Please Help! Everything freezes randomly, no BSOD, HDD light stops blinking

[shadowblindr]

This seems to be a common problem but none of the posts I read while trying to troubleshoot this myself were quite similar enough to work.

I recently rebuilt my desktop from the ground up, new MOBO, CPU, GPU, Power Supply, etc. and it seemed to be going just fine but randomly it'll just seize up and stop working, and I'll have to do a hard reboot. When this happens, sometimes if something on the computer is generating audio it'll stutter and loop some noise until everything fails completely, other times everything will just stop silently. Generally when this happens, the red HDD light on the front of my case will stop blinking. It also doesn't seem to be linked to any one program; sometimes it'll freeze when I'm working in Clip Studio, other times it'll freeze when I'm watching YouTube videos, other-other times it'll freeze when nothing is even open, right after startup. It never gives me a BSOD.

I ran memtest and it didn't find any errors, got Avast Premium and updated all the drivers, and optimized the boot up sequence, I checked the connections inside the machine, checked that the BIOS is up to date, I keep an eye on the internal temperature readings and they're all normal... I basically went through everything I knew to Che k off the top of my head, then googled the problem and nothing has solved this for me, so I figured I'd make a new post, specific to my machine, so I can determine what's up and make any replacements while everything's still under warranty.

Here's the hardware I went with:

• 
  AMD FX-8350 Vishera 8-Core 3.5 GHz Socket AM3+ 125W CPU
  Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3L 1600 MT/s (PC3L-12800) Unbuffered UDIMM Memory
  ASRock 970 Extreme4 MOBO
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Gigabyte) GPU
  SILVERSTONE ST70F-ESG 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Active PFC Power Supply
  WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inc
  APEX 21N-01 Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Other than my other hard drive, which I kept from my old computer and is also a WD drive, I think that's everything, but definitely let me know if I need to provide more information, this is my first solo-build without someone more experienced helping me. As such I figured this was the right place to info-dump and have somebody with a better-trained eye point out if there's something very BLATANTLY wrong with my setup that I just goofed on or something.

It's really frustrating (and embarrassing) to have made this significant upgrade to my computer for the sole purpose of running my art programs better, only to have the entire system freeze when I haven't saved my progress in a while, so I hope somebody can help me find some answers.

Another issue I have with this machine, which is a less-important gripe (unless it's linked to the freezing problem, idk) is that it's SO LOUD. There's something like five fans; two on the chassis, two on the graphics card, one on the CPU itself, and however many fans are in the power supply... and because they're all running at once it sounds like I have an air conditioner running next to my desk rather than a computer. I don't suppose there's any way for me to get the fans to be quieter, is there?

But obviously, the freezing takes priority...

Thanks in advance for any help y'all can offer!
- BB

 

[cin19]

From what you said, the bios and drivers are up to date, temps are fine, HDD is used. So I think the problem is from either the HDD or the GPU driver, or the MB.
1) For HDD may test it by the HD tune to check S.M.A.R.T. http://www.hdtune.com/
2) For the GPU driver, try use DDU to uninstall the gpu driver, then reinstall it.
3) For the MB, because MB (AMD 970 chipset) has 4+1 power phase, or we call the VRMs. When you use fx8 series cpu, sometime it has problem to power it, even the MB manufacturer say the MB can support, but sometime the PC does not run well, like reboot or frozen.
All you just try disable two or more cores in the BIOS, then run the PC to see the PC will run fine or not. If the PC will run fine after you disable the cores, you will need buy one small fan install it on the top of the VRMs section. Like http://www.overclockers.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=135114&d=1384710155 or https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSOy4C1kR6yBQE3Qo3YpE_ALwKnkeKbSY0peWnHrclOGFpZcOqs
4) the fan noise, because you connected them into the PSU, so they are running in full speed. If you use the fan_headers on MB, and use ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU) then you can control the fans speed, and the noise will be much lower.

And one more thing, I don't you can retune the cpu/mb/ram or not, if you can then just do it, because the AM3+ system is too old.

 

[shadowblindr]

From what you said, the bios and drivers are up to date, temps are fine, HDD is used. So I think the problem is from either the HDD or the GPU driver, or the MB.
1) For HDD may test it by the HD tune to check S.M.A.R.T. http://www.hdtune.com/
2) For the GPU driver, try use DDU to uninstall the gpu driver, then reinstall it.
3) For the MB, because MB (AMD 970 chipset) has 4+1 power phase, or we call the VRMs. When you use fx8 series cpu, sometime it has problem to power it, even the MB manufacturer say the MB can support, but sometime the PC does not run well, like reboot or frozen.
All you just try disable two or more cores in the BIOS, then run the PC to see the PC will run fine or not. If the PC will run fine after you disable the cores, you will need buy one small fan install it on the top of the VRMs section. Like http://www.overclockers.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=135114&d=1384710155 or https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSOy4C1kR6yBQE3Qo3YpE_ALwKnkeKbSY0peWnHrclOGFpZcOqs
4) the fan noise, because you connected them into the PSU, so they are running in full speed. If you use the fan_headers on MB, and use ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU) then you can control the fans speed, and the noise will be much lower.

And one more thing, I don't you can retune the cpu/mb/ram or not, if you can then just do it, because the AM3+ system is too old.

Thank you so much for these tips! I unfortunately can't afford to upgrade to an AM4 system so I'm kind of stuck with the AM3+ for now.

I replaced my motherboard with this one: http:// and it's more compatible with my CPU and surprisingly, runs the fans a lot quieter, which was an added bonus. HOWEVER, the day after I installed it, my computer still froze in the same way it did before, so it wasn't the MOBO at fault, I guess.

I ran HD Tune per your suggestion, and while my new 1TB harddrive is fine, my 500GB harddrive from my old computer kept coming up with errors and showed a damaged sector:

So, I got Macrium Reflect and cloned my 1TB onto an external HD, then cloned my 500GB (which was where all the important stuff and my OS etc. was installed) onto the 1TB and removed the 500GB HD altogether. So far, so good, but only time will tell if the freezing is fixed for good.

 

[cin19]

I got Macrium Reflect and cloned my 1TB onto an external HD, then cloned my 500GB (which was where all the important stuff and my OS etc. was installed) onto the 1TB and removed the 500GB HD altogether.

Because the 500GB HDD had problem, I think you will be fine.

 

[shadowblindr]

I got Macrium Reflect and cloned my 1TB onto an external HD, then cloned my 500GB (which was where all the important stuff and my OS etc. was installed) onto the 1TB and removed the 500GB HD altogether.

Because the 500GB HDD had problem, I think you will be fine.

Computer just froze again, so I'm going through the event viewer to see what's going on.

There seem to be a lot of errors happening so I guess I'm just gonna google all of them.

 

[Arghaya123]

I'm having the exact same problem for a couple of days, I even removed my 120gb samsung evo ssd and installed windows on my wd blue 1tb hdd and vice versa but still it freezes, I've reinstalled windows twice but still no solution. Did you find anyway to fix this?