Question PC keeps becoming unreponsive so I have to force shutdown ?

[fobos8]

Hi guys

I went to my PC this morning, moved the mouse around a bit to turn the display on but it stayed black. The PC was quieter than normal (I always have it set to never sleep) but I could hear the fans quietly and could see a red led on the motherboard.

The only way to get some action was to hold the power button down to force shutdown and then turn on the PC.

This has happened a few times recently. What's going on, what should I be doing to find out what's going on?

Please let me know if I should post more info.

Best regards, Andrew

Below is what I have.

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Ryzen 5950x
128GB Dual-Channel Corsair Vengeance @ 1599MHz (16-20-20-38) 4 x 32GB stick
Micro-Star International Co. Ltd. MEG X570 UNIFY (MS-7C35) (AM4)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (MSI)
7452GB Seagate ST8000DM004-2CX188 (SATA ) 36 °C
465GB Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB (Unknown (SSD))
953GB Sabrent (Unknown (SSD))
1863GB Sabrent Rocket 4.0 2TB (Unknown (SSD))
Corsair RM750x PSU

 

[Cyberat_88]

Full slots of ram, plenty of drives, wake up from sleep, mediocre PSU as far as Power.
Have you even shut off sleep for SSDs/HDDs ?
My PC is on whenever I am up, but when I sleep it is shut off.
All hardware is measured in Work aka On hours, you're wasting the PC leaving it on 24/7/365.
Additionally, glitches can be introduced in the system after all that time, from multiple angles.
A shut down gets rid of those.

 

[fobos8]

Thanks Cyberat_88

I need the PC on most of the time as I run backups in the early hours of the morning. I process huge amounts of data in the daytime, sometimes around 50GB.

Hard disks sleep after 20 mins.

Are you saying the PSU should be more powerful?

Cheers, Andrew

 

[Cyberat_88]

Yes, more power, but I would also not put HDDs to sleep in particular, SSDs are better for "green" (personally not caring for it).
HDDs are mechanical drives that are more likely to break from Park/Unpark repeated commands.
I'd go 1000W just cause, price wise getting a 900W is just a waste. Corsair is a good brand.

 

[fobos8]

Okay thanks

Why will 1000W make any difference? I mean why will it stop my PC from freezing do you think?

I'd like to understand what is going on, thats all

Cheers, Andrew

 

[Cyberat_88]

4 Drives suddenly demand power, so does your GPU and the full slots of RAM and the CPU.
It's called a power vacuum and when that happens your PSU is most under stress.
See, all those power calculators don't explain you need to multiply the result by at least 2x to be ready for this kind of surge.
1000W does not mean you will be consuming 1000W/hr. win, lose or draw, the PSU will only draw what it needs.

 

[fobos8]

Thanks. I'll look into a bigger PSU

I'd be grateful if you could please explain to me how the lack of power cause the PC to become unresponsive. What is going on with that? I've checked the event log and there doesn't apear to be any critical errors, only when I force a shutdown.

Kind regards, Andrew

 

[fobos8]

4 Drives suddenly demand power, so does your GPU and the full slots of RAM and the CPU.
It's called a power vacuum and when that happens your PSU is most under stress.
See, all those power calculators don't explain you need to multiply the result by at least 2x to be ready for this kind of surge.
1000W does not mean you will be consuming 1000W/hr. win, lose or draw, the PSU will only draw what it needs.

Anyone know why a lack of power could cause the PC to become unresponsive.?

Kind regards, Andrew

 

[Cyberat_88]

A lack of power can cause both shutdowns and resets, as the PSU is overwhelmed by demands, as it tries to put out more energy than rail can handle or more energy than it can draw.

 

[fobos8]

Yes, more power, but I would also not put HDDs to sleep in particular, SSDs are better for "green" (personally not caring for it).
HDDs are mechanical drives that are more likely to break from Park/Unpark repeated commands.
I'd go 1000W just cause, price wise getting a 900W is just a waste. Corsair is a good brand.

Hi Cyberat

I upgrade to a 1000w PSU at lunchtime today. I came back to the house at about 9pm hoping the PC would still be active. Unfortunately, it had "frozen" and I had to turn it off to get it to be responsive again.

So the problem still persists. At least we can be confident that its nothing to do with the PSU now.

What else should I be looking at?

FYI at around 10.30am today I got a BSOD. The stop code was DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION.

Not sure if this is anything to do with the PC freezing recently or something separate.

The freezing has been happening on a daily basis for the last week.

Help!!

Kind regards, Andrew

 

[fobos8]

Anyone got any suggestions on what I can try next with this problem?

Thanks in advance, Andrew