Question PC started freezing and restarting during idle

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hgrdna

hgrdna

Jun 11, 2023
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Hello. For the past two months my PC started freezing and restarting randomly during idle or waking up from sleep mode. It was ok since it would only happen probably once or twice a week. For the last 2 weeks crashes were getting more often and now I can't even boot up without freeze or instant restart.

My setup:
Processor Ryzen 7 5800X
RAM 64GB RAM (2x16 DDR4-3200 Kingston Fury KF432C16BBK2/32 + 2x16 HyperX DDR4-3200 HX432C16FB4K2/32)
Mobo Asus ROG Strix B550 E Gaming
SSD Samsung 980 PRO 250GB (M2), Samsung 870 QVO 1TB (SATA)
GPU Asus RTX 3060 Ti Dual Mini V2 LHR
PSU ASUS ROG Strix 750W Gold

What I tried:
  • Looking into Windows journal (before my PC died completely) and there was a critical error Kernel-Power 41 63. The adjacent info log said "Service "" finished registering the driver". The service name was blank. No minidump file was generated
  • Deleting my videocard driver using DDU and installing the latest one from nvidia website
  • Updating all other drivers to their latest versions
  • Updating BIOS to the latest version and re-flashing bios from USB stick
  • I also tried entering safe mode and Windows freezed there as well, then I rebooted and Windows wasn't even starting properly. There was just a black screen and blinking UI elements. I could only move my mouse for a short period of time before it freezed completely again.
  • I tried running memtest86 and it passed without any errors or freezes.
  • After the previous step I realized that it's not the CPU and not the RAM and tried booting a LiveUSB with Arch Linux to see a full log of what was going on. Linux installation freezed on the "Copying rootfs image to RAM".
  • I also tried reinstalling Windows but it would also freeze at a random step.
  • I tried launching LiveUSB with all of my SATA and M.2 drives disconnected
  • I tried replacing the motherboard but it didn't help as well.

I was pretty confident that the new mobo would fix my issue, but after it didn't I don't really know what to do. The only two places my PC doesn't crash at at all is BIOS and memtest86. I think it's relatively safe to assume that CPU is intact, as well as motherboard. The PSU might cause this problem, or it could also be a GPU. But I'm really confused by being stuck at "Copying rootfs image to RAM" and I'm not sure if memtest86 results are valid. At this point I'm doubting every single piece of my hardware and I might just end up purchasing a whole new PC just to find out what was the issue. Could someone please help me with this issue? I'm going to purchase some cheap used GPU and replace my RTX 3060 Ti with it to see if that helps, but maybe some of you already encountered such issue and know a shortcut to solution. Many thanks in advance.

P.S. almost forgot to mention that my PC have never restarted or freezed during heavy loads like gaming. it was only happening during lightweight tasks like web browsing or reading something or when I was entirely away from the computer.
 
punkncat said:
Take out one set of the mismatched RAM and see if stability returns. If not, try the other pair.

Ryzen doesn't like mixed RAM at all.
Click to expand...
With only one set of RAM I am able to finish the installation from USB, but system still freezes/restarts at a random time during setup (Microsoft login, or language selection, or onedrive sync). I tried to finish Windows setup with each of the set installed at a time yet outcome is the same.
 
You may have mentioned trying this already, but use one of the matched sets of RAM, clear CMOS, leave "XMP" off and see if stability returns. I would assume you have already double checked all connections and also made sure that no pins pushed back out of one.

Is Event Viewer showing any codes?
 
hgrdna said:
Hello. For the past two months my PC started freezing and restarting randomly during idle or waking up from sleep mode. It was ok since it would only happen probably once or twice a week. For the last 2 weeks crashes were getting more often and now I can't even boot up without freeze or instant restart.

My setup:
Processor Ryzen 7 5800X
RAM 64GB RAM (2x16 DDR4-3200 Kingston Fury KF432C16BBK2/32 + 2x16 HyperX DDR4-3200 HX432C16FB4K2/32)
Mobo Asus ROG Strix B550 E Gaming
SSD Samsung 980 PRO 250GB (M2), Samsung 870 QVO 1TB (SATA)
GPU Asus RTX 3060 Ti Dual Mini V2 LHR
PSU ASUS ROG Strix 750W Gold

What I tried:
  • Looking into Windows journal (before my PC died completely) and there was a critical error Kernel-Power 41 63. The adjacent info log said "Service "" finished registering the driver". The service name was blank. No minidump file was generated
  • Deleting my videocard driver using DDU and installing the latest one from nvidia website
  • Updating all other drivers to their latest versions
  • Updating BIOS to the latest version and re-flashing bios from USB stick
  • I also tried entering safe mode and Windows freezed there as well, then I rebooted and Windows wasn't even starting properly. There was just a black screen and blinking UI elements. I could only move my mouse for a short period of time before it freezed completely again.
  • I tried running memtest86 and it passed without any errors or freezes.
  • After the previous step I realized that it's not the CPU and not the RAM and tried booting a LiveUSB with Arch Linux to see a full log of what was going on. Linux installation freezed on the "Copying rootfs image to RAM".
  • I also tried reinstalling Windows but it would also freeze at a random step.
  • I tried launching LiveUSB with all of my SATA and M.2 drives disconnected
  • I tried replacing the motherboard but it didn't help as well.

