboard does nothing (i cant for example do ctrl+alt+delete) and i have no other choice but to hard reset i.e hold power button until it shuts down. When this happens i can still hear sound for like a couple of seconds if im watching a youtube video or something.

Now heres the akward part, i literally just replaced (YESTERDAY!) the motherboard and ALL storage devices, fresh windows install and new case. The only thing that it could be is the RAM or the PSU however i ran the memory diagnostics test twice and both times it came back with no errors. The PSU is a Corsair AX1000 1000W 80+ Titanium so plenty of power and very high quality.
I know its not the GPU as i have had this issue using other GPUs and i dont think a GPU issue would manifest in this way.

The event viewer doesnt really give me any information other than Kernel- Power 41 (63) critical error but as far as i know that an error thats generated whenever the pc is shutdown improperly so it means nothing. Other than that i just see a bunch of DistributedCOM warnings but those are also nothing to worry about as far as i know.

BIOS is updated, latest graphics drivers etc etc its all there.

I just realised a couple of minutes ago that my PSU has had the "zero rpm" button pushed in all this time, i doubt it would cause these kinds of issues and besides i have never frozen in games its always doing simple things like going through files or watching youtube/browsing. But "zero rpm" on the PSU is now off.

Temps are fine, running CinebenchR23 i get low 70c at the most on the 5900x and GPU is chilling in games as i tend to use a fairly aggressive curve.

What the heck am i dealing with? I really have no idea where to go from here.
 
Sep 24, 2021
2
0
10
Hi there,

I'm new to the PC game (only just built my first PC yesterday, in fact this is my very first time replying with anything constructive in a help forum like this) and I am running into the same issue.

I was seeing my computer freeze up after installing drivers after maybe every 10-15 minutes of use (sometimes shorter). I did a quick google search and did find this page (https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-windows-10-freezes-locks-up-randomly-easily/) and followed through with steps apart from changing the entire OS altogether.

After going through those steps, I did see an improvement but not a comprehensive fix (my system still seems to be freezing arbitrarily after a couple of hours of use). That being said, I checked my component temps using OpenHardwareMonitor and found that some temperatures of mine are running concerningly hot (I know you mentioned you tested temps and they all showed ok).

I've also noticed that I have several Windows updates (Start --> Settings --> Update & Security --> Windows Update) to download and install, so I'm hoping that will fix the issue once completed (still in the process of doing this). Have you tried checking that?

If this doesnt help, i can only encourage you to keep looking online to find a fix. Good luck!
 

Ijustdontknowanything

Commendable
Feb 8, 2021
21
0
1,520
Hi there,

I'm new to the PC game (only just built my first PC yesterday, in fact this is my very first time replying with anything constructive in a help forum like this) and I am running into the same issue.

I was seeing my computer freeze up after installing drivers after maybe every 10-15 minutes of use (sometimes shorter). I did a quick google search and did find this page (https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-windows-10-freezes-locks-up-randomly-easily/) and followed through with steps apart from changing the entire OS altogether.

After going through those steps, I did see an improvement but not a comprehensive fix (my system still seems to be freezing arbitrarily after a couple of hours of use). That being said, I checked my component temps using OpenHardwareMonitor and found that some temperatures of mine are running concerningly hot (I know you mentioned you tested temps and they all showed ok).

I've also noticed that I have several Windows updates (Start --> Settings --> Update & Security --> Windows Update) to download and install, so I'm hoping that will fix the issue once completed (still in the process of doing this). Have you tried checking that?

If this doesnt help, i can only encourage you to keep looking online to find a fix. Good luck!

Hey,

Im not sure if we have the same issue because my hang ups are extremely random. I have had days go by without any issues but then have 2-3 hang ups on the same day. From what i can tell its when my pc doesnt have much to do that it freezes, which makes the "Disable C-States" part of the article you linked interesting. The latest freeze that i had came right after i shut a game down and the pc went into idle as i wasnt doing anything (think i merely opened file explorer). Literally froze on desktop.
I have now disabled C-States and made sure the PSU doesnt go into any sleep modes or whatever. I think its a Ryzen/AMD system issue. For example the 5900x that i have is designed to boost hard through even the smallest of tasks, and if the PSU isnt feeding it the power it needs due to it going into some low workload state then that can cause issues. At least thats what my logic tells me.

I know that freezing/hang ups are common symptoms of high temps so that could be the cause in your case. Depends on how high and what hardware you are running though.
As for Windows Update, i have made sure to get through all updates until it started coming back with "you're up to date".

I wont give up on fixing this as i have had enough of it. I suppose the good news is that there is most likely nothing wrong with my hardware.
 

Ijustdontknowanything

Commendable
Feb 8, 2021
21
0
1,520
Hi there,

I'm new to the PC game (only just built my first PC yesterday, in fact this is my very first time replying with anything constructive in a help forum like this) and I am running into the same issue.

I was seeing my computer freeze up after installing drivers after maybe every 10-15 minutes of use (sometimes shorter). I did a quick google search and did find this page (https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-windows-10-freezes-locks-up-randomly-easily/) and followed through with steps apart from changing the entire OS altogether.

After going through those steps, I did see an improvement but not a comprehensive fix (my system still seems to be freezing arbitrarily after a couple of hours of use). That being said, I checked my component temps using OpenHardwareMonitor and found that some temperatures of mine are running concerningly hot (I know you mentioned you tested temps and they all showed ok).

I've also noticed that I have several Windows updates (Start --> Settings --> Update & Security --> Windows Update) to download and install, so I'm hoping that will fix the issue once completed (still in the process of doing this). Have you tried checking that?

If this doesnt help, i can only encourage you to keep looking online to find a fix. Good luck!
Alright so i think i have fixed the issue, it has now been just about 3 full days since it last messed up. Im not sure what did it but it was either disabling c-states or changing something called "power supply idle control" which should be right where c-states is in your bios. You want to change it to "typical". Not in a million years would i have thought that it was a power supply bios setting causing the issue, i was only able to narrow it down because i googled "pc freezes disable c-states" or something like that and found a thread about Ryzen specifically (not on toms hardware). Before that i would google a hundred different things and come up with generic suggestions like "disable xmp".
I think this only applies to AMD systems so it could still be high temps thats causing problems in your case if you are not on a AMD system.

Also i mentioned earlier that i had the "zero rpm" button pushed in on my power supply. Well turns out that its actually OFF when its pushed in and ON when its not pushed in which is just... weird. Apparently many power supplies have this button work in a confusing way. It had nothing to do with the issue but just thought i would mention it anyway.
 
Last edited:
Sep 24, 2021
2
0
10
Alright so i think i have fixed the issue, it has now been just about 3 full days since it last messed up. Im not sure what did it but it was either disabling c-states or changing something called "power supply idle control" which should be right where c-states is in your bios. You want to change it to "typical". Not in a million years would i have thought that it was a power supply bios setting causing the issue, i was only able to narrow it down because i googled "pc freezes disable c-states" or something like that and found a thread about Ryzen specifically (not on toms hardware). Before that i would google a hundred different things and come up with generic suggestions like "disable xmp".
I think this only applies to AMD systems so it could still be high temps thats causing problems in your case if you are not on a AMD system.

Also i mentioned earlier that i had the "zero rpm" button pushed in on my power supply. Well turns out that its actually OFF when its pushed in and ON when its not pushed in which is just... weird. Apparently many power supplies have this button work in a confusing way. It had nothing to do with the issue but just thought i would mention it anyway.


Awesome, that's really great to hear you were able to fix the issue all through your own research :) out of curiosity, would you be able to post the link to that post where you found for the Ryzen-specific C-states you mentioned?

It turns out my problem was not temps being very high. For the sake of a second opinion, I downloaded a different hardware monitoring software (HWinfo64) and this program was telling me that most components were running at much more acceptable temps while idling (30-40 C, depending on the part). I am on an AMD system (CPU is a Ryzen 5 5600X)

What was causing my issue was actually the build of windows 10 that I had initially installed. I purchased my OS off Ebay. The box that I had bought came with a pre-loaded USB with the win10 set-up files and the product key. I took the USB straight out of the box and installed the OS rather than going to Microsoft's website and downloading the latest OS build version. The build version that had come pre-loaded on the USB was version 10240, which I think did not like the latest version of drivers that I had been trying to install. Downloading the latest OS build version from the Microsoft website and setting up the installation using these files did the trick, PC is now working without any issues.

Lesson learnt!
 

Ijustdontknowanything

Commendable
Feb 8, 2021
21
0
1,520
Awesome, that's really great to hear you were able to fix the issue all through your own research :) out of curiosity, would you be able to post the link to that post where you found for the Ryzen-specific C-states you mentioned?

It turns out my problem was not temps being very high. For the sake of a second opinion, I downloaded a different hardware monitoring software (HWinfo64) and this program was telling me that most components were running at much more acceptable temps while idling (30-40 C, depending on the part). I am on an AMD system (CPU is a Ryzen 5 5600X)

What was causing my issue was actually the build of windows 10 that I had initially installed. I purchased my OS off Ebay. The box that I had bought came with a pre-loaded USB with the win10 set-up files and the product key. I took the USB straight out of the box and installed the OS rather than going to Microsoft's website and downloading the latest OS build version. The build version that had come pre-loaded on the USB was version 10240, which I think did not like the latest version of drivers that I had been trying to install. Downloading the latest OS build version from the Microsoft website and setting up the installation using these files did the trick, PC is now working without any issues.

Lesson learnt!
Well you kind of did help me find the solution because it was through the article you linked that i got the idea to google whatever it was that i googled :) The thread that i was referring to was Ryzen and disabling C6 C-state, the curse of C6 - Hardware / CPU - Level1Techs Forums.
It is possible that i could enable C-States and just keep the "power supply idle control" on "typical" because im pretty sure thats the actual solution.

Yeah HWinfo64 is seen by many as pretty much the only reliable temp reader along with Ryzen Master if you have a Ryzen CPU. Thats ballsy connecting a unknown usb to your pc i have to say hehe but glad it was ultimately an easy fix.