I was pretty confident that the new mobo would fix my issue, but after it didn't I don't really know what to do. The only two places my PC doesn't crash at at all is BIOS and memtest86. I think it's relatively safe to assume that CPU is intact, as well as motherboard. The PSU might cause this problem, or it could also be a GPU. But I'm really confused by being stuck at "Copying rootfs image to RAM" and I'm not sure if memtest86 results are valid. At this point I'm doubting every single piece of my hardware and I might just end up purchasing a whole new PC just to find out what was the issue. Could someone please help me with this issue? I'm going to purchase some cheap used GPU and replace my RTX 3060 Ti with it to see if that helps, but maybe some of you already encountered such issue and know a shortcut to solution. Many thanks in advance.

P.S. almost forgot to mention that my PC have never restarted or freezed during heavy loads like gaming. it was only happening during lightweight tasks like web browsing or reading something or when I was entirely away from the computer.
Click to expand...
I had a similar problem with my i5 13500, pc kept waking up from sleep at random times only when I wasn't using it. Are you on windows 11?
 
punkncat said:
You may have mentioned trying this already, but use one of the matched sets of RAM, clear CMOS, leave "XMP" off and see if stability returns. I would assume you have already double checked all connections and also made sure that no pins pushed back out of one.

Is Event Viewer showing any codes?
Click to expand...

Yes I double checked all connections. RAM sits tight in slots, I pushed it until I heard clicks on both ends of the stick. I cleared CMOS by short-curcuitting CLRTC pins according to Asus documentation. It didn't help. System froze mid configuring process. I left my computer to do some stuff at home and when I got back there was a blue screen with SYNTHETIC_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT. Previously when Windows was still working I was getting DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION stopcodes from time to time.

I don't have access to event viewer because I cannot finish the OS installation process.

Anon#1234 said:
I had a similar problem with my i5 13500, pc kept waking up from sleep at random times only when I wasn't using it. Are you on windows 11?
Click to expand...

I was on Windows 10.
 
I must have missed that. This was a working system and then this issue became so common that you tried to do a clean install? You mentioned it doing this is safe mode as well, so I must have misunderstood.

Will the system boot to BIOS? Reporting temps?
 
First, I was dealing with freezes and restarts once/twice a week. Then it started to occur more often out of no reason. For the last week I was getting Kernel Power 41 63 critical error and DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION bluescreen 2-3 times a day until I decided to do something, I googled this error and 80% of the cases was related to bad drivers. So I uninstalled nvidia drivers with DDU, rebooted and installed latest drivers from nvidia with "clean install". After that I updated all my drivers to the latest versions (some of them were from Windows Update Center, some of them were from Driver Booster program) and it didn't help. So I flashed my BIOS to the latest version as well. It was successfull. The system loaded, I logged in and opened Chrome to watch some videos and after 1-2 minutes system crashed. Then I decided to boot into safe mode to see if that was some software causing this or the actual driver and I froze again After rebooting and trying to enter safe mode again there was no UI, only black screen and mouse cursor. Task manager was blinking from time to time.. Then I decided to do a fresh install with Windows 11 stick created by Media Creation Tool and since then I never managed to finish the installation process. UI becomes unresponsive and after a couple of minutes I can see bluescreen. Sometimes it just goes straight to restart as if I pressed the reset button.
 
Yes, I can load into BIOS, change settings, see temperatures and so forth. BIOS never crashes, freezes or restart my PC no matter how long I sit there.
 
Another red flag is "Driver Booster" . Don't use that mess. Windows Update and your own efforts should be enough.

Aside from some of the above comments I really have nothing else helpful to add. Hopefully someone with some better ideas will sound off.
 
punkncat said:
Another red flag is "Driver Booster" . Don't use that mess. Windows Update and your own efforts should be enough.

Aside from some of the above comments I really have nothing else helpful to add. Hopefully someone with some better ideas will sound off.
Click to expand...

Maybe you at least have some sort of conclusion? Does that sound more like hardware problem or software?
 
